The Life Cycle Of Superhero Storytelling
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They screwed with shows, it is easier to watch mediocre movies but watching mediocre shows is too time consuming.
Yep. I usually don't watch series. It only takes the ending to ruin a whole show.
I would feel sorry for those one piece fan if they're ending turn out bad. 20 year down the drain
@@Watch-0w1I think its impossible to give shows like One Piece a good ending that isnt predictable. Naruto had a good ending after 720 Episodes and 11 movies bit it was also what everyone thought would happen. If you step out line of fan expectations after decades you're bound to crash and burn
@@StrafprozessordnungNaruto had a standard ending with a lot of poorly tied up loose ends. Orochimaru changing his mind for no reason, all the underdeveloped romances tied up at the same time, the fabrication of a legendary big baddie that was never even hinted... It wasn't bad, but it was definitely not a good ending.
@@rodrigovda not interested in a big argument about it (sry) but I have seen the show twice (+ every filler and movie) and I think Narutos ending is one of the best shōnen endings in the scene. I have been in the situation of having to write an ending to something that an entire team of people worked for an extended amount of time. You will never catch all the details and tie up every lose end (sometimes you even deliberately drop one thing to make another work). While yes, theres always room for improvement I think the Naruto ending is well done and I have rarely ever heard anyone complain about it except for die hard fans of side characters
@@Strafprozessordnung
unpredictability is overrated anyways. But i guess most people see it different in our "spoiler" culture. I do see value in the unkown and in the "first impression" of something, but i don't need that for the stories i listen to. At least not for those big commertialized stories.
Honestly, I don't think Marvel will ever be that big again. We've watched superheroic stories so many times, we're perpetually bored of it. Two good superhero films a year is a limit for most adults right now (like No Way Home, Guardians 3). Hollywood will have to figure out a new blockbuster format, like it did many times before 2008.
The blockbuster format is dead unfortunately. You arent going to achieve the big box office hits anymore when you have streaming. Its why the cinema is dying. No one is going to go and spend $20 plus concession stand and fuel to see the movie on the big screen, when you can watch it in the comfort of your home for half that cost.
@@Ryanthusarthat never stop Netflix from making movies
@@Ryanthusarwell you bet your ass I'd really want to see Oppenheimer on the cinema though... and some other flicks potentially
@@Ryanthusar Nah. People have been saying that since forever and yet new films keep breaking records at the box office. The big screen, the audio and the whole experience simply remains unmatched by a TV.
Also $20 seems like a lot. Don't think I've ever paid that much for a movie ticket (and fuel is not an issue if you live in a city).
I still fork out for the cinema for any film I actually care about (often ~8 a year). The cinema is way better than streaming and until I can afford a home theatre I will continue to go. Not to mention the experience of IMax. I have only ever seen one home setup that was even close and it cost thousands to set up. Most streaming sites don't even support that standard anyway, even if you had the setup, so the $20 even 10 times a year, is far cheaper than what you would have to pay in order to fully replicate it. People who don't care about the extra quality are also not really the kind of people who would keep the movies alive as many of them would have waited for home video in the past as well@@Ryanthusar
My problem isn’t the inter-connectivity per se. It is the entire multiverse concept and how it actually cheapens the stakes. I think it’s worth saying that the traditional idea of “raising the stakes” has an unintended side effect after a while. When you continue to increase the stakes from neighborhood to city, city to country, country to world, world to galaxy, etc, I think the audience gradually stops noticing; that is to say, stakes are not what connect a story to the audience. Characters are the what (or rather, the whom) to which the audience latches. We did not care about the universe-altering stakes of Thanos’s conquest for the stakes themselves. We cared because all of the characters we came to know over the twenty-something movies leading up to Infinity War were threatened by Thanos, and for us, these superheroes are the physical and emotional proxy for the vast peoples of the universe from Earth to Knowhere-the peoples that wanted to fight Thanos and simply were not strong enough to do so. We care about those characters because they were written and developed well enough for the audience to relate or connect with them in some way. The stakes just contextualize the danger the heroes are in and help add tension.
The multiverse says, “Hey, remember that superhero you cared so much about? Well, there’s like, an _infinite_ number of them, including a smaller-but still infinite-subset that are _just like the character you know.”_ I still end up really, really sad over the one I know that died, but when a new one enters scene, I still need to be endeared to them. No Way Home had a shortcut for this: It gave us three different versions of Spider-Man that we were _already invested in,_ and it spent time letting us know where each of them were as well as developing them even a bit further. These stories still have to do the leg work, and most of them do not do that. In Guardians 3, an entire subplot is dedicated to how Gamora 2 feels *nothing* for Peter. She does not share the same bonding experience with the Guardians or Peter that the first Gamora had. She is a different person, and Gunn does a great job walking the audience through the same stages of grief that Peter experiences, and even getting us to appreciate her in the way she learns to at least appreciate him.
At the end of the day, the hardest thing for the multiverse saga to do is _make me care._ If they can make me care again, I’ll play catch up, but so far-with a few exceptions that thankfully do not really tie into the larger story-they have not.
And for that reason, I’m out.
I'm looking forward to the trend dying off...but not before the Elric of Melnibone series gets the acclaim it deserves.
Really well said.
👏🏼
Beautifully put. I feel like the studio has forgotten what it seemed to originally understand, that there is only one kind of stakes in any story, personal stakes. If it's not personal, the audience doesn't invest. This cycle of stakes inflation that Evan explained so well is like the inflation of ego, the larger it gets, the less substantial it becomes, until all of reality is at stake, and no one in the story actually matters. The MCU has made itself the infamous "bagel with everything," a vast circling continuum of everything that ever will, or even could exist in its multiverse... and in the middle is an empty hole where we should care, but we don't.
Because there's no personal connection to the MCU anymore. There's no Tony or Steve in the center of the film universe, carrying the stories. And the remaining characters are pale imitations. Once, the MCU built on its successes. Now it's trying to anticipate its successes, and build on that. But Doctor Strange never came together as a lead character, let alone the foundation of a franchise. Captain Marvel has potential, but she's still too undercooked. Tom Holland's "Friendly Neighborhood" Spider-Man isn't built to carry the MCU, unless it all comes to Queens. Nick Fury was only ever meant to be a mentor of heroes, not a protagonist himself. Sam and Bucky fumbled their initial chance to be lead characters, and the studio seems to have already given up on them. Hawkeye is retired, his story is kinda done. Meanwhile, Wanda and Vision was set to take over as the center of the MCU, until they used up Wanda as a throw-away villain for a hero that never worked. And Ant Man is far, far too lightweight, and always will be.
I mean, maybe if someone put some or all those characters together in a new Avengers film that really solidifies each character the way the original Avengers did, they could pull the MCU out of the death spiral it's in. But that doesn't seem to be on the menu. Even if they attempted something of the kind, they've lost their spark of inspiration. Everything has been attempts to remind us of their past glories, or recreating the lightning in a bottle they once caught, as though it's just a formula they can repeat. The DCEU failed because it was trying to recreate the Marvel formula. But now, Marvel is trying to do the same thing, and failing in the same way.
What neither seems to understand is that Marvel initially succeeded by trying new things. They don't seem to do that anymore, at least, not with conviction. I don't see them coming up with anything as daring and audacious as GotG, or as authentically emotional as Winter Soldier, or as earnest as Avengers. They're too busy trying to be those old movies. And what made those movies great was a combination of originality and conviction. But even when they're truly original, they don't seem confident. What they invest in is the formulas that have been squeezed for all their impact long ago.
I largely agree. I think there’s only so much we can expect in terms of originality, but Marvel has so many characters to choose from that they have no excuse for not doing something relatively new and interesting for the MCU.
Even though it wasn't the greatest film, I think the third guardians did a really good job of pulling things back. It focused on character building with stakes that, while "big" for the heroes, were ultimately small potatoes compared to what came before. It paid off the development of basically all the guardians very nicely.
I also went DC, I got hit hard by the cartoons, Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, Teen Titans, Static Shock, Batman Beyond. I even liked Green Lantern (the cartoon).
I watched nearly all the MCU movies in the lead up to End Game, not always in the theater but mostly on Netflix and redbox. I remember finally sitting down at home to watch End Game and then when I learned that there was going to be more stuff after that, I checked out.
Like, I used up all my emotional investment to get through the last two movies, anything after that would be like that scene in Matilda where that kid has to eat an entire chocolate cake. No thanks, Marvel, I'm full lol
Absolutely, for most people who are not deeply embedded into comic book culture, there is only so much of this you can take. Story, concept and character driven movies for adults are making a comeback.
I am not an MCU superfan but I will absolutely still watch movies/shows if they are good and not really tied in to everything else. Guardians 3 was great for example, I didn't have to have watched all the shows leading up to it. I didn't even really need to remember Guardians 2. It was just a good movie without all the bullshit.
@@souradeepsengupta95 I think comic book people would be the ones to get the most tired of it actually. Because they keep introducing characters and the comic guys would look up all about these characters so they check out even more actually
Same. Endgame was endgame for me.
I remember I used to read my mate's Marvel comics and you're right. Even with money completely removed as a factor, the mental and time investment costs are astronomical.
Great video. I think it's fair to say that the issue with the MCU post-Endgame is an oversaturation with a lack of focus. I'd argue that general fans have a fairly decent tolerance for mediocre superhero films that work in service to the crossover event. What they have almost no tolerance for are mediocre superhero films that don't seem to matter in the long run. This, I believe, is the biggest contributor to audiences' current frustration as the MCU has been fairly aimless (not to mention DC is about to reboot hence a lack of interest in DCEU leftovers) and most content seems to have mainly been to fill up the Disney+ library. However, Bob Iger's recent comments on prioritising quality over quantity does inspire confidence that they will at least work on shifting things to gear like they did on the tail end of Phase 2 and James Gunn has been saying all the right things in regard to rebooting DC so I'm still optimistic.
The real issue is that the films aren't mediocre, they're horrifically bad (excepting No Way Home which is still seriously flawed and Hawkeye, I haven't seen GotG3).
@@ludwigamadeushaydn706 Guardians 3 did the right thing in my mind. Gunn focused on resolving all of the characters rather than waste script lines playing into the current multiverse storyline. If you like Guardians, it’s a great closing chapter to their story.
"most content seems to have mainly been to fill up the Disney+ library."
That's what "content" does, after all: fill a container. It's no accident that streaming platforms have switched their vocabulary to talk about "content", rather than films and shows. We'll see how much this promise of focusing on quality is fulfilled, because the last few years have definitely felt more like padding than art.
Naive thing you
Don't trust what Bob Iger says after his comment on the ongoing strike.
Yeah, I kinda had a similar introduction into comics like you. Smallville was sorta my cornerstone, but i really took off when I got this huge book called The DC Encyclopedia.
However, I never wasted my money with the single issues, I'd save my money up and once a month splurge on two or three graphic novels or trade paperbacks, whichever you wanna call them.
The same company that put out the DC Encyclopedia eventually put out a Marvel Encyclopedia, but instead of getting into the main universe, I was more invested in the Ultimates line.
My interest in Marvel comics waned when Ultimatum happened, and by then I had friends providing me digital scans. The death knell for me and DC came when they had that era where they refused to let Batwoman get married and they had an art contest where they wanted you to draw Harley Quinn about to unalive herself in the bath tub.
Luckily, by then, The MCU was in its golden age, and I had that to keep my interests. The CW shows were... There too, but in the last 3 years, I've noticed I've given up entirely. Marvel is too bloated, and DC just isn't winning me over with the promise of a reboot.
I've always been Marvel for Movies and DC for shows and animated content.
You're completely right about the batting average. The only great movies in Phase 4 were Shang Chi and Spider-Man. I'm still all in for Superheo content, but I think we've past the Golden Age of MCU films.
Great video and even more relevant with certain comic crossover events nowadays. There’s huge universe spanning ones still happening and then mini ones that only happens on a small scale.
It’s simultaneously great and such a drag to keep up. Think that’s why I just stick with certain characters/teams but even then someone like miles is getting dragged into another event.
I'd say its the very essence of the superhero comics that's their fatal flaw - they don't sell stories, thery sell _characters._
You don't buy a superhero comic because you found the story to be intriguing, you bought it because it has your favorite character. So many characters trapped without a purpose, without a real story, forever forced to relive essentially the same story again and again and again, only with the chaning names of the villains and the guys that tag along on both sides... and the way the planet\universe\multiverse is threatened this time, of course. Even death is not an escape, because you ARE going to be brought back to sell more comics with your name on them - it's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when".
Imagine if films were treated the same way? that we'd be going to cinemas not to watch an interesting movie with a fresh plot and free from any of the baggage and implications of being in a "multiverse", but instead watch Scarface team up with Walther White to oppose Robocop and John McClaine... OH, wait, that's what Disney is trying to do with the Star Wars right now.
In short - interconnectivity needs to go die in a ditch. Leave crossovers and multiverses for the fanfic writers, and actually END your stories with a finale without "but THEN an even BIGGER thing happened!"
Really good video. I was wondering why the quality of the video was so much better than I was expecting. Then I realised it wasn't that copycat channel Nerdstalgic.
SuSuperhero movies are the fast food of movie industry
I’m so glad you’re still making videos
You are right about scope creep. If the Avengers were not saving the galaxy every issue it started to feel off so I switched to West Coast Avengers with a smaller scale and stakes but good stories at their foundation.
The only way to tie it all together in the end of the Kang arc is for the Kang in Loki to win his gambit.
Turn the multiversal war into a closed time loop that leads to the formation of a new Sacred Timeline with one Kang victorious up until the point he is deposed and a new multiversal war begins.
I remember reading online a condensed summary years ago,
of a comic book character's (very long) arc one time,
and it just dawned on me at that moment how ridiculous it was.
It was like, and I'm just loosely paraphrasing from memory here,
*_“But then he had a son with that woman, but she didn't know he was a clone of his son, then the mother of his other secret son, from a parallel dimension, broke the space time continuum, and sent that son back with the robot father from the fake one, back to before he knew he'd seen him the first time, so then he had a baby with her, but it was a girl because her mother had made a deal with the devil to wipe his memory in exchange for the son, who was actually his father, which is why he disappeared when the other-dimension him met him after the clone had started making robots... etc. etc.”_*
And it was at that moment I totally stopped caring about comic book superheroes.
The lack of boundaries is the death of art.
I think this is an overarching problem that the MCU is going to have to grapple with. When they started out, they were able to just take entire decades of character events and throw them in a blender, distilling some of the consequential stories from their entire runs into discrete films that had crumbs to tie into the overarching arc. As someone who had lapsed out of reading comics, it was a breath of fresh air. But now after 15 years and however many hours of content, the cinematic universes are becoming as labyrinthine and hard to follow as the comics they were spawned from. The more runtime that's consumed with setting up other events or referring to other stuff people feel like they need to know going in, the less breathing room there is for good stories. (And ultimately whatever soap opera stuff is happening in a comic book, I think people are willing to forgive it if they like the actual story.)
😂hahah I totally get that , I've been there. But you got to remember that characters bio is a 60 yr story arc, with hundreds of issues and dozens of writers, with more than a few retcons and reboots.
Personally I think it's best to only learn a characters general power set and alignment. Then keep your own continuity for them
@naryanr
Nope. The lack of boundaries is the beginning of art.
@@IkeOkerekeNews Well there has never been a complete lack of boundaries.
So I guess you think art hasn't happened yet.
@@naryanr
What you mean by this?
Honestly the reason I loved Hawkeye, Ms Marvel, and She-Hulk is because they took a step back from the MASSIVE and focused down on smaller problems. But I also think all the Marvel properties should be touching each other just a little more. Like why wasn't there a teaser for the Marvels at the back of GotG3 (or something like that)? I'm interested to see how Marvel handles this period in the next few movies/shows. DC actually has a huge advantage right now with new management and a hard reboot. Interesting time for these movies for sure.
The thing is; Villians do NOT have to become bigger and bigger, that is simply the easy solution to progression (and the one requiring the least amont of creativity)
2:59, never thought of it like that, well put!
"I don't particularly like winning"
- Brennan "IT'LL BE A COLD DAY IN HELL BEFORE I GO OUT LIKE A FUCKIN CHUMP" Lee Mulligan
Really great video topic and script here! Love your superhero videos!
The best marvel property right now is Spiderverse. Unencumbered by shared continuity, the reset feels fresh
This really outlines my reaction to marvel nowadays. It seems like for the past few years they've been in a soft reboot but won't fully commit to the next thing. The TV shows have actually hampered their progress imo, since the events of the shows aren't having REAL implications in the movies, and even some movies (ETERNALS) have had no effect on the larger story. Mix that with just how meh the stories of these movies have been, and I think we're going to start seeing some hard bombs in the next few years.
Disney wont fully commit due to the cost. Plus the current strike action is going to delay more, and the strike action will stop even more. It doesnt help when you have Iger also cutting back on a lot of Marvel and SW stuff. WB are having the same issues.
I mean they're obviously waiting until they can use the X-Men characters and for the secret wars events so that they can do an actual reset.
I don't know why anyone is expecting decent quality from them until then.
@@Moneybagzzz What are the "secret wars"?
I really love the comic book/graphic novel format. I also adore Batman and Superman. It takes a LOT of persuasion for me to experience superhero stories through comics for many of the reasons you state. Without a lifetime of prior access to Marvel or DC in book form, I am more satisfied following stand-alone stories, animation, and films; I just can't recall the last MCU or Snyder film I've cared enough about.
As a kid in the late '60s and early '70s, I loved the Bizarro Superman universe. As I recall, it was first introduced in the margins or back pages of regular comics, next a "flipped" dual issue, then gradually became its own single-subject comic. To me, a Mad magazine fan, it was literally the comic writers "taking the mickey" out of themselves, poking their own finger into their own eye.
Ironically, Phase 4 reminds me MORE of classic comic storytelling than Phases 1-3. It’s just heroes doing their own thing in different corners of the world. Sometimes there’s an occasional crossover but mostly you’re limited to their POV and that’s ok. Say what you want about the good-to-disappointing ratio, but at least Marvel’s willing to experiment with their genre variety.
with what happened to multiverse of madness I wouldn't say Marvel is willing to experiment with genre variety.
@@DANiel25178 It went full PG-13-bordering-on-R horror movie. Which is what one might expect from hiring Sam Raimi to direct.
This was fantastic! I learned so much and enjoyed it immensely.
3:24 great explanation of the effort to maintain attention. It’s not easy.
Always love your videos!
This is why I love the latest One Piece Live Action. It's fresh and a new take on the "superhero" and finally nailing another type of "comic" (manga) adaptation is great for the industry.
The thing that I think both the execs at Marvel & DC (comics arena included often too tbh) fail to internalize is that you can raise stakes at an emotional level rather than simply the physical & still pack a punch. It’s something that, funnily enough, GotG 3 just proved. The High Evolutionary wasn’t on some specific kick to destroy Earth but simply put was building his own personal ant farm & would need to rob the Guardians of a loved one to get what he wanted. It was still tragic, action-packed, powerful & exciting. Though I personally am not a huge GotG fan & am not as head over heels over 3 particularly as so many are, I recognize that it’s one of the best films in the MCU experiment & I understand why it’s beloved by fans simply because the creatives who made it knew that you can tie stakes to characters without having to include the fate of the universe only for the sake of one-upping what came before. There was quantitatively more at risk in GotG 1 than 3, but that didn’t make 3 a less entertaining film.
5:40 this would have been the perfect “I am inevitable” quote moment
Marvel man myself. The stories were drifting as of the late 90s with 2k and on being subpar at best. Got out when their desire to start a new series every week to get number one issues for collectors was interrupting good stories.
as a long-standing DC fanboy, i felt this video in my bones.. and it's as you say: to get the maximum value from the crossover event movies, you'll need to keep up with ALL of the tangential movies/shows. you can't JUST read X-Men and Spider-Man [which were 2-5x titles each] anymore, you need to pick up Thor and Iron Man, too. no wonder we're fatigued 😵💫
People exhaggerate the importance of seeing all the movies before the next big event. I watched Ragnarok with my buddy who dropped out of the Marvel movies after Avengers I (only picking up a few here and there, like Guardians) and then Infinity War to see what happened to Thor. Just one good movie can give enough incentive to check out the crossover, even if you don't follow the other threads. Iron Man was that movie for Avengers (who honestly gives a damn about Captain America, Thor 1 or Incredible Hulk, hands please?), Winter Soldier/Civil War for Age of Ultron, Ragnarok for Infinity War...
But that's the problem: they haven't made a good movie in the latest phase that hooks into the main plot (Guardians 3 was great, but it was pretty self-contained).
I remember in college thinking "I'll just keep up with the Batman comics" and then realized it would be like 8 comics per month and I didn't want to dedicate the energy to it. I'll just pirate the comics.
Thanks for the video!
i got into comics in a big way about the same time as you, the early 2000s. i had dipped my toes in a bit before hand here and there, and was turned off by the very issues you cite here, the cost (of money and brainspace) in following multiple different titles to "get the whole story." but in the early 2000s i decided just grab a book that looked interesting to me and read it. if i liked it, i'd get the next issue. if i liked the characters i'd try other books with them, but not sweat it with other books with other characters i didn't like. i found i was able to follow the story just fine, and i got the full experience on the stories and characters i cared about, and if i didn't get everything for "knife-fist guy" then i was okay with it.
also i find the assertion that most people are dedicated to either DC or Marvel...not my experience. people who only watch the movies, maybe (and that's fine, i don't want to gatekeep), but i've found any geek who is a comic book reader, while she or he will have a preference, still knows a good deal about both of the Big Two.
I started reading comics in the mid 80s in late elementary school and from day 1 my favs were Superman and Spiderman. I never felt the need to choose DC or Marvel.
This really adds some nice context for somebody like me who only watched the movies and doesn't read comics.
this is exactly my story with comic books
but i started in 1993 when superman died
i had to stop in 2008
when i was collecting every single book DC sold
and was spending $200 per month
There is an economic component you’ve overlooked: the largest market growth for films in the past decade has been in the non-English-speaking world, despite most major movies being produced in English. Superhero and action movies lose less revenue when dubbed or subbed because the dialog can largely be ignored - ‘splosions and outfits translate to all languages and literacy levels!
Cant wait to see you Write 1 Nerd, Mr Nerdwriter1
I learned of the term 'planned obsolescence' recently, an economic phenomena, a natural byproduct of monopoly whereby the lifecycle of consumer products is reduced in order to increase profits, seems like the same kind of thing is happening in cinema, predictable plots without substance, bland characters, everything is watered down in order to appeal to an international market. Consumers could theoretically choose something better but that is unlikely to happen because we are creatures of habit.
I think the MCU’s Secret Wars movie is going to act as it’s big company wide reboot. The event will be so cataclysmic that it’ll completely reset the MCU to day 1 and it will end with a new Marvel movie universe being born, one that’s much closer to the comics
Today I learned Allred apparently did Superman at some point. I gotta go find that. Thanks for bringing up the problems with comics and the barriers to entry.
The book to which you are (probably) referring is 'Superman: Space Age,' drawn by Mike Allred and written by the always excellent mark Russell. I am a life-long Superman fan (he is my favourite fictional character), and I can honestly say that the miniseries sits just behind Grant Morrison's 'All-Star Superman' and Alan Moore's 'For the Man Who Has Everything' as one of the greatest Superman stories ever written. Oh, and do snap up Tom King's 'Superman: Up in the Sky' if you can; you won't be sorry.
Superman: Space Age came out this year (maybe last year?) Which is probably why you didn't know about it
Awesome vid
I like both. Had a 2000s small but thick Marvel Calendar with art, profiles and facts of various characters so my basic knowledge of characters was enriched with these little factoids.
But yeah, I'm not a nerd or geek for it. The multiple reboots are a headache.
I loved the cartoon renditions enjoyed the older superhero movies until they got more "big" in the 2010s.
I RARELY enjoy DC and Marvel superhero content now, but when I do its some old or new series episodes.
I realised this when people were confused about Scarlet Witch in Dr Strange 2. Only then I realised that so much work has to be done before watching that movie ie follow Wandavision.
I keep to indies comics 90% of the time due to the over-saturation in marvel and Dc-with exceptions for known classics and older works (because they just hit different).
You pretty much expressed why, but I know in my heart of hearts I am just a hipster both before and after it was cool
0:22 Thanks for mentioning Valiant; the company is a bit of a mess now, but their comics are really worth reading
They had such potential
@@breakupgoogle As I recall, the current company was sold to some bigger company, and they put less focus on the actual comics and more on other media (I’m actually looking forward to the new Shadowman game) and have outsourced the comics to another, smaller indie company starting next year
I feel like most of the superhero fatigue isn’t from Marvel but from other brands trying to emulate them but failing
dc literally happens inside marvel universe because of crossovers and dc reboots but marvel never reboots and therefore
reading anything marvel matters because all of it is cannon. reading dc is just waiting for another reboot, so just read only hyped arks or preffered series. in marvel reading everything incl mystery comics is viable and matters. even robot human torch
Awesome analysis. I miss Coffee on a Tuesday
At least he waited till the end of the video to plug his book
This is a big reason why I never really got into superhero comics, I read a lot of Batman but I mostly read Indie comics or horror E.C comics
I think the big problem with these films and why the new ones are failing is that you need to be really big fan to actually watch them. You had to start when they started and was watching them all the time. For anyone who was not fan at that time, there is absolutly 0 reason to start now. They make new films only for people who watched the films before, but some of these people will eventualy fall off. Yes, there will always be new people that watch the new film even when they did not seen any of the older films before, but there will also be much more of those, who was watching the older films and then stoped (for any reason, lack of time, lack of interest, new stuff coming in, RL things...).
Im one of those people that never started caring enough to actually watch these film. Yes, I did see some of the first ones, but then there was more and more and more... and I was always like "yea, i will watch that later", but they kept coming and now there is just way too many of them. Its fine to go and watch series of 3-4 films... but like 20 with shows and other stuff around? No frcking way.
I feel there's also the matter of people getting tired of the MCU. Not everyone can keep their interest after 25+ movies.
For me Endgame was the moment I thought "That was so good! Now I don't need any more. Let's wrap it up. I'm done with this."
The most exciting thing Marvel did was Netflix Daredevil. That stoy was small, on a human scale and the small cross over features were a... well, feature. No need to bring in a bunch of other hero's all the time. I tapped out on that one as soon as it became clear I had to watch all of Iron Fist to keep understanding the entire story. But season 1 of Daredevil and season 1 of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were good small stories.
I was saying this to my friends a couple weeks ago. I had just watched Ant Man Quanumania and Secret Invasion and thought, yeah, this continuity is getting to be absolutely fuckered. With the Infinity Saga they managed to do the thing that comic books have been trying to do for decades, make a sensible and well-told crossover event, but capitalism never sleeps and so the show must go on and now it's so fucking convoluted that nothing can tie it all together again in a sensible way. The need for every superhero to fight world-ending stakes means that Earth is threatened on like fifty different fronts and none of them make sense relative to one another and it's just exhausting.
Great Video! I reccommend investing a bit more time into the thumbnail, not that I hate it but in my opinion it doesnt quite reflect the quality of the video! Great work!
3:47
Retcon (retro-continuity)
I wish your book was available on Kindle in Australia.
Stan Lee’s concept of “The Illusion of Change” has simultaneously saved and ruined comics.
Saturated by this clapped genre
The issue is when we say that we never thought would "achieve this"... We should not want this. Movie as a medium is incredibly ill suited to serialization, for obvious reasons. The fact that Marvel succeeded to do it is a marvel (pun intended) of commercialism, but it change the gravity field of the movie making industry in a way it may never ever recover from. The expectation for stake holders is now money making juggernauts, movies after movies after movies of roughly the same think, as long as the money comes in...
I think superhero movies peaked with the Thanos story. I really enjoyed the X-Men reboot until the Apocalypse story. I thought the first two with Fassbender and McAvoy were quite good and good for repeated viewings. I’m officially burnt out on the genre though and it’ll take something really great for me to pay attention again. Maybe Secret Wars, but I’m skeptical. Another great, thought provoking piece from Evan.
i had to pause for a second when you called a cinematic universe a tapestry. that just stuck in my mind now. colorful way to think about it.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
@nerdwriter1 Another great vid! Can you do one on Hokusai plzzzz??
It's mostly Disney that killed Marvel's momentum with the need to fill their Disney+ catalogue. I didn't really expect that kind of thinking from them considering the long history in film-making and art in general, but they ended up being typical investors that demand ubreasonable returns without doing the work. The first 3 phases were masterfully crafted and the pacing felt right with the increasing stakes, most of the films felt necessary, now most of it just seems like content and the TV series have even more time to feel like content than the mediocre movies.
I don't know if any director would even have the motivation to make a heartfelt loveletter to a specific hero or franchise considering what it'll amount to in the grand scheme of things, except someone like Gunn who's already invested in Guardians. Meanwhile, DC's become kinda interesting
The big high stakes stories tend to come at the end of a writer's run and the soft reboot as another writer takes over and reboots things to serve the types of stories that writer wants to tell; I'm not so sure it's diminishing returns so much as tying up loose ends, proving you could write a global or cosmic stakes Avengers or JLA story to get in the running for writing those books, and providing a respite after the storm atmosphere for the next writer to ease into their run on the book. Also going out with a bang and consequently higher sales certainly obviates any criticism that you left the book because of poor sales.
Great point. The writer's voice and their intentions for a character are usually clearer at the start/midpoint of their run before the high stakes crossover stuff happens. Big climactic storylines are usually more formulaic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as they give us a break before the next batch of more personal day-in-the-life chapters.
I dunno though dude, all the comic book nerds I know buy both and other publishers as well like me. Reading both Marvel and DC doesn't seem unusual at all.
soft reboot sounds like a podcast id obsess about
Honestly marvel could easily restart from zero after the introduction of multiverse, they could make standalone movies of each characters from different universe and see the difference. Since comics has so many storylines, they can bring back down the stakes again and make great movies again
“online pessimism” is the reflection of not just how “fans” think, it’s simply also average movie goers’ objection to bad projects. Superhero fatigue is upon us and whether you admit it or not it’s extremely conspicuous.
Their fall from grace started with the shift to quantity over quality. Mainly the TV shows. There are way too many. Which not only is too time-consuming (and kinda required), but also it hinders quality control. You get a a few great shows like Loki and Wandavision, but also a barrage of lackluster ones. (It's happening with Star Wars too, so this is more of an overarching Disney problem). Then it started happening to the movies. The quality dropped as well as they keep pumping them out aimlessly. This resulted in the inevitable fatigue. Audiences are tired of getting disappointed by most entries.
They really need to slow down and focus on fewer movies (they should halt the shows for a while). Take their time to polish the scripts and hire more talented directors. They've been struggling without the Russo Brothers and James Gunn.
This is why I just can't get into superhero comics, it's obvious the publishers don't respect their readers and they care more about making money. They overuse crossovers and what's supposed to be events that will forever re-shape the world of the comic in order to encourage fans to buy more issues. Only to find they've painted themselves into a corner, so they take the lazy way out and simply hit the undo button with a soft reboot. Making all the monetary and emotional investment by the fans a complete waste of time. Rinse and repeat.
It's clear they don't give two shits about telling a complete story, it's all about keeping the story running as long as possible so that fans can buy more comics. I man, for fuck's sake, Superman has been running for damned near 100 years. Just how much story is there left to tell? Not that the current writers know, they didn't create the character, they have no idea what how the story was intended to play out.
I've been following your channel for a few years now and in general, I admire your enormous culture and your ability to reveal things that are not obvious to the general public, as well as your power of communication. However, there is a cultural form that seems to me to be always missing. I'm referring to your lack of knowledge of European comics, especially French and Belgian schools. I could give many examples, but just to mention one that fits into this video, what you call Crossover Events was invented by the French magazine Au Suivant, soon followed by Tintin magazine. Fortunately, European comics had very few superheroes, but this is already an aesthetic preference of mine.
I like both, but more specifically I love spiderman and batman, I do check stories from other characters but those two are my bread and butter
My informal rule: Once your franchise requires me to switch to a different form of media (movies to TV; TV to video games, etc., movies to comics, etc.) just to be able to maintain understanding of your narrative, I'm out.
Hi, can you make an episode on umbrella academy. Specifically on Klaus and Ben's relationship. How Ben is klaus' subconscious and how it evolves throughout the show.
I would say it’s important for studios to focus more on quality, standalone, superhero movies right now, then crossovers, I mean, you can’t top end game so I would say take a mini break, until people are like feeding for more crossovers down the line, then do that again
It started off bad then got worse
How are bad movies inevitable?! It really cannot be that hard to hire competent writers, especially if you obviously have the budget
Time constraints. Even with a good team it takes time to make a good movie. But if the studio wants it done in a few months corners will be cut. This is one issue out of many.
As a kid I was big into Marvel. When I was about 10 I switched over to DC cause at that time I was reading comics about war. I think one was called US Marines and another one.
Endgame should've been the end. But y'know how it is with corporations and money
makes me glad I checked out of the movies early.
Personally, I’ve reached the point of shared universe (let alone multiverse) fatigue a long time ago. I’ll try the odd stand alone superhero movie once in a while, but that’s it.
I love this guy.
What do you mean reading vith marvel and dc comics isn't that common? Every person I talk to who is a comic fan reads both. I READ BOTH. I have the new thor series on my pull list right along side the flash. Not to mention that most of the people writing and drawing those books have worked for both companies. Reading from both companies is pretty much the norm. Even if you start with marvel or dc only eventually you identify a writer you really like and then track down all their other works and that usually leads you to something they worked on that was published at the other company.
Nerdwriter: I don't blame Marvel for breaking the rule.
Me: I'll do it for you.
When I got into comics I only read IDW and Dark Horse initially. Eventually I got into Spider-Man and got into Marvel.
I choose Raptors, an indie superhero novel series from Aethon books about side kicks.
It doesn't HAVE to be like this tho. This is classic greed killing the golden goose.
I grew up near a used book store that sold overstocked comics for 10 cents an issue, so I have a lot of Dark Horse, Image, and Vertigo.
With so much random stuff, I still don't really understand why people would limit themselves to just one publisher.
I'm happy with Lobo, Deadpool, the Mask, and the Maxx.
Teams are dumb. Enjoy what you want.
I think Marvel can still get back to a better standard even if it’s not the high quality of phase 2&3. I think cutting down the projects would help. I would like to see the tv shows be more stand alone and not be essential viewing as they intend. What If is fun but didn’t need to tie together imo.
DC, I’m not so sure about. I’m worried that DC killed it with the Synderverse stuff. Never had a chat with a casual movie fan about DCEU like I did with MCU. I’ve seen most of both universes and the non DCEU films but the only ones that seem to strike a chord with my (casual movie going) friends were Reeves’ Batman, Joker, 1st Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
I’m having the same issue with comic books. Love X-Men but the crossovers aren’t easy to follow once HoX/PoX was done. I’ve found No/One on Image comics and loving it. Smaller stakes compared but still amazing storytelling.
Hoping the MCU can get back to focused overall stories with Fiege to watch over it all as I hope for good things for Gunn’s DC run.
I really disagree with your premise. I think that the comic books that paved the way used the solutions for generating interest that they had at the time - which was stake-raising. But having tested that for several decades with Superheroes, Cowboys, Animes and Shark Jumps, I think that we've evolved as writers and audiences to realize that not every story needs to be bigger than the last thing in order for us to write/watch it. As an audience, sometimes watching someone save their son or help their friend or fight corruption, or cope with their mental health can still seem important even if we acknowledge that these same people just jaw-punched a literal god to save the universe 2 years ago. And to top it off, a lot of these stories are actually more powerful as a result of their smaller, but more personal stakes.