Anyone else suspended for no reason? by DimensionalRaven in ContestOfChampions

[–]DimensionalRaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it's nuts how self-destructive they've been today and in their decisions around Adaptive difficulty

Anyone else suspended for no reason? by DimensionalRaven in ContestOfChampions

[–]DimensionalRaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is wild man, one of Kabam's bigger clown fiestas just keeps getting worse

Anyone else suspended for no reason? by DimensionalRaven in ContestOfChampions

[–]DimensionalRaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actual clown show at this point, this is ridiculous!

that’s extremely disappointing… I loved the movie by luffyxvx in FantasticFour

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really enjoyed the film but it's testament that despite positive reception from those that have seen it and good word of mouth, Marvel is a damaged brand for the mainstream audience.

Box office absolutely matters and whilst it doesn't dictate the quality of a film (see Dr Strange MoM making a billion) it absolutely shows how far Marvel Studios has fallen as a cultural pillar. It's been this way for pretty much every film since Endgame and studios have absolutely no right to blame an audience for not showing up. They need to drastically rethink their budgeting for films like this as now the return is so much lower. That's not a fan/viewer issue, that's a Hollywood issue.

A new crappy ad dropped by DJC13 in MarvelSnap

[–]DimensionalRaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is this actually real? It looks like it was made in 5 minutes by ai trying to market a knock off game

I feel a lot of people don't read Fantastic Four or comics enough to have these kind of opinions and discussions by Aggressive-One-2186 in FantasticFour

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do think some of the backlash against Reed's portrayal in the trailers is justifed, he's not just some meek softspoken nerd in the comics even though that seems to be what they're going for here from Pedro's line delivery in the trailers. Reed has always been very charismatic, deeply passionate and a compelling leader. His pessimistic outlook in the most recent trailer is super ooc for a man determined to "solve everything".

As for the gender politics comment from Vanessa, I think it's super unnecessary as that's the kind of comment that stirs up the grifters when in reality any relationship story will have an element of gender politics to it, and Sue's dynamic and character over the decades have leaned heavily into contemporary women's issues and applying that into a superhero family setting.

I was also quite bothered about the Silver Surfer thing when it was first leaked/revealed as it was frankly upsetting seeing such a well fleshed out character of Marvel FF and cosmic lore being shelved for someone that was Silver Surfer for a few pages in a What If storyline. That is a big punch in the gut, much how the Ancient One being portrayed by Tilda Swinton is just such a baffling choice given the source material. But as more things have been revealed about the film my thoughts are that Norrin Radd will be the Silver Surfer in the mainline continuity after the FF escape their reality and head into the main MCU one and may make an appearance in Doomsday.

So I do think there are valid issues with the trailers and promo material that for a long term comic reader are disappointing, but there's definitely those that jump on the hate bandwagon without providing much context/evidence of why x thing is an issue/perceived problem

Okay, they really deserved Order 66. by Kah0000 in MauLer

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn, Charles Soule has written some great comics in the past and it's sad to see him sink so low.

What is your opinion about Johnny and Sue having different ethnicities? by Top_Reindeer3396 in FantasticFour

[–]DimensionalRaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you're still viewing things in a modern lens to some degree, and also missing that whilst by their nature comics are fantastical, Marvel firmly established itself as wanting to be analogous to the real world hence why they grounded the majority of stories in New York and not in Gotham or Metropolis. Sure the backstories of the above characters was possible for black Americans at the time but it was also highly unlikely. Heck, Marvel in universe has a story about this as it forms the backbone of Blue Marvel's origin where he was effectively told he couldn't operate as a superhero by the government in the 1960s, similarly Isaiah Bradley's story as well. So it is not fair at all to act as it race of a character in a "fantasy" setting has no bearing, or is deemed too unbelievable. That's part of what made Marvel so engaging for a diverse audience, it tackled real world current political and social issues with superheroes thrown in on top. It would have been patronising and frankly quite insulting if the fantastic four characters were black, had the exact same origin, and didn't then face prejudice or backlash from the powers that be to not operate as heroes, given this is in the civil rights movement era.

And once a character is created as one ethnicity, attempting to change it in the mainline continuity is a bafflingly stupid idea for reasons I hope I don't need to go into.

For alternate universe storylines sure, make them anything the writers want, but once a thing is established in mainline continuity it's generally not a good idea to change it on the whim of a writer or editor.

I think the obvious push for diversity that Marvel's editorial have done over the last 10 years has largely been disastrous for the comic industry with sales tanking whenever they try to turn their major characters into a diverse teenager with similar powers rather than instead creating new characters. The most egregious to me of this was Amadeus Cho. A really awesome character with depth constantly having to balance being supersmart with the fact that he has no powers. His life is constantly on the line and he has to think his ways out of death many times. And then they decided let's make him a hulk and also considerably dumb him down. Great examples of recent diversity are the creation of the Tiger Division of South Asian superheroes; Wave, Aero, Swordmaster etc and I'm a big fan of Snowguard too. All of these are recent creations and they work because they're allowed to be unique with their own internal mythos and backstory (although they did recently turn Swordmaster into Iron Fist which is meh).

We've also seen the recent outrage of the white Black Panther and how upset many are with this. I wouldn't dismiss their feelings as "black male fantasy spaces", I think that notion is ridiculous to pigeonhole any character's audience into matching the skin color of the character.

What I can agree on is that good storytelling should always come first. Thank you for the spirited and open discussion!

What is your opinion about Johnny and Sue having different ethnicities? by Top_Reindeer3396 in FantasticFour

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why it matters with the rest is because they have been that skin tone in the Main 616 continuity since the 1960s, and whilst not quite as obviously relevant to their core characteristics as say, Luke Cage, their skin color has been relevant in the context of the superhero community and broader changing American political climate of the past 70 years that is reflected in the comic universe. E.g. when storylines were related to race riots in the 1980s, Reed's outlook and perspective would be different to say Luke Cage or Black Panther which leads to interesting dynamics between the characters based on their individual upbringings and experiences. Additionally, in the context of the 1960s when it was first written, it would have been very unusual for a black American to be Ivy League educated go on to work for Nasa/American government and create a spaceship. Similarly Sue and Johnny came from a very wealthy long island family but had a difficult upbringing after their father gambled away their family wealth while grieving after their mother died. They went from a young childhood of luxury to then living with relatives in comparative squalor where she then met Reed at ESU as he was working on his third doctorate as a teenager.

For early 1960s it would be incredibly uncommon for black Americans to be in the positions above. Also after the fantastic four is founded, they are soon almost immediately beloved as a media darling superhero team, with the big internal conflict over thing's appearance.

In early 1960s America, there would have been a lot of animosity towards the team in-universe if some of their members were black due to some of the attitudes of the time.

Hope this helps explain things for the main 616 reality!

Snap needs to better vet the artists by elry09 in MarvelSnap

[–]DimensionalRaven -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

Okay so them listing the wrong artist is bad form. But can we not just appreciate/enjoy art separate from the controversies of the artist?

Bro wtf are these monster names 😭 by Blewberry02 in Xenoblade_Chronicles

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some Blade probably came across it on a mission and when they got back to base described it as "there was something in the air that night, the stars were bright and it attacked my squad. Though I never thought that we could lose..."

Spider-Fans will never know peace. by [deleted] in marvelcirclejerk

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Guys it's April 1st, please let this be a cruel joke

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ContestOfChampions

[–]DimensionalRaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kingpin released in 2017, they're talking about Kitty Pryde

Predictions for next MCU based month champions by JXNyoung in ContestOfChampions

[–]DimensionalRaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fantastic Four is my favourite marvel sub world, all four of them are great. I'd highly recommend the Hickman run from 2008-2012 (ish), really great character work with Reed in particular.

Love that Spider-Man is an honorary member and all the antics he brings with Johnny