The MCU’s Avengers Problem - Part ThreeIn the first two parts of this epic article trilogy I took a look at the potential triumphs and pitfalls presented to Marvel in mining out their trove of potential Avengers. In Part One I looked at properties that are already “out there” in terms of pop culture such as Scarlet Witch, Falcon and Ant-Man. In that part I also noted a few problem alumni not likely to be part of the Avengers any time soon such as Luke Cage, Mockingbird and Beast.
In the second article I looked at those past Avengers who had the greatest potential to become part of a team but also, as will probably be necessary, to hold up a movie of their own. And so we come to this last selection, the mis-shapes, the problem children, those heroes that have been brought to Marvel comics but may find the step up to a wider market to be too much for them to handle. “The Also-Rans” Is Not A Good Team Name To illustrate, and also to clear the decks a little characters such as U.S. Agent, Swordsman and Shang-Chi would appear to have an impossible task crossing over into the mainstream. U.S. Agent, for example, is just a different version of Captain America, introduced as a villain, the shadow of Captain America, the character evolved into his own thing over time in the comics but for audiences of mass entertainment John Walker, US Agent would just be a confusing copy of the character Marvel have invested too much time into making palatable for a modern audience. It’s a little difficult at this stage to recall exactly how little people cared about Cap before The First Avenger. It’s a testament to Marvel Studios that they’ve placed Steve Rogers at the heart of the MCU as it has evolved. To bottle the same lightning twice is an obvious fool’s errand. Shang-Chi, similarly, is just Iron Fist but without the glowing fists. It’s a sign Marvel acknowledges the difficulty of marketing “generic Marvel kung-fu guy” that Shang Chi was specifically named in the original Marvel Studios deal with Paramount way back in 2006. All the heroes mentioned in that original deal have found their way to film or television in the meanwhile with the exception of Shang Chi and Power Pack*. Perhaps the saddest of these initial picks is Swordsman who is, wait for it, a swordsman. Don’t get me wrong he is, by all accounts, a really, really skilled swordsman but… Well, I think I can safely exit that sentence without really having to type any more actual words. These three are just a handful of Marvel comics characters who have served as part of the Avengers team who will almost certainly never be cinematic Avengers. As Shang Chi is a spin-off from Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu it is possible he could provide a shot in the arm for a season of Iron Fist in the Netflix-verse. As Fu Manchu’s cultural stereotype status is moot these days, to say the least, I don’t think anyone’s holding their breath (except as part of a trial of kung fu discipline of course). Heroes With Issues Not all is despair in this category, however. Some heroes find themselves lost in the credibility gap, if they can haul their way out there could be some hope for them. These are characters like Hercules, Black Knight, Marvel Boy, Jocasta and Red Hulk. Hercules has actually had a pretty good career with Marvel, his lesser known status is probably down to two important factors: 1. Marvel blatantly started mining out Greek mythology because mining out Norse mythology had worked out for them and 2. Greek Gods are more commonplace in pop culture than Norse ones. This is the curious case of something that is already more familiar to an audience being a tougher sell. At the time that Stan Lee tried out wacky adventures inspired by Norse Myth people knew very little about the character. As such Marvel had a pretty free hand in reinventing the character to suit their ends. In 1964, when Hercules first appeared in a Marvel title he had already appeared as a secondary character next to Wonder Woman for DC a few years earlier, he had also been portrayed twice in movies by Steve Reeves within the decade and his Marvel debut happened during the first run of the animated series “The Mighty Hercules”. Pop culture had plenty of Hercules going on and that hasn’t changed much over the years. Even as we speak we’re within a decade of Dwayne Johnson playing the character on the big screen (and also Kellan Lutz, but no one paid much attention to that), we’re within two of Kevin Sorbo playing the character in the “Legendary Journeys” TV Series and the Disney movie from 1997 is still a known thing. Marvel’s Hercules has a lot more competition when it comes to carving out a unique niche. Of course, he has the MCU about him and, at the moment at least, audiences may be charitable to an MCU take on a well worn character. Or maybe they won’t, because… well, Thor. It doesn’t matter to the larger audience that Hercules has been punching monsters with Marvel since 1964, most people will probably just assume that Marvel Hercules is like a Marvel Cash-in on Marvel Thor, and they could be right. The Black Knight runs a similar gauntlet of image problems. He’s an Arthurian knight, and that’s the whole of his role as a superhero, swords, and armour (black armour), and horses (flying horses). Marvel will be aware that the latest attempt at bringing Arthur to the big screen belly flopped embarrassingly this year. I just can’t see them thinking that doing their own knight looks like anything other than tedious, desperate and unoriginal. That is not to say that it necessarily would be any of those things, the MCU has a little credit with many movie-goers for its stellar record to date. I’m just saying that when these characters get elevator pitched it’s hard not to see people’s eyes glaze the minute the name is out there. It’s much harder to bring an audience back than to capture them when something looks new and different. Say what you like about Ant-Man and Doctor Strange they’re inherently new things in the MCU that alter the existing dynamic in interesting ways just by their existence. Neither Hercules nor the Black Knight have that power out of the gate. Jocasta, on the other hand, is a completely different concept but it’s a bit of a “born sidekick” concept. If you remember the character “Dot Matrix” from Spaceballs, that’s an uncharitable comparison but it’s uncomfortably close. As the character’s first appearance issue was named Jocasta is the “Bride of Ultron”, built by the insane AI with brain patterns based upon the original wasp, Janet van Dyne. Unlike the Tin Man Jocasta never had a problem with the lack of a heart, experiencing deep emotions and being a therapist to the ever unhinged Hank Pym. Personally I like both the crazy and the weird aspects of this character’s history and her later development. I do think they would be a little much for a wider audience. In addition I have to concede that, even in the comics, Jocasta is often more used as an exposition machine, a conduit for vocalising excuses for the eccentricities of Hank Pym and, most ignominiously, a plot device. To make Jocasta happen in the MCU would take a powerful re-imagining which would be a hell of a task. It would appear, overall, that there are easier pickings to be had. Even Marvel Boy would be an easier task and that’s saying something as, after Wonder Man, he undoubtedly has one of the worst names in Marvel canon. Alternatively you could refer to the character as “Justice” or “Noh-varr” but neither of these are all that much better. The problem with bringing Marvel Boy, or Nova for that matter, into the MCU is that it presents a big change from the way things have been done so far. At this stage the Guardians of the Galaxy happen in their track and everything else happens on earth. Although Guardians Vol. 2 did have some earth based, real-time cutaways that’s not the same as having a hero who is a Kree Warrior (the Kree are the “good” aliens from GotG Vol. 1) is something new, on the one hand, and something that screams “spin off” on the other. By far the better use of Kree warrior-dom in the MCU would be to introduce Nova as an MCU main character, and once you’ve done that Marvel Boy becomes a bit redundant. One of the big sticking points with having Kree characters come to earth is motivation. Why would they just hang around our backwater planet when they could be out in the galaxy with more opportunity? Usually, in the comics at any rate, the answer boiled down to some arrangement where the Kree would be marooned on earth or would be involved in some alien invasion (usually the Skrulls, or Chitauri). Whatever Marvel Boy’s woes with regards to being samey or derivative they are nothing next to the Red Hulk. I should point out that before researching this article I didn’t know that Red Hulk was separate to Hulk, I knew that at one point Hulk had been grey and assumed that Red Hulk was just another chromatically varied version of main Hulk. And that’s your problem right there. Red Hulk is Hulk, but Red. Also a bit more cunning than regular Hulk but that’s just a matter of degree. I’ve already gone through why having a character who is just a spin-off of another character is problematic so I’ll just leave this saying I consider the problem with Red Hulk is that he has all the problems She-Hulk has but magnified 100 times and with none of the up sides. Having said that, Red Hulk’s original purpose was as a mystery villain. Everyone was wondering who Red Hulk was when he wasn’t being Red Hulk and the answer to the question was a surprise twist. In that sense Red Hulk could be a foe for regular Hulk in a Hulk standalone project, or in an Amadeus Cho project (see Part 2) that happens to have Hulk in it. However, once you’re done with the character as a villain would you want to do anything further with him? Demigods and Other Problems Once you’ve discounted the heroes with significant image woes the remaining collection splits two ways, pretty hopeless cases and demigods. We’ll talk about demigods last of all but before we do let’s take a look at the worst image problem of all: The Human Torch. Some of you are now wondering what Johnny Storm has to do with all this. The rest of you are probably nodding along because you know what the original group are doing. The Johnny Storm Human Torch is actually the second character to hold that title in the world of Marvel Comics. The first was an android created by a scientist called Phineas Horton. The original Human Torch was a peer of the Sub-Mariner and war-time Captain America. But you try telling the general public that. And you try telling Fox’s lawyers that. Facts aside Jim Hammond, the android Human Torch, is not well-known or remembered enough to feature as a new Marvel Cinematic Universe hero, so he probably never will. The future looks equally bleak for Silverclaw, Triathlon, Jack of Hearts and Ronin for a variety of reasons. To pick a couple of easy targets neither Triathlon nor Jack of Hearts have much beyond gimmicks to help them establish themselves. Triathlon, originally known as 3-D man is supposed to have triple the strength, speed, biscuits etc of a normal human. He’s not an exciting hero and, to make matters worse, his 3-D gimmick just makes him the conceptual equivalent of nails down a chalkboard. Jack of Hearts has an okay name and image but, after that he’s like a pack of cards themed version of someone like Black Widow or Hawkeye. His superheroic identity is more of a call sign really. Silverclaw is the only member of this last party to have actual powers. She possibly belongs in a higher tier than this. Her powers are to adopt silver versions of animals physical characteristics for a short time. For example she might get tough scales like an alligator or crocodile but they would be silver, or claws like a leopard but silver. It’s interesting, sure, but blinged-out bat wings are simultaneously weird and kind of funny. Still, having discussed the other people on this list I can’t help but feel she’s got more chance than the others. Also Ronin might be fine, except the Ronin identity seems to be like that umbrella that doesn’t belong to anyone in the office that people borrow if they forgot their own. Ronin isn’t one specific person, but rather a number of people who have decided to wear the Ronin costume for a bit. In the comics both Hawkeye and Blade have been Ronin for a time. So essentially Ronin is a costume, which leaves the potential for the character to move out on their own somewhat in doubt. Finally, we come to the demigods: Sentry, Starbrand and Hyperion. All of these characters have two problems. The first is that writing stuff for demigods is really hard because not much can hurt or affect them. The second is that any demigod who is not Superman invites the accusation that the character is a rip-off of Superman. Sentry, in addition to these two problems has the problem that his superhero name is Sentry but enough about that, at least it’s not Swordsman. It is probably truer than writers of Superman would like to admit that demigod status is more of a short-term burden plot idea than the foundation of sensible ongoing arcs. The demigod is a plot point, not a character. While it’s perfectly possible that a demi-god character may emerge from the MCU I don’t think that they would be treated as a protagonist so much as a problem that has to be dealt with. Hell, when Iron Man and Thor get too big for their boots there are parties on hand determined to knock them down to size. Thor is about as powerful as an individual generally get to be before they really start to lose audience sympathy and, to be honest, I think Thor has very little of that right now. In the first movie he was forced to do the “fish out of water” thing, in his second solo outing he had to be thoroughly confused as to everyone’s motives to stop him being overpowered and he sat most of “Age of Ultron” out. Thor is pushing the power limit so guys like Hyperion would seem unpopular choices for partaking in future Avengers outings. Over the course of these three articles it should have become apparent that plotting a long-term future for the MCU is hellishly difficult in part because of all the materials laid out at your disposal. Apart from having to sift through the gargantuan stack of ideas Marvel have built up over half a century there’s the natural resistance to the idea of doing new things that would seem obvious to anyone unfamiliar with exactly what’s in the back catalogue. Marvel have done pretty well with the properties that were readily to hand when they began their epic journey, the question is, with the best resources left being maybe too rich and too strange for some, how are they going to solve their many Avengers problems? * Power Pack are a team of pre-teen superheroes who have never been Avengers and haven’t had a sniff of a movie or television deal in the meanwhile either. The two major problems with a mass-market adaptation are: 1. Precocious kid super heroes are likely a tough sell for the MCU and 2. Their team name is pretty underwhelming, unless you are looking for something to charge your laptop’s battery. Read part 1 here, part 2 here. Let us know your thoughts in the comments! |
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