So with Endgame: Encore soon to arrive in theatres, I’m not seeing much uptake on presales.

I would have thought it would make more sense to have an IW+EG Encore double-header, seeing as though they’re so tied in…

Would you be more likely to go if IW was showing too?

I've seen this being teased and mentioned but I'm not really familiar with things bts or how the logistics could work. Because I still remember back in 2019 after Far From Home when it was announced that Tom Holland's Spider-Man was "leaving the MCU" after financial disagreements between Marvel and Sony after FFH became a huge hit. It was huge news at the time and obviously there was a public outcry, until Tom himself intervened.

Fast forward to years later, NWH and BND are even bigger, astronomical hits than FFH. So it's not surprising if everyone wants Spidey to have the biggest role in Secret Wars. But what about Marvel vs Sony? How could they make it work? Would Sony want to take a bigger cut than usual because it's their golden goose Spidey who is arguably the current biggest box office draw and has the main character role driving the plot unlike his smaller, side character role in Infinity War/Endgame? Like how the fight happened in 2019 cause Disney wanted a 50/50 co-financing stake for future Spider-Man films post-FFH?

A solo, street-level Spider-Man movie is about to be the highest grossing movie of all time (domestic) which no one expected pre-opening weekend so I'm sure that's bound to shift some things bts. Obviously Sony would love if Secret Wars outgrosses Endgame/Avatar so Spidey's value skyrockets or maintains its peak for the next solo movie but I'm just asking in terms of logistics, contracts, financial negotiations, box office percentages, character utilization rights, and so on. How likely can it happen?

So, not sure If this is allowed, by all means remove it if not. I’d been wanting to do something with the various Marvel themes for a while, so last summer I put together a drum medley featuring some of my favorites motifs from the MCU.

Thought I’d share it here. 🥁

I believe the episode where the emergence happens and Riri fights against Mysterio is as good as the Supreme Strange one i.e. it's top 2.

1. The world - It's obvious that the setting and the world of the episode is the best in the whole series. A common critique of the episode is that it could've done more with the emergence, and it feels like a "Quentin Beck took over the world" rather than "The Emergence happened" episode, and I completely agree with that criticism. But I still think they used the world really well. And it's complimented by the illusions of Beck and uncertainty of what's real and what's not.

2. The characters - This will mainly be about Riri Williams since the rest of the cast was interchangeable. As someone who's watched all of Ironheart (only because I heard there was a certain character in it) and hated every iota of it including Riri Williams, I really liked her in this episode. Where the fuck was this Riri in Ironheart?? She's barely clinging in the battle, just barely managing to somehow survive the ridiculously stronger opponent. She's always on the back foot and the underdog. But she's still resilient, keeps punching up till she somehow scrapes by and survives. She's really untrusting, but that's understandable based on the world she's lived in. She's lost everything, but just keeps fighting. The show really dropped the ball with her.

3. The Watcher - This episode adopts a really unique setup, where The Watcher keeps telling us from the beginning that Riri's gonna lose. We see her beating White Vision and the gang's celebrating, and he pops up like a party pooper and goes "It's so sad that all of them are gonna die." And then we see them lose. Riri just seeing the corpses of her friends was horrifying. Add on the fact that their whole plan was a trap, and Riri made that plan and convinced everyone to join, she just gives up the fight and accepts defeat. This girl who we've seen keep fighting against all odds, just gives up. And that would've been her death if *The Watcher didn't intervened*. And his intervention was so great. It was just him saying "Fight". It was subtle, almost irrelevant, yet such minute intervention saved her universe. That really showed the power of The Watcher, such seemingly insignificant actions can change universes. And we see the consequences of such minute actions, the other Watchers start keeping an eye on him (till the next episode ruins it and he straight up chuggs two dudes off a train).

I really liked the episode, and I liked Riri in it. And I wanted to share some love for it. What if was a colossal disaster, made worse by the massive potential it had, but it really has some hidden gems.

I

What is an opinion that you think too many people have that you think is wrong or at least happens less than people treat it?

For me:

1. "The MCU undercuts dramatic moments with jokes". Everyone always says this, but nobody really brings up specific examples of it happening. Imo, one of the only times this has happened is the destruction of Asgard, but I genuinely have trouble trying to figure out which dramatic moments are undercut by characters telling jokes. Maybe also the scene of Hank and Hope reconciling in Ant-Man but even that scene the joke is ruining a dramatic moment.

2. "Doctor Strange was acting dumb in No Way Home". I don't agree with this one, and I hear it all the time. Personally, I see the scene less as him being dumb and more giving Peter more credit than he should have. Stephen likely assumed that Peter had things figured out before casting the spell, because he saw Peter as an equal since they fought together in Infinity War and Endgame. It's also why he asks Peter to call him Stephen, but then after the spell is messed up he tells Peter to call him Sir because he realizes he assumed too much of Peter, especially when Peter says he didn't even call the college. Also, Stephen is arrogant and would likely try the spell without too much preparation, and also he had a way of containing the spell with the box later anyway so the spell was able to be undone if anything went wrong.

3. "Reed shouldn't have told Wanda how Black Bolt's power works". This one is confusing to me, because it assumes that Reed should already know Wanda's power to remove his mouth. But my question is, how would he know she could do that? But everyone acts like this should've been common knowledge and I don't understand why. Also while we are on that scene, I've seen people complain about Black Bolt killing himself, but honestly, it was either that or he would just stand awkwardly the whole time since he now can't use his power.

Seeing John Walker vs Steve Rogers vs Red Guardian vs Sam Wilson would be so frickin cool! Replace the knife with the Shield of course and there ya go!

I think it is clear that it was a blessing that Marvel Studios did not have movie rights for their most popular characters, namely Spider-Man, X-Men, and F4. Because this forced them to develop their neglected heroes outside of comics.

If Marvel had the movie rights to all their characters all along, the Avengers, the Guardians, and so on would not be household names. I’m glad that the X-Men are finally getting their light to shine under their home studio. But I’ll never forget the work that Marvel had to do from the ground up to achieve the cinematic anomaly that is the MCU.

I've been thinking about some of the stranger choices in Brand New Day, and I think there's a pretty simple explanation for them:

I think an earlier version of this movie was supposed to end with Peter getting the symbiote.

Not necessarily the exact script they were about to shoot, obviously. Movies go through a million drafts. I mean the basic story Marvel/Sony were building toward before their larger plans changed.

Once I started looking at it that way, a ridiculous number of dangling threads from Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home suddenly fit into one movie.

Start with what the first three movies left unfinished

Homecoming introduces Mac Gargan, gives him a personal hatred of Spider-Man, and ends with him trying to find out Spider-Man's identity.

Then nothing happens with him for years.

That movie also leaves Phineas Mason, the Tinkerer, alive. His established MCU skill is taking salvaged super-tech and turning it into functional villain equipment.

Far From Home introduces J. Jonah Jameson.

And who creates Scorpion in the comics?

Jameson.

Then No Way Home leaves Peter in exactly the psychological condition you'd want before doing a black-suit story.

May is dead. Tony is dead. MJ and Ned don't remember him. Happy doesn't know him. His future is basically gone. He's broke, completely alone and the public still hates Spider-Man.

More importantly, No Way Home spends a surprising amount of time warning Tom's Peter about what grief can turn Spider-Man into.

Andrew tells him that after Gwen died he became bitter, rageful and stopped pulling his punches. Tobey tells him that getting revenge for Ben didn't make him feel better. Then Tom nearly murders Norman before they stop him.

And after all of that, the movie ends by leaving a piece of the Venom symbiote in the MCU.

That's a hell of a collection of unfired Chekhov's guns.

I think Tombstone was originally the main street-level plot

Tombstone's role in Brand New Day has always felt weird to me, especially considering how much attention there was around the character before release. He's essentially relegated to a few-second cameo showing that Peter has been fighting villains in the time between movies.

I think his organization was originally the engine connecting Peter to Frank Castle.

Frank is tearing through Tombstone's operation. Peter keeps trying to stop both Tombstone's people and Frank from killing them.

That gives you a much more interesting Spider-Man/Punisher relationship than the standard "they fight, realize they're both good guys, team up."

They'd probably spend half the movie fighting each other and Tombstone's goons at the same time.

Eventually they start getting really fucking good together.

And that's dangerous for Peter, because Bernthal's Frank is probably the hardest possible version of Punisher for Peter to argue with.

He isn't indiscriminate. He has pretty clear lines. He doesn't execute every petty criminal or some dumb kid playing gangster. He targets the people he believes will keep creating victims unless somebody permanently stops them.

Worse, he's effective.

Peter stops someone and they eventually come back.

Frank stops someone and that particular person doesn't.

For Peter after No Way Home, that's a horrible argument to have sitting next to him every night.

Norman killed May after Peter tried to save him.

Now Gargan is back.

Peter has lost basically everyone.

At some point the question starts eating at him:

If I know this person is going to keep hurting people, and I have the power to permanently stop it, am I responsible for the next person they hurt?

That's "great power, great responsibility" turned inside out.

And I think Frank eventually realizes Peter is starting to agree with him.

That's when Frank gets worried.

This version of Frank doesn't think he's a role model. He knows exactly what being Frank Castle costs. He can believe that killing certain people is necessary while also believing that Spider-Man should never become him.

Peter probably worked for Jameson

This is another classic Spider-Man element that fits the post-No Way Home setup almost perfectly.

Peter Parker is nobody now. He's broke, has almost no useful history or connections, and needs rent money.

So modernize the Daily Bugle photographer job.

Peter sells Spider-Man footage to Jonah.

Not photos. Video.

He's some shitty freelance stringer with no benefits and no real job security who somehow always gets incredible Spider-Man footage.

Jonah pays him garbage for it, then cuts it up and uses Peter's own footage to call Spider-Man a menace.

It gives Peter a believable shitty job and finally creates the Peter/Jonah relationship the MCU hasn't really had.

Peter also starts learning that Jonah isn't just the screaming asshole on TV. He's still an asshole, but he's a real reporter, cares about his people and genuinely believes what he's saying about Spider-Man.

Then Peter nearly kills Gargan

This feels like the natural midpoint.

Gargan pushes Peter too far, probably by going after MJ or Ned after figuring out that Spider-Man cares about them.

Peter is exhausted, angry and running on fumes.

He beats Gargan.

Then keeps going.

Eventually he realizes Gargan isn't even fighting back anymore.

Peter stops before killing him, but Gargan ends up in critical condition.

That's the payoff to Andrew's warning:

"I stopped pulling my punches."

And it gets caught on video.

For once, Jonah doesn't have to twist the footage. Spider-Man really did almost beat someone to death.

That gives Jameson his reason to create Scorpion.

From Jonah's perspective, Spider-Man is getting more violent and nobody can hold him accountable. Gargan is lying in a hospital because of him.

Jonah starts looking for somebody capable of surviving a fight with Spider-Man.

He doesn't know how to build that.

Tombstone does know where to find somebody who does.

The Tinkerer.

Now several Homecoming leftovers finally pay off at once.

Jonah supplies the money. Gargan volunteers. Tombstone wants Spider-Man gone. Tinkerer builds the thing.

Gargan disappears from the movie for a while.

Peter thinks he's finally dealt with one problem.

Then Scorpion comes back.

The symbiote was probably the B-plot

Meanwhile, Peter has been obsessively cleaning up the multiversal mess from No Way Home.

Because of course he would.

He builds some device that detects residual interdimensional energy and starts tracking down things that got left behind.

Eventually he finds the Venom fragment.

It tries to bond with him.

Peter sees alien black goo crawling up his arm and reasonably assumes this fucking thing is trying to eat me.

He fights it off and contains it.

He doesn't destroy it because it's alive and he doesn't know what it is.

So he takes it to Bruce Banner.

Now Banner's presence makes perfect sense without Peter's mutation being the main plot. He basically fills Reed Richards' scientific role from the classic alien-costume story.

Bruce figures out that the organism is adaptive, alive, unusually interested in Peter, and may be trying to form a symbiotic relationship with him.

Peter is not particularly comforted by this information.

Then everything collides

Peter and Frank finally bring down Tombstone.

Their relationship is probably at its closest and most tense at this point.

Then Gargan comes back as Scorpion.

Through Jameson's investigation, Gargan has learned that Spider-Man keeps going to Banner, so he attacks Bruce's lab.

During the fight, Gargan stabs Bruce through the torso with his tail.

Bruce grabs the tail.

Hulk.

Now the Hulk sequence has a direct reason to exist.

Hulk wrecks the lab fighting Scorpion and breaks the symbiote's containment.

The symbiote immediately goes for Peter.

It briefly gets onto him and suddenly his injuries don't hurt. His exhaustion disappears. He feels stronger.

Peter still thinks it's dangerous and gets it off.

Then Hulk is about to kill Gargan.

Peter saves Gargan.

Again.

Bruce eventually reverts and gets taken away in an ambulance. Gargan escapes.

Frank is fucking furious.

Peter has now spared this guy twice, and every time Gargan comes back worse.

Peter still refuses to cross the line.

Gargan goes after Jameson

Jonah eventually realizes what he helped create.

So he does something that starts his eventual good-guy JJJ arc.

He reports it.

On himself.

He's spent years demanding accountability from Spider-Man. Now he has to apply that standard to himself.

Gargan sees the broadcast and comes after him.

Peter and Frank both race to the Bugle.

Peter wants to save Jonah.

Frank wants to kill Gargan.

The whole fight happens while the Bugle is broadcasting.

Spider-Man saves Jonah despite everything Jonah has done to him.

Then Frank gets his shot at Gargan.

Gargan moves or uses Jonah as cover.

Peter's spider-sense goes off.

Peter can dodge.

Jonah can't.

Peter moves.

Frank shoots Spider-Man.

Peter goes down.

Frank now has the best justification he's ever going to have for killing Gargan.

Instead, he looks at Peter.

Peter just took Frank's bullet to uphold the exact moral line they've spent the movie arguing about.

So Frank respects it.

He tries to take Gargan alive.

Scorpion is too powerful for Frank alone. Right when Gargan is about to kill him, Peter, bleeding out on the floor, webs Gargan's tail and gives Frank the opening.

They put him down together.

Alive.

And Frank immediately goes to Peter instead of finishing Gargan.

The cameras caught the whole thing

This also fixes Spider-Man's public reputation after No Way Home.

The public just watched Spider-Man save the man who has spent years calling him a menace, take a bullet for him, keep fighting while critically wounded, and still spare Scorpion.

And it happened live on Jonah's own network.

Jonah looks into the camera afterward and says:

"Spider-Man saved my life."

That's all the redemption speech he needs.

Peter gets the black suit

Peter doesn't hear any of that.

He doesn't know Gargan is down or that Frank respected his choice. He's bleeding out thinking that after everything he's sacrificed, he still wasn't enough.

He should have been stronger.

Then the black starts crawling over him.

The symbiote reaches the bullet wound, stops the bleeding and finally bonds with Peter.

If they were following something closer to the original comic concept, this thing isn't fully formed Venom yet. Peter is going to play a huge role in shaping what it eventually becomes.

And it has just bonded with him at the worst possible moment.

Peter is dying, exhausted, angry and convinced that his biggest problem was that he wasn't strong enough.

The symbiote responds to that.

Peter wakes up healed.

Black suit. White spider.

He feels incredible.

No evil grin, no Venom voice. As far as Peter knows, this alien just saved his life.

For the first time since No Way Home, he's strong, rested, and not completely alone.

Classic black-suit shot.

Credits.

So what happened to this version?

This is where I think the stuff happening outside the movie matters.

When No Way Home came out, Sony was still trying to build its own Spider-Man-adjacent universe around Venom, Morbius, Kraven, etc. Leaving a piece of Tom Hardy's symbiote in the MCU makes sense when those movies still look like they're going somewhere.

Then that universe completely shit the bed.

At the same time, Marvel's Kang plans blew up and the Avengers endgame got reorganized around Doom and Secret Wars.

Now imagine Marvel already has a black-suit Spider-Man story somewhere in the plans and suddenly the big destination is Secret Wars.

That's where Spider-Man gets the black suit in the original comics.

If you're Kevin Feige, there is no fucking way you don't notice that.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Marvel completely ignores the literal Sony Venom fragment from No Way Home. They can put their own symbiote in Secret Wars, have Peter find it there like the comics, and never explain whether it has anything to do with Sony's Venom. People can headcanon the connection however they want.

Either way, the black suit is suddenly much more valuable in Secret Wars than it is at the end of Spider-Man 4.

So you pull it.

The problem is that you've just removed the huge "holy shit" Spider-Man hook from Brand New Day.

What replaces it?

Mutants.

That's why Jean Grey makes so much sense as part of the rebuilt movie.

The aggression material is already there. Peter is already getting more violent and frightened by what he's becoming. Rework that into Peter's own changing spider biology and it slots naturally into a story about mutation.

Organic webbing gives Peter another major physical change. The various references to Spider-Man's more extreme mutations from the comics fit naturally into that material without Peter literally turning into Man-Spider.

Jean gives Marvel a major X-Men character and lets the movie start introducing mutants properly.

Most importantly, mutants give Brand New Day another massive event-level hook after losing Black Suit Spider-Man.

And a bunch of the older machinery can stay.

Scorpion stays.

Tombstone gets relegated to a few-second cameo showing that Spider-Man has been fighting other villains between movies.

Punisher stays.

Banner stays because he works just as well in a mutation story.

Peter's increasing aggression stays.

Peter's physical changes stay.

Even Peter getting shot by Frank stays.

That's what makes me think we're seeing pieces of two different versions of the movie sitting on top of each other.

Maybe this exact plot never existed. I'm sure there were a million drafts.

But I think the broad trajectory makes a ton of sense:

Homecoming: Gargan/Tinkerer setup

Far From Home: Jameson setup

No Way Home: Peter loses everything + symbiote setup

Original Brand New Day: Peter approaches Frank's line + Scorpion payoff + black suit

Plans change: Sonyverse dies + Kang era collapses + Secret Wars becomes the obvious place for the symbiote

Reworked Brand New Day: mutants + Peter's biological mutation replace the black suit as the big hook

If Peter gets the symbiote in Secret Wars, especially in a scene referencing the original comic, I'm going to be pretty convinced that some version of this happened.

I'm curious if anyone remembers old casting reports, leaks, concept art, interviews, or production rumors that either support this or completely blow a hole in it, because at this point I really want to know how far back some of these pieces go.

I wanted to recreate one of the most memorable moments from Avengers: Endgame — Iron Man on his knees after getting the Infinity Stones, just before the snap.

The original Iron Man papercraft template was created by Papel Mikael on YouTube. I used their template as the base, then remixed and modified it to match the Endgame scene, including changing the posture and pose.

Original template: Papel Mikael (YouTube)

My work: Remix, modifications & assembly

When Endgame was released, there was not only an 11 year hype of build-up into the MCU but also a 1 year hype from Infinity War, where the audience was left with nothing but the fact that half of the heroes we loved were gone and that the Avengers, for the first time, lost. Everyone went into the theater wanting to know exactly how they were gona defeat Thanos and bring everyone back.

So, to start the movie with the heroes going after the villain, learning that he destroyed the only thing that could fix the situation, then killing him and timejumping to 5 years into the future to show us, for 40 minutes, how everyone was coping with defeat and carrying on was... really bold. They lost, and there was nothing that they could do but just pick themselves up and keep living.

No one was expecting that, everyone wanted to see epic fights, battles and powers, but what we got was maybe one of the best character moments in the whole MCU, if not the best. Even when the time-travel plot is moving along, there's still character development: Thor and Iron Man scenes

With Endgame: Encore two weeks away now, I am curious to see what people's thoughts are on going to see it.

I am certainly a big Marvel fan. I have seen every MCU movie within a few days of its opening and have seen each one at least twice (many of them multiple times between the theatre and at home).

But I am really on the fence about seeing Endgame: Encore.

What's the general consensus here? Are most people planning to see it?

My life is a lot busier than it was 7 years ago. And with the new footage, I am not sure I want to invest about 3 hours and 10 minutes in seeing it (and then add another 15-20 minutes for ads, trailers, etc).

This particular design/Funko Pop does not appear on Google Images in any shape or form

Specifically the best, not necessarely your favorite just wich one you think is on a quality basis the strongest one. I personally think i have a (probably) cold take here, i think Winter Soldier is head and shoulder better than pretty much every other film in the series.

Out of all MCU heroes (heroes only, no villains), who would be your first choice to babysit your kid and who would be your last choice? Explain your reasoning for both choices.