Marvel Archives - Andrew Knighton Writes

Bringing Together Two Stories – Agents of SHIELD Vs Daredevil

When you’re creating something as sprawling as Marvel’s superhero screen efforts, there are going to be inconsistencies. Still, it’s strange to see the lower prestige show Agents of SHIELD get something right that Netflix blockbuster Daredevil got wrong.

Season four of AoS and season two of Daredevil share a similar structure. Two plot strands are built up. One dominates the first half of the season. It’s then resolved and the other strand emerges to take centre stage. They sort of connect up in the end, but not in a massively substantial way. There’s some thematic resonance, but it’s a little strained.

Watching Daredevil, this left me disappointed by the payoff. Finishing AoS the other night, I felt satisfied. So how did the usually less impressive show get it right?

It might partly be about expectations. I expect great things from a Netflix Marvel show, with its high production values and careful approach to storytelling. AoS is more of a broadcast TV adventure-of-the-week phenomenon. Relatively speaking, it takes less effort to look impressive there.

But I don’t think it’s just that. I think that the writers on AoS also did a better job of managing my response to their story. They made it clear that a climax was coming for the Ghostrider story. They gave the follow-up arc with Aida higher stakes. They carefully and naturally made me care about that arc in advance. They gave it an interesting novelty, in the form of an alternate reality, that kept me engaged. And when they brought the plotlines back together, they did it in a way that made it feel important.

Daredevil is still a more powerful show, but in resolving these seasons AoS made better use of what it had and deserves credit for it.

Structure is important in storytelling, and sometimes the nuance of how you use it can make all the difference.

Infinity War: Spectacle Through Character

Like around 90% of western civilization, I recently went to see Avengers: Infinity War. And like most fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I loved the sheer spectacle of it. Creating something this huge with so many big-name stars is a staggering achievement. That the Russo brothers created something so entertaining just adds to the joy of the moment.

Thinking back on this film, and on the others that have led up to it, I realised how basic the secret to their success is. The heart fo this franchise, the thing that keeps me coming back time after time, is one of the most basic elements of storytelling.

It’s good characters.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the spectacle and the humour. I enjoy seeing a universe emerge through a web of interconnected films. The all-star casts really help. But what sucks me in is how well the characters are depicted. Each one is interesting and unique in their own right. Their relationships with each other are rich and believable. Some of them having cracking character arcs, especially Steve Rogers, whose journey of growth has been truly compelling.

Sure, I have an interest in superheroes, but as DC have proved, that’s not enough to drag me to the cinema. What Marvel is doing right, and what we can all learn from as storytellers, is a focus on the fundamentals.

I don’t go to Marvel movies for the spectacle anymore. I go for the characters. The spectacle has become the bonus feature.

Luke Cage – Have Marvel and Netflix Stayed Street Smart?

luke-cage-marvel_0 Druglords. Corrupt politicians. Media attention. People fighting for justice amid poor African-American communities. Luke Cage, the third TV collaboration between Marvel and Netflix, tries to match superhero action to the social issues addressed by shows like The Wire. It’s a tough trick to try. So does it work?

More Marvel on Screen

After two seasons of Daredevil and one of Jessica Jones, we know what to expect from a Marel and Netflix street superhero show. Daft superpowers presented as realistically as possible. References to the Avengers and how weird they make the world. A good cast. Brooding visuals. At least one stylish fight in a corridor.

Luke Cage has all of that.

The cast range from good but under-used to absolutely splendid. Rosario Dawson and Simone Missick own the show as Claire and Misty, and praise be to Netflix for making Claire the thread that connects these shows together. Alfre Woodard makes a nuanced and compelling villain. Mahershala Ali reminds us that he was the best thing in The 4400. Theo Rossi doesn’t get to show the emotional depths he did in Sons of Anarchy, but shines when he gets to show his crazy intense side. Mike Colter is powerful and charismatic, though I still thought he had an extra allure playing a drug kingpin in The Woodwife.

The question of how superpowered people affect the world, and how the world responds to that, is addressed in the plot – an important thing to do in grounding these shows. The social drama of Harlem shines through in the early episodes, and Luke’s place in that is interesting. It’s clear who’s a hero and who’s a villain, but that doesn’t mean that the villains are flat objects of evil.

Not Quite Connecting

The problem comes with the different tones this show is trying to balance.

On the one hand, there’s the attempt to show a more straight-up hero story than in the previous shows. Luke Cage is a good guy who wins by standing up for the little guy and wielding his fists. The baddies prey on ordinary people. Cage doesn’t swear and he says cheesy things, even getting called on it by the people around him. There’s a little bit of goofiness going on here. It sometimes goes too far. Yes, people should be cheering this guy in the street. But the show’s so insistent on showing that, it sometimes interrupts the tone of the drama or prevents people behaving realistically. It’s like that time they flew the American flag in a Spiderman movie and all the people cheered for him on Brooklyn bridge – nice idea, but gone too far.

This becomes more glaring when it’s matched with the gritty issues the story touches on. Are gangsters any worse than politicians? What price should a community be willing to pay to pull itself out of poverty? Can you act outside the law and still be in the right? If so, who judges what is right? How far are we responsible for our families? Like Jessica Jones, this show draws a lot of its drama from the way one part of humanity has been disadvantaged. Unlike Jessica Jones, it fumbles the issue, rolling off into more familiar and less interesting terrain. At times, it almost feels like it’s falling into the orientalist trap, nodding towards touchstone of African-American culture so hard that they become an othered curiosity, looked at from the outside.

A Worthy Addition, But Not a Great One

Luke Cage is well worth watching if you like superhero shows. It’s got interesting plot twists, some strong characters, and some fantastic acting. There are fun action scenes, including the inevitable corridor one. The stuff that doesn’t quite work is well-intentioned. It’s probably the weakest Netflix/Marvel show so far, but anything was going to look wobbly next to the focused burst of drama that was Jessica Jones.

I’m sure we’ll see more of this show after its lead has crossed over into The Defenders. I hope it’s found its feet a little better by the. And if not, the lesson to learn is that even the least impressive Marvel/Netflix show is still quality TV.

Do Marvel TV’s Corridors Describe Modern Life?

Marvel and Netflix released a trailer for their Luke Cage show at Comic Con. Unsurprisingly, it looks awesome. With its hip-hop soundtrack, feats of strength and intriguing snippets of dialogue, it fits the tone of these shows while bringing something different. And I don’t just mean the ever-charismatic Mike Colter, who could give Chris Evans a run for his money in the charming superhero stakes.

Premiere of 'Bloodline'

That’s right, I said it – I now have ridiculous man-crushes on two Marvel superhero actors.

Yet there was also something familiar about the trailer. Because, like Daredevil before him, Luke Cage is having a setpiece rumble in a corridor.

luke cage corridor — Why wouldn’t you want to see another picture of Mike Colter?

Do We All Live (and Fight) in Corridors Now?

This got me thinking about corridors as spaces – what they represent both in reality and in TV shows. Aside from being useful in cool fight scenes, that is.

Corridors are places yet also the space between places. They’re part of buildings, destinations in their own right. But they’re also transitional spaces, like the motorway-based cities Warren Ellis discussed in Desolation Jones. They don’t really have identities and functions, like a bedroom or kitchen. They’re spaces we pass through.

And we spend a lot of time in them.

dj freeways

This is how a lot of urban space has become over the past century – something we hurry through on our way to a destination, not a place to linger in and enjoy. For those of us living in cities and towns, corridors are emblematic of the space we live in.

What better space to use in these gritty, urban superhero shows that Marvel and Netflix are creating? The conversations outside Jessica Jones’s office are often hugely important, and they take place in this limbo space, on a journey from one real place to another. When Patsy Walker keeps a visitor in the corridor, she’s keeping him in that city limbo.

He's behind you! Or your door, at least. — He’s behind you!
Or your door, at least.

When Daredevil or Luke Cage fight their way down a corridor, they’re not fighting over their real goal – they’re just trying to get there by the best means they have – violence.

Our Corridor Lives

Going deeper down the rabbit hole of this metaphor, we can see corridors as representing the way we live in the modern western world. Jobs for life, homes for life, even relationships for life, these were common in previous generations. Now they’re all the exception rather than the norm. We are in a constant state of transition.

Everything we do with our lives is now both a journey and a destination, place and transitional space, somewhere and nowhere. Our lives have become corridors.

Like superheroes learning to use their powers, we are in constant transition.

Back Around to Marvel

If ever there was a set of genre shows that explored modern life – especially modern urban life – it’s these Netflix Marvel shows. Jessica Jones is about gendered power and rape, some of the most fiercely argued subjects of the moment. Daredevil explores the corrupting influence of wealth upon the law, and whether justice really can be blind, issues constantly thrown into stark light by news from America. Luke Cage looks likely to take us into the world of criminal gangs and drug trading, a parallel society and economy living parasitically alongside the legitimate one.

And so corridors become the perfect symbol for these shows. A modern transitional space heading towards an uncertain future, both for society and for genre television.

Plus they make for some really, really good fight scenes.

dd corridor

9 Thoughts About Daredevil Season 2

Daredevil_season_2 I recently watched the new run of the Netflix/Marvel TV show Daredevil. Better people than I will offer coherent reviews, but I had a lot of thoughts about this show, and wanted to get them out of my system.

While I’ve tried to stay vague about details, there are spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned…

Damn, That’s A Good Punisher

When I heard that Marvel and Netflix were putting the Punisher into the second season of Daredevil I was worried. I understand the appeal of the Punisher, Marvel’s gun-toting vigilante anti-hero, but I didn’t think that his vengeful brutality would work well here. I was very, very wrong.

Punisher is the best thing about this season. The storyline around him explores the morality both of his actions and of Daredevil’s. It’s the most convincing and nuanced exploration of the character I’ve seen, made more powerful by Jon Bernthal’s compelling performance.

Matt Murdock’s an Arsehole

I really can’t emphasise this enough. It seems like we’re meant to like Murdock, aka Daredevil, empathising with his guilt-ridden Catholic ways and his need to take responsibility for everything around him. But the more I watch, the more I find his attitude rotten and egotistical. His constant references to “my city” and his insistence on him being the one to solve everything aren’t the attitude of a man taking reasonable responsibility – they’re the attitude of a man claiming ownership over the people around him. It’s not noble, it’s selfish, and he’d be far more effective if he worked with others. In his own way, he’s as unreasonable as the protagonists of Sons of Anarchy, and as with those characters, I empathise right up to the moment I think about what he’s saying and doing.

I can’t tell whether this is a deliberate move by a very clever show, or a terrible reflection of what is considered appropriate behaviour for a man and a hero. Given the Punisher plotline, I’d be inclined to give the show the benefit of the doubt, but…

Where’s the Villain?

There’s an interesting conversation to be had about who the antagonist of this story is, but one thing’s for sure – there’s no interesting central villain. The Kingpin was a highlight of the first season, turning it from something good to something utterly compelling. Here he’s a bit player, and there’s no equivalent figure to take his place. The Punisher, though well written and performed, is sidelined in the second half of the season, and there’s no other figure as interesting. The eventual villains are dull and passionless. It’s a real shame, as the makers of this show have shown that they can do better.

Karen’s Become Interesting

Karen Page was a problem in the first season, a bit too much the blonde girlfriend / victim. The hints of darker things in her past weren’t enough to avoid the feeling that we were heading into terrible gendered tropes. This season she does better, emerging as a more strongly written and pro-active character, whose failings make her interesting rather than disappointing.

Will Claire Temple Bring the Defenders Together?

This point is wishful thinking on my part, but plausible at this point. Claire Temple, the nurse who helps out superheroes, is currently the strongest connecting thread between Daredevil, Jessica Jones and, through her existing relationship with the protagonist, possibly the upcoming Luke Cage series. Could she be the one to bring together these heroes and the as-yet-unseen Iron Fist for the eventual Defenders show?

I really hope so. Of all the characters we’ve seen in DD and JJ, Claire is the one I most admire as a person. She’s strong but not obstinate, caring but not a pushover, and Rosario Dawson never puts a foot wrong with her performance. As the person who picks up the pieces of the broken superheroes, and who calls them on their bullshit, Claire would make a wonderful central point and moral compass for the ensemble show.

Costumes and Personhood

Daredevil‘s two seasons have given us origin stories – one for Daredevil, the other for Punisher. In both cases, the character dons their costume at the end of that origin story, symbolising their new status as a superhero.

But I think there’s something else at stake here. In donning a costume they’re marking themselves as separate from the rest of humanity. Such costumes, like medieval full body armour and modern matching military uniforms, dehumanise the wearer, making it psychologically easier for them to perpetrate acts of violence against others, and to have those acts perpetrated against them.

In the context of the MCU’s gritty street hero shows, this feels particularly important. It fits with the moral decline and isolation we see in Daredevil, Electra and the Punisher. When they put on costumes, they set aside their humanity to take up the fight. The fact that Jessica Jones and Luke Cage haven’t done so is fitting, given that they’re more in touch with their humanity and other people.

This may be me reading my own interests into the show, rather than the intention of the show runners, but then stories only become complete in the minds of the audience.

The Terror of Blood Trails

Ever since watching The Untouchables in my youth, wide blood trails left by crawling characters have always filled me with dread. Every time I see them I feel the tension of the scene where assassins come after Sean Connery’s character, which at the time was one of the grittiest, tensest things I’d ever seen. I still think there’s something powerful and horrible about a messy blood trail left by an injured character crawling. Their pain is written across the ground in a way you don’t get with blood spatters. When I saw that in this show, it hit me harder than any other moment of violence.

The Slow Build of the Weird

The creators of Daredevil are being careful in the way they bring in strange and supernatural elements, building them ever so slowly out of the mundane. It’s a technique I’ve noticed in horror, in both David Tallerman and V H Leslie’s stories. It makes the implausible more plausible. It works well here.

Orientalism

One of the unfortunate aspects of Daredevil is that it reflects the west’s longstanding attitude towards Asia, and in particular east Asia, as a land of the exotic and dangerous. This season is rammed full of shallowly written oriental villains, without sympathetic characters of Asian descent on the other side. In isolation this would not be a problem, but in the context of modern culture it perpetuates a trope that’s very troubling when people are pointing with growing fear at Iran, North Korea and China. If, as some people hoped, Iron Fist had been cast as an Asian character, then the MCU’s street character team could have balanced this out. As it is, it left a slightly unpleasant taste in the mouth.

In Conclusion…

Even a flawed Netflix Marvel show is still a superior superhero show. Daredevil isn’t as brilliant as Jessica Jones, but it’s still a good show, worth your time if you like superheroes or gritty drama. I just hope they pull their socks up for the next season, because season two could have been amazing, and instead it became sloppy.

Lessons From Daredevil: Putting Stories in Context

The problem with superhero stories is making them convincing. Sure, that’s not a problem when you’re entertaining a drooling fan like me with big spectacle like Guardians of the Galaxy. But when you’re aiming to create something low key, or to draw in a bigger audience, that’s more difficult. It’s a challenge any genre writer will face if they want to reach plenty of readers, and so it’s interesting to see how Marvel and Netflix’s recent TV show Daredevil has handled this.

In my view, there’s one small element that’s incredibly telling.

Superheroes in New York? Yeah Right.

First, lets give a bit of context, because none of what I’m going to say will make sense without it.

The nature of the superhero Daredevil, aside from being the blind martial artist with super senses, is that he sits on the boundary between two worlds. He exists within a huge universe of superpowered characters in a sprawling interconnected epic of comics / films and TV shows. But he also exists as a street level hero fighting crime in Hell’s Kitchen, a neighbourhood of New York.

This sets up one really obvious problem for Daredevil as a TV show. How do you reference that superhero universe while not making it sound absurd in the context of a gritty crime story?

But there’s another problem, one I discovered reading The Devil is in the Details, a book of essays on Daredevil. Hell’s Kitchen, which was a run down neighbourhood when Daredevil was created half a century ago, has become gentrified. As a setting for a gritty crime drama, it doesn’t work as well as it once did.

Given both of those challenges, how do you put the screen Daredevil in context?

Less is More

The answer, as shown in the first couple of episodes, is by bringing those two problems together and then applying some subtlety.

Almost the only link that the show directly makes to the Marvel universe, in its early episodes at least, is to reference the huge damage done to New York in The Avengers. They don’t talk about what the destruction was, thus avoiding tackling a world of Norse gods and super soldiers, but by referencing the destruction they let fans see that the Marvel Universe has affected these people’s lives. It’s the same trick that British TV show Ultraviolet used for its vampires – if you avoid using the word ‘vampire’ or ‘superhero’, and just include its implications, you can skirt around the potential absurdity.

This reference is also how they deal with Hell’s Kitchen. Thanks to the destruction done in New York, Hell’s Kitchen is a dump again. Hey presto, in a couple of lines they’ve tackled both of their biggest problems, and given the story a rich contextual background.

That, in my opinion, is some clever writing. A lot of thought and time clearly went into crafting a few seconds of dialogue, and it was well worth it. We could all learn from it.

If you haven’t already, then I really recommend watching Daredevil. It features some great writing and acting, a number of good fight scenes and at least one really imaginative one. It comes with a big warning though – it is really not for the squeamish, taking the Marvel tone as far from Guardians of the Galaxy as it can get.

And if you’re into superheroes or want to know more about Daredevil I heartily recommend The Devil is in the Details. It includes some fascinating essays, including one on the old question of how plausible his superpowers are.

My cultural highlights of 2014

I’m really bad at keeping on top of modern culture. There’s just so much of it, and so much stuff around the corner behind us that I want to peak back at. That’s no bad thing, just a reflection of how much awesomeness there is out there. But it means that as I think back on what I’ve really enjoyed this year, not all of it’s actually from this year. Still, here are the new(ish) things that really rocked my brain in 2014:

Reading

I’ve done more reading recently, as my befuddled brain has emerged from the fog of the last few years. And from that enshrouding miasma appeared a thing of spell-binding beauty – Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic. I cannot recommend this pair of books enough – Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors are breathtaking in their majesty, their immediacy and their beauty. They’re big, slow, weighty reads, but well worth the heavy lifting. Many thanks to Glenatron and Everwalker for pointing me towards Kay, and to Sheila for the present.

This was the year Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie returned to their old stomping ground of pop culture as magic, launching The Wicked + The Divine. It’s a beautiful looking and cleverly written comic that explores what it is to be an artist, a fan and a believer. There are clever layouts, smart references, intriguing characters and a fascinating plot. The only thing currently matching it is Chew, with its crazy world building, madcap plotting and offbeat characters. These two together show that comics can be fun, wild, entertaining and carry a serious emotional message all at the same time. They also show that the medium doesn’t have to get all dark to get beyond superheroes.

Viewing

Speaking of superheroes, did Marvel bring their A game this year or what? Agents of SHIELD turned from a limping pet only fanboys would love into a TV show that is dark, twisty and full of character. Tying its fate to Captain America: The Winter Soldier crippled it for most of its first season, but then created a moment of spectacular cross-platform awesomeness. The film and TV show spiralled around each other in ways that let them entertain as stand-alone viewing but break new ground as a cultural project. It helped that the Winter Soldier was a good film in its own right.

As if that weren’t enough, Marvel also brought out the biggest, funnest thing I watched in the cinema this year – Guardians of the Galaxy. A bunch of bickering misfits, forced to work together to save themselves and the universe? A talking raccoon and his walking tree buddy? A dance-off against a villain? Hell yes, I’m in for that. It wasn’t a smart film, or a ground-breaking one, but man was it ever entertaining.

But my favourite new film this year didn’t get a cinematic release, and that’s part of why I loved it. Joss Whedon, mastermind behind Marvel’s Avengers movies, took time out from his regularly scheduled blockbusters to help create In Your Eyes, a beautiful and unusual film about love and an inexplicable magical connection. It also took a bold approach to distribution that, for me, points towards the future I want to see. Just when we thought Whedon couldn’t get any more awesome, he upped his game again.

Aside from that, I’ve been making much more use of YouTube, and particularly recommend the PBS Idea Channel. Every week they come out with a slice of smart commentary, combing intellectual insight with popular culture. So cool.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3EBR1hlbI&w=560&h=315]

Listening

Here’s where we leave science fiction and fantasy behind. I listen to some sf+f podcasts, and a bit of geeky music, but my favourites this year have been other things.

The Revolutions Podcast is an entertaining and extremely well presented show covering some of the most fascinating slices of history – political revolutions. So far it’s covered the English Civil War and the American War of Independence. Now it’s onto the French Revolution. Mike Duncan previously created the excellent History of Rome podcast, but this is even better. If you like history at all, check it out.

Musically, my favourite discoveries this year haven’t been new to this year, but they’ve been new to me. A friend pointed me toward the Wanton Bishops, a spectacular blues rock outfit from Lebanon. For pure grinding energy, they’re hard to beat.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwV5LfxFMxU?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Then there’s Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. I like to hear clever rapping and pop musicians getting away from tired themes of romance and and self-aggrandisement. Macklemore absolutely hits the spot, backed by Ryan Lewis’s catchy and diverse beats, from pro-equality anthem Same Love to the ridiculously exuberant Lets Dance to recycled shopping tribute Thrift Shop. Even when they’re crafting whole songs about Cadillacs, basketball or trainers, their sheer passion keeps me wanting more.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

But my heart really lies with folk rock, and for that I recommend checking out The Patient Wild. Theirs are beautifully crafted storytelling songs, the sort of thing I can’t get enough of. And a member of the band reads this blog, so everybody wave to Glenatron – hi dude!

Gaming

As Laura will testify, I’m pretty much obsessed with the card game Smash Up, in which you combine genre favourite factions to battle it out for domination. Whether I’m leading robot ninjas against time travelling pirates, or dipping into madness with the Cthulhu expansion, I would happily play this all day every day. It’s a lot of fun.

I also enjoyed the story/game combo of Device 6, which showed just what great things we can do with storytelling in the age of phone apps. Looking back, it feels like a test piece for greater things to come, but it’s a fascinating and atmospheric test piece.

And now I’m addicted to Minecraft. I’ll probably blog about this another day, but it’s kind of like having a giant Lego set on my Kindle, except a Lego set where zombies try to kill me. I don’t know why I didn’t play it years ago, but I’m glad I didn’t given how much time it’s sucking away.

Other stuff

Tiger stripe espresso beans. Manchester’s beautiful new central library. Costa Coffee’s caramel crunch cake. This year has been full of great stuff. Here’s hoping for more.

And so, in a variation on yesterday’s question, what have been your cultural highlights this year, big or small? Please share some recommendations in the comments, give me cool things to check out next year.

Female Superhero Movie Franchises: What Would Ellen Ripley Say?

A special treat today – I have a guest post from Sue Archer of the Doorway Between Worlds blog. I’m a fan of the way Sue uses science fiction and fantasy to explore topics around communication, and it’s a pleasure to host her opinions on another topic here today, one that I’ve touched on in the past. So without further ado…

Female Superhero Movie Franchises: What Would Ellen Ripley Say?

When I was eight years old, my parents gave me a copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I devoured the story, identifying with the plucky character of Lucy. I then went on to read A Wrinkle in Time, and got drawn in to the world of Meg Murray, who was geeky (like me) and who saved her brother from evil. And I knew: science fiction and fantasy were written for me. This was a genre where girls could save the world.

When I was ten years old, I played with She-Ra: Princess of Power dolls, because other dolls were downright boring next to ones who could use swords and magic. I watched the various incarnations of the Justice League and Marvel characters on television and pretended that I was a superhero like Wonder Woman.

When I was twelve years old, a movie came out that I wasn’t old enough to see yet. In this movie, an ordinary woman fought against the odds to save humanity from aliens. The movie went on to spawn several sequels, and the female lead became a hugely popular character.

Her name was Ellen Ripley. And the year Aliens came out? 1986.

Fast forward twenty-eight years later. Count ’em: Twenty-eight. We are in 2014, and since Ellen Ripley, I have not seen another adult female character leading a movie franchise in the speculative fiction genre. (The closest thing so far is The Hunger Games, but it’s aimed at more of a teenage audience.) Frankly, I’m tired of waiting for another one. What happened?

The Wonder Woman That Wasn’t

There certainly hasn’t been a lack of trying by those who understand that this genre is for women as well as men. Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame was slated to helm a Wonder Woman film. Joss Whedon and Wonder Woman! Alas, that movie never got off the ground. And now we’re left with DC introducing Wonder Woman as a secondary character to Superman and Batman in their next superhero film. Apparently the studio thinks my favourite Amazon is just not strong enough to have her own movie. Which is ridiculous.

Superheroes Without Superpowers

I love the Marvel movies, but I’m disappointed that they aren’t making definite moves towards a female-led superhero film. Instead, we’ve had female characters who are part of a team: Black Widow, a female assassin in a bodysuit who has no superpowers; and Gamora—wait for it—a female assassin in a bodysuit who has no superpowers. Black Widow was done well, while Gamora had an underused backstory and was upstaged by a sarcastic raccoon and a talking tree. Neither of these women were leads. I’m tired of looking for small victories. When will we get a movie about Captain Marvel? Or another Marvel female character who is just as powerful as the men?

Men as Women

And I don’t mean a female character who is based off of a powerful male one. Marvel’s announcement of a female Thor being introduced in their comics annoyed me. I would have no issue with Sif taking up the hammer of Thor and wielding its powers as herself. But for the woman taking the hammer to be called Thor? This is insulting. Other characters have taken up Mjolnir in the past and gained the powers of Thor, but they kept their names. Why does the woman have to lose hers and be called Thor? It reminds me of Batgirl, Supergirl, and all of those other characters that were derived from male ones. Is Marvel afraid of developing a new standalone female character? That’s just sad.

Superwomen vs. Hollywood

I’ve heard all of the arguments about why a female-led movie franchise is not being made. And none of them make any sense.

Well, look what happened when we made Elektra and Catwoman. No one turned out, so clearly the appetite is not there for female-led movies. (It couldn’t possibly be because they were terrible movies.)

Women don’t go to see these kinds of movies, so we wouldn’t make any money. (Too bad that according to the MPAA, 42% of the domestic audience who came to see Iron Man 3 were women. Superhero movies in general are coming in at around 40% women in the audience. Not to mention you’re assuming men don’t want to see women superheroes. Not true of the men I know.)

We’ve already made plans for other movies, so you’ll need to wait a few years. (So change your plans. You could if you really wanted to.)

And this is the crux of it. The movie industry is made up largely of men who don’t really want to produce movies about female superheroes. So, unfortunately, I think I’ll be waiting for a few more years before I see what I want. (Some possible light at the end of the tunnel: There have been some recent rumours about an unnamed female-led movie in the Spiderman universe for 2017. I’ll believe it when I see it.)

What I’d pay money to see: Ellen Ripley facing down the leaders of The Company, also known as Hollywood movie execs. I can only imagine what she would say.

In the meantime, I’m off to watch my copy of Aliens.

Which female-led shows have you enjoyed? Who would you like to see on the big screen?

Thank you to Sue for the post. If you enjoyed it then please go read more of her views on the Doorway Between Worlds.

Where Did Storm Go? Representing Race and Gender in Superhero Films

Conflict is common over the depiction of race and gender in speculative fiction. As a middle-class first-world white bloke I recognise that I’m in a very privileged position and over-represented in popular culture. But as a nerd I also recognise why people get defensive about challenges to a frequently mocked subculture. I’ve written a post about this and recent superhero films over one Curnblog. Here’s the start of it…

Where Did Storm Go? Representing Race and Gender in Superhero Films

Superhero films and the comics that spawned them are famous for their traditionally white male fan-base. It’s a fan-base to which the creators play, with the vast majority of superheroes, and particularly the high profile ones, being white men.

This raises issues for the balanced representation of gender and race and for the diversity of perspectives possible within these stories. It becomes even more problematic as these stories reach out to a wider audience, perpetuating norms of white male cultural dominance. But why is this so common? And is an opportunity for change being squandered?

Talking raccoons are surprisingly well represented in the Marvel universe

To read the rest please hop on over to Curnblog. And while you’re there I also recommend Anthony Pilloud‘s ‘The Fallibility of Superheroes‘, an interesting article on the troubling moral structure of the Marvel universe.

For more on issues of representation you might also want to check out this rough transcript of a panel R A Smith was on at LonCon.

And if you have any thoughts on the subject or links to other interesting articles then please leave a comment.

Stan Lee cameos and the cult of the creator

Hey, did you all notice that cool cameo by Ed Brubaker in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Seriously, sinister scientist number two was played by one of the greatest living comic book writers. What a guy. What a beard.

Trust me, he was there, thought without that hat, and with more beard

OK, if that one passed you by did you notice Stan Lee in his role as a museum security guard? Of course you did. Stan turns up in every Marvel film these days. He was even on a train in Agents of SHIELD. You don’t need your comic nerd friend to point him out to you any more – he’s one of the most recognisable faces in the whole Marvel Movie Universe.

I have huge admiration for Stan Lee. His plots and dialogue are old-fashioned for my tastes, but the guy co-created some of the greatest characters in comic book history and was instrumental in making Marvel the giant it is today.

But having him turn up in every film makes it seem like he’s the guy behind every aspect of Marvel ever. Which is true, except for the many characters he didn’t create. And the fact that they were all co-creations with artists. And the fact that all of those characters have been given their depth and richness by generations of writers, not just Stan.

Art is never really a lone activity. It’s about collaboration, not isolated acts of genius, and the cult of the individual creator bugs me. It’s why the endless Stan Lee cameos are starting to vex me as much as they amuse. Maybe it’s time to cut down on Stan’s screen time and give some of it to his hundreds of collaborators down the years.

Ed Brubaker picture copyright Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons