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Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a sweet superhero tale where, yes, a group of younger heroes come together to battle an extremist group. But more importantly than that, it's a superhero tale with diversity oozing out of every animated frame.
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Ms. Marvel, who idolizes Captain Marvel and is inspired by her, instead leads the Secret Warriors movie, showcasing her origin tale, her relationship with her mother and her struggle for acceptance in a culture that is adverse to the creation of the Inhumans -- the latter being people who gain superpowers after getting into contact with a gas substance called Terrigen Mists.What Secret Warriors is doing particularly well is that it isn't shying away from its focus on diversity in any part of its plot. In particular, the storyline aims at a brewing conflict between humans and an extremist group of Inhumans, the latter believing that a war between the two groups is inevitable. Khan ends up stuck in the middle, as an Inhuman herself who doesn't believe the conflict is needed.
Another refreshing carryover from Marvel comics is America Chavez. Her origin story, which sees Chavez's two mothers sacrificing themselves to protect their daughter, remains completely intact and sympathetic. Chavez herself demonstrates herself as a formidable ally, having super strength and the ability to fly. It's a nice start for LGBT representation on the animated side of the Marvel universe for now.
Wasn't Captain Marvel a man?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:39PM (5 children)
Iron Man and Batman.
(Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:26PM (4 children)
Iron Man and Batman are fantasy.
Iron Man isn't sci-fi. The movies have attempted to make it somewhat more plausible, but the science behind it is still... barely sane.
Then, consider that movies with Iron Man in it have wizards, people being mutated by being bit by a spider, people turning big and green because they irradiate themselves, people that are "gods", people shrinking themselves with little amulets and calling themselves ant-man, and on and on and on. It's fantasy, because the science is complete gibberish, bull, and half the realm is magic/etc.
On to DC/Batman, the guy has money -- and therefore has all manner of wondrous tools that simply appear without any real logic behind how they could possible do what they do. Not to mention that in real life, Batman would be dead 1000 times over from the falls/injuries, and on and on. Of course, Batman is in movies with Superman (which is pure fantasy), Ares (a freaking Greek god), Wonder Woman (made out of clay by another god), immortal women (amazons), green lantern (who's ring is powered by beings that have lived for billions of years, and his ring is powered up with enough juice to move PLANETS with one charge), and the list is endless.
Claiming one character is sorta-kinda-maybe almost "It feels like it might be sci-fi, almost!" isn't good enough, when the canon is all about fantasy.
I read sci-fi. I read fantasy. Read comics as a kid, watch DC and Marvel and other such fims, and frankly enjoy them. But none of these DC/Marvel films even remotely approach soft-scifi, let alone hard-scifi.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:55PM (3 children)
The Iron Man and Batman movies, specifically. I don't read the comics themselves, but the movies (the trilogies, not the Avengers/Superman crossovers) were pretty strictly no-fantasy-involved.
First movie, he's fighting another guy from the same company who built his own suit. Second movie, he's fighting a Russian dude who built his own suit. Third movie...okay, the bad guys actually have pyro-y superpowers due to some slightly-handwavy medical treatment. Which they fight with an army of autonomous suits, which, while rather ridiculous to watch, there isn't anything particularly implausible about. It's a question of just making *better* AI, not that AI isn't a thing that exists already.
Having just watched the first 2 Batman movies again, I recall they actually went out of their way to explain how they worked sometimes. Like the skyhook thing [wikipedia.org], and the universal mobile phone sonar hack. Obviously the sonar thing has bandwidth and latency problems, but hey.
The most magic-adjacent thing I can think of from those was the hallucinogenic flower from Tibet or whatever (and the subsequent panic gas based on it), but there are/were Native American tribes that use peyote etc. for a similar effect in religious ceremonies.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by Blymie on Wednesday October 03 2018, @11:16PM (2 children)
You can't take a movie, remove it from its canon, and just say "meh, this tiny story wasn't fantasy, because I'm ignoring the rest of the universe where ironman / batman live".
You watch Iron Man? That's the Marvel universe. Batman? DC. Both are fantasy, complete and total fantasy.
Attempts to take a little, tiny, isolated story out of that universe, and pretend that therefore "Batman" is sci-fi, is... well, you're not even remotely being honest.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:14PM (1 child)
The summary is talking about an animated show, so the movies are relevant, debatably more relevant than the comic books. No, it's not "dishonest."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by Blymie on Friday October 05 2018, @02:41PM
At no point did I say looking at the movies was dishonest. No where. Not in one place. Ever. At any time.
What I said is, you can't take movies by themselves, removed from their universe, their canon. And that to look ONLY at the movies was not honest.
And it's not. And by the fact that you're ignoring my point, and pretending I'm making another point, makes me believe you know it -- and are instead just arguing around that point.
You cannot take movies, remove them from the entire universe that is batman/dc, and then point to them in isolation and say "See! This one Batman movie is sci-fi!"
Nope. Nada. Can't do it. Never.
Because, Batman exists in a universe greater than that single movie. It's called *canon*, so understood that there's a specific word for it.