So far we've looked at the opening episode of the new ABC series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and listed characters we hoped to see and ones we hoped to/figured we'd never see. Now, at day four of our 4/5ths of a week-long spotlight, it's time to look at the next logical matter to focus on.
...I just wish I knew what that was.
Okay, um, let's see...I've gone over the characters already, I've discussed the story and the set-up, um...
Well, okay, actually, let's talk characters. Namely, how ABC and Joss Whedon have to be really careful not to get them wrong.
Here's a fun fact for people who don't read comic books: Samuel L. Jackson's character isn't from the original Marvel Universe. His character came from a "side universe" version of the Avengers called "The Ultimates" which was an attempt to make superheroes modern and "hip" when, in fact, it made them almost completely unlikable and contributed to some of the worst storytelling in comic books.
How bad was it? Here's a quick top eleven:
11) The Wasp gets cannibalized by The Blob
10) Giant-Man gets revenge by biting off The Blob's head
9) Professor Xavier compares Magneto to Osama Bin Ladin right to Magneto's face
8) Magneto responds by snapping Xavier's neck
7) Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver canonically have incestuous sex
6) Wolverine watches the whole thing
5) Wolverine might actually be their parents
4) The writers, figuring having Hank Pym backhand Wasp once in regular continuity wasn't bad, decided to have him make a group of ants attack her when she was shrunken down and hiding from him
3) They killed off a ridiculous number of characters in Ultimatum because a series that was barely a decade old (Ultimate Spider-Man came out in 2000) had too much continuity
2) They couldn't keep characters straight, like Dr. Doom going from being a spiked mystical being with hooves to just, y'know, Dr. Doom in Doom armor
1) Nothing ever got resolved. Seriously, you'd have panels talking about "huge plans" meant for characters or their "big ideas" and then they never did anything
And that barely touches the iceberg.
Now, we did get a few good things, like Samuel L. Fury (including one brilliant moment in the comic when they discuss who would play each other in a movie and Fury outright says "Samuel L. Jackson") and...well, the Ultimate Spider-Man title was pretty good, I guess.
Anyway, anybody who read the series can recognize that several things were pulled from the Ultimate Universe, but there are a lot of things pulled from the "regular" universe, just updated. Tony Stark went straight from "cobbled together armor" to fancy armor without the suits in between (such as the one from the 70s with the nose and roller skates). Thor's story is a bit more scientific and doesn't involve a guy finding a cane in a cave and being turned into a thunder god.
But with an entire television series to play with, obviously they can introduce as many Marvel characters as they want to, but they still have to make them work. Some ideas just don't translate well to modern times without the history of the character to back it up. The Mandarin, for example, was radically different in the movie he appeared in than he is in the comics, because having the major villain of a movie be a Chinese guy who got ten magical rings from an alien spacecraft just doesn't really work here anymore.
There are lots of characters who really only work when you take into account their origins. Frank Castle used the skills he picked up in a war to get revenge on crime, but they have to keep moving the war forward so that they don't have to deal with the fact the character should now be in his sixties.
The Fantastic Four's origin will never be able to be connected to the original story of "trying to beat the Commies to space" because it's completely outdated. Magneto lived through the Holocaust, but after a bit more time goes by it's going to be really awkward to explain how he's still alive. Kraven the Hunter probably can't get away with being an extremely popular big game hunter anymore due to the Endangered Species Act. Namor fought in World War 2 as well, but they tend to overlook that these days when he hits on Susan Richards. The war where Tony Stark gets injured and needs technology to survive keeps getting bumped up to more recent times. Certain ideas, like the Crimson Dynamo and Omega Red, just don't fit in today's world.
Now, that isn't to say they can't be updated. The question is how they update them. You need to have respect for what came before (you can't simply reinvent the character so it has nothing in common with the original), but you can't hold on to the outdated concepts.
Let's look at Tony Stark as an example. Moving his timeline forward to run with the war in the Middle East works absolutely fine, because it keeps the basics of the character intact. "Injured in war, builds armor to escape and stay alive, becomes hero." If they had changed it even further, perhaps by having a young Tony Stark going into an alley with his parents and then having them gunned down while he takes a bullet to the chest, people would probably be extremely upset.
Likewise, you can get away with adaptations of the Hulk's origin. You don't need to have there be a gamma bomb detonation out in the desert, because we're not really testing those any more (at least, as far as I know). Perhaps it's an experimental generator that runs on gamma energy. Maybe it's an attempt to launch a rocket powered by gamma fuel and it explodes. Maybe he gets bitten by a radioactive Hulk Hogan.
That last one probably wouldn't work, but you get my point.
Of course, there are nitpickers who will get mad at little things. This can't be helped, and I'll admit there are times I get caught up on details and can't really see the big picture. However, that doesn't mean the nitpickers are right and things absolutely HAVE to be the same as they were originally.
Now, there are examples of this going horribly wrong. Dr. Doom from the first Fantastic Four movie was more like Spider-Man's villain Electro than "Dr. Doom." The Red Skull in one of the early Captain America movies was, I believe, Italian instead of German. Nick Fury was once played by David Hasselhoff.
Granted, none of those instances affect the current movie continuity, but it is something they need to keep an eye on. Changing a character's origin from something mystical to something technological might be tricky. Taking a mutant and giving them a different origin is tough. Changing a character's race...well, I know a lot of people got mad at the Daredevil movie, but I didn't mind it so much.
I just hope the writers are able to bring the characters into the modern day without changing everything we love about them. Maybe the Wrecker or Absorbing Man can have a different origin instead of "twisted Loki magic" making them who they are. If they introduce Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers (which it appears they're going to), they'll probably skip the whole "worked alongside a Kree hero named Captain Marvel" bit. I know for sure they'll probably skip over her alcoholic days from the 90s and the fact she once had all of her memories and powers stolen from her by Rogue.
I'm relatively certain there will be no mention of Magneto or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in the next Avengers movie despite it having the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, though the revelation of his being their parent was actually a later retcon in itself (which made the fact he let the rest of the team harass the Scarlet Witch and molest her a bit more creepy).
Anyway, I think I've rambled long enough for this last post. I'll do a follow-up on some of the next group of episodes soon as we dig deeper into this rabbit hole, but it felt important to point out the one overwhelming fear a fan of anything has when they hear about a movie or series being made, "will it be faithful." After all, look at how much Michael Bay's taken for the TMNT movie that hasn't even come out yet.
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