{TV} The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

[eschatological]

I'm not convinced the serum did affect John negatively.

I think it just gives you the strength to be who you really are, less reason to give a shit about whoever tells you "no, wait, stop . . ."

I think John was always the kind of guy who'd kill an enemy in a public square like that, if he thought he could get away with it. And now that he's got this strength, who's gonna stop him?

Yeah, uh, I only said Hoskins was wrong about who Walker is. I didn't mean that I thought the serum could affect a good man negatively. Hoskins was wrong about Walker being a good man....and thus the serum amplified John Walker's propensities, and led to his death, because the dude couldn't stand to be inadequate. And while this is Hoskins flaw, it's an understandable flaw - he's known John since high school, played football with him, been through the shit with him in Afghanistan.

But I see this spawned a 2 page debate anyways for some reason.

It's also clear from that same conversation that Walker/Hoskins probably did some heinous shit to earn those Medals of Honor, and Walker is clearly guilty about it, so Hoskins misjudged that too.

[Endus]

Yeah, uh, I only said Hoskins was wrong about who Walker is. I didn't mean that I thought the serum could affect a good man negatively. Hoskins was wrong about Walker being a good man....and thus the serum amplified John Walker's propensities, and led to his death, because the dude couldn't stand to be inadequate. And while this is Hoskins flaw, it's an understandable flaw - he's known John since high school, played football with him, been through the shit with him in Afghanistan.

But I see this spawned a 2 page debate anyways for some reason.

It's also clear from that same conversation that Walker/Hoskins probably did some heinous shit to earn those Medals of Honor, and Walker is clearly guilty about it, so Hoskins misjudged that too.

I wouldn't even say Walker is, at heart, truly a "bad man".

He's a weak man. He lacks self-esteem. And he has poor control over his emotions. That weakness leads to him being easily driven to lash out and do terrible things, as we see here.

The biggest problem he's facing is that everyone around him has ignored his weakness, and told him he's strong. He's been celebrated by the armed forces. Hoskins has always had his back and been his yes-man. Ironically, I think this is actually a super-good argument for why Sam and Bucky are such a good fit together. If either of them fucks up, the other will not give them a break about it. It will get brought up and talked out. They might not be particularly pleasant about doing so, but they don't let that weakness fester into something else. They shine a light on it, and for better or worse, it gets recognized.

Walker is trying to carry the weight, but he's too weak. He keeps being told he's strong enough, but he knows he isn't, deep down. Foolishly, he thinks the serum will make him strong enough, but it isn't his muscles that are his weak point. But, thinking he's "strong enough", he stops even the little bit of recognition of his own weakness that he still had, and he acts on that weakness as it drives him. And he's going to feel justified, because he's deluded himself into thinking that weakness is a demonstration of strength.

If Walker had gotten some decent psychiatric help in the aftermath of his first tour or two and whatever he did, if he'd been allowed to work through all that, with a support system that actually gave a shit about his mental health and character rather than just what he could do for them, he'd have been a much happier man, and might actually have become worthy of the mantle. I see him more as a tragic figure worth pity than a villain worth hating.

[eschatological]

That's a long post just to say he shouldn't be a candidate for the serum....like I suggested myself.

[s_bushido]

That's a long post just to say he shouldn't be a candidate for the serum....like I suggested myself.

lol... You should know by know that Endus does like to go on.

(no offense)

[Endus]

lol... You should know by know that Endus does like to go on.

(no offense)

I have never met a two-sentence response I couldn't turn into a four-page essay.

[s_bushido]

I have never met a two-sentence response I couldn't turn into a four-page essay.

lmao
10characters

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Marvel was putting out absolute garbage and going broke for decades before Disney scooped them up. Whatever failings Marvel has as a business, they're not related to going woke.

People seem to forget that the MCU was started before Disney bought Marvel for Four Billion dollars. They weren't a failing company. They had a really bad time in the latter half of the 90's...but they bounced back.

[Berndorf]

It makes no sense from a business standpoint. Marvel probably sells more comics now than ever thanks to their films making their character household names. Marvel comics were actually almost going bankrupt in the late 90's to early 2000's due to low comic sales, which is why they had to sell most of their titles to movie studios to just stay afloat. Now that they turned B-list heroes like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America into Batman & Superman-level properties, their comics likely sell more than ever thanks to even general audiences probably checking out their comic titles.

Imagine what Wandavision must have done for House of M and other Scarlet Witch comics that were likely not as valuable.

I will say I see the point of the argument that makes sense. Cancel culture can be creatively stifling since everything has to be PG, especially with Disney owning Marvel and dictating their stories. They can't do Black Label stories like DC does with say, Three Jokers. It's a moot point though. If Marvel wants to make children their target audience, and are making more money now than ever, one can't argue with their success.

I don't think they actually sell nearly as many comics today as they did in the 80's-early 90's era but they make up for it by selling them for $4-5 each now compared to .75-1.25 and by selling trade paper backs in huge quantities. Which includes reprints of older issues. The link posted above said that roughly 60% of comics revenue in 2019 came from trade/graphic novel sales. Comics tend to be a very fickle thing in terms of sales for a long time. Marvel nearly went out of business in the 50's when they were more of a horror/sci fi genre until Stan Lee decided to make the FF. Then both Marvel and dc almost went out of business in the late 70's except for them getting lucky with star wars comics and the X-men breaking out. dc barely held on until they started poaching Marvel's writers and comics became hip again in the 80's thanks to writers like Moore coming on the scene then exploded in the 90's for a while. So it goes in intervals imo.

- - - Updated - - -

Marvel was putting out absolute garbage and going broke for decades before Disney scooped them up. Whatever failings Marvel has as a business, they're not related to going woke.

Marvel was doing well enough to get a $300m loan to start up the mcu in like 2005 and was also getting royalties from all of the Spiderman and X-men movies of the early 2000's which made huge sums of money. Ironman came out in 2008 I believe and was a huge success before Disney bought Marvel in 2009. So given that they already had Feige in place to head up the mcu by then I think it's fair to say they would have been rolling in money with or without Disney. Feige deserves more credit than anyone for putting it all together along with Favreau for directing Iron man and fighting for RDJ to be the lead.

[Nadiru]

Marvel was doing well enough to get a $300m loan to start up the mcu in like 2005 and was also getting royalties from all of the Spiderman and X-men movies of the early 2000's which made huge sums of money. Ironman came out in 2008 I believe and was a huge success before Disney bought Marvel in 2009. So given that they already had Feige in place to head up the mcu by then I think it's fair to say they would have been rolling in money with or without Disney. Feige deserves more credit than anyone for putting it all together along with Favreau for directing Iron man and fighting for RDJ to be the lead.

People seem to forget that the MCU was started before Disney bought Marvel for Four Billion dollars. They weren't a failing company. They had a really bad time in the latter half of the 90's...but they bounced back.

Both of these came after a huge restructuring where they hit rock bottom and got bought out by Toy Biz. But Marvel didn't climb back into profitability off of improving its comic book offerings: they sold film rights to at least 3 franchises I can think of from that era. I like the MCU, but Marvel Comics have been pretty bad for a long time.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Both of these came after a huge restructuring where they hit rock bottom and got bought out by Toy Biz. But Marvel didn't climb back into profitability off of improving its comic book offerings: they sold film rights to at least 3 franchises I can think of from that era. I like the MCU, but Marvel Comics have been pretty bad for a long time.

You migfht not like Marvel Comics...but they have been profitable for quite some time. The MCU has made them even more profitable.

Again, yes, they had troubles...but they were bought by Disney for 4 Billion dollars. That is not a small amount of money.

[JDL49]

The MCU didn't have the rights to Lady Death clearly, I believe. Lady Death is one of those weird characters where the rights were odd since she plays a role with the characters that the MCU had (Thanos) but also one they originally didn't (Deadpool).

Remember, Marvel didn't have rights for a lot of characters for a while and currently still don't have the Live Action/Feature Film rights to Spider-man characters. And they only recently got all the rights to Hulk Characters from Universal back and of course the 20th Century purchase to regain the rights to the X-Man and Fantastic Four characters (which was why Agatha Harkness was in Wandavision.)

What they don't have with the Hulk are distribution rights to solo Hulk films. Universal retains those. Character rights never left the building so to speak.

[segara82]

My 2 cents:

1. Power levels in Marvel comis and shows work exactly as Stan Lee once described the debate about 'Hero X vs Y': The scriptwrites decided it.

The actors and good writers can make it look beautiful and believeable, but in the end there is no comparable power level.

2. American/Western Comics have stagnating numbers for several reasons:
Too much baggage from 50+ years of comics, with dozens or more writers changing things all the time.
Where to start as a new reader?
How not to offend too many old readers?
Reboots and new #1's every few years, cross-over events at least once a year, and stories cut up between different comics.
Too high production costs (Full colour pages, glossy paper vs cheap black and white on recycled paper for mangas)
The Comics Code Authority hampering stories and themes for decades, no such things for mangas.
Comic shops are not that abundant, while mangas are available in every store, can be read on the subway to work and then discarded into the recycle bin.
Creators rarely get to keep the rights to their creations, hampering innovation.
Monthly floppy sales are in decline, but books and collected editions are going up, more or less evening each other out.

Mangas are far more competitive, creators keep the rights to their stuff and have to do better to get that sweet movie/anime-deal.
It also means that their stories are sooner or later done and complete, not dragged out until infinity.

[Nadiru]

You migfht not like Marvel Comics...but they have been profitable for quite some time. The MCU has made them even more profitable.

Again, yes, they had troubles...but they were bought by Disney for 4 Billion dollars. That is not a small amount of money.

Except, not. Marvel Comics never recovered from the comic bubble bursting in the 90s. Most post-90s growth was based on the success of various film franchises. Their loan agreement in the mid 2000s saw them putting up the rights to the characters themselves up as collateral. That is not the behavior of a healthy company, but one whose back is to the wall a scant decade after restructuring. I like the MCU, but if Iron Man flopped then, Marvel is probably defunct now, its characters scattered to the winds. I'm glad it didn't, though.

[Aurrora]

Marvel is not "a comics company". They include the films as much as anything else.

Nor is their comics branch struggling to begin with. Print comics are doing just fine these days; 2020's been a bad year but that's pretty much entirely due to some issues with distribution directly connected to COVID-19, not the fandom.

https://www.cbr.com/2019-comic-book-sales-record-high/

This doesn't show what you think it does. Manga is included in comics industry sales and has been taking market share away from superhero comics(i.e. the majority of Marvel and DC's publications).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...anga-sales-us/

[s_bushido]

This doesn't show what you think it does. Manga is included in comics industry sales and has been taking market share away from superhero comics(i.e. the majority of Marvel and DC's publications).

So the comics industry is doing just fine? Glad we could come to this agreement.

Is it supposed to matter if people are reading superhero comics, or manga, or independent stuff?

[Darththeo]

Except, not. Marvel Comics never recovered from the comic bubble bursting in the 90s. Most post-90s growth was based on the success of various film franchises. Their loan agreement in the mid 2000s saw them putting up the rights to the characters themselves up as collateral. That is not the behavior of a healthy company, but one whose back is to the wall a scant decade after restructuring. I like the MCU, but if Iron Man flopped then, Marvel is probably defunct now, its characters scattered to the winds. I'm glad it didn't, though.

This is the reason why Spider-man film rights were with Sony, Hulk with Universal, and Fantastic 4 and X-Men were with Fox. And a few other heroes here and there.

They sold the rights for movies to various companies in order to stay afloat. Hell, they offered ALL the character rights to Sony at first and Sony responded "No one cares about anyone other than Spider-man." essentially.

Marvel was really floundering because of a lot of bad choices they made.

[Kokolums]

So the comics industry is doing just fine? Glad we could come to this agreement.

Is it supposed to matter if people are reading superhero comics, or manga, or independent stuff?

There seems to be a lot of moving of the goalposts here.

I think some people in this thread are trying to say that Marvel comics is in trouble.

Other people are trying to say the comics industry overall is doing fine (thanks in large part to manga).

And some are conflating the two topics and getting themselves confused and shouting at each other. Pretty typical for MMOC tho to utterly fail at reading comprehension.

[Endus]

This doesn't show what you think it does. Manga is included in comics industry sales and has been taking market share away from superhero comics(i.e. the majority of Marvel and DC's publications).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...anga-sales-us/

That graph is, apparently, from a conference to which I don't have access to verify anything.

It really doesn't make your case, though. No indication that Marvel comics are somehow "struggling". Manga also selling well doesn't say that.

I get that you have a desperate need to push this idea that Marvel comics is dying, but there's just no evidence to support that.

[formerShandalay]

They dropped a new sneak peek with some new scenes. Interesting!

[Berndorf]

Both of these came after a huge restructuring where they hit rock bottom and got bought out by Toy Biz. But Marvel didn't climb back into profitability off of improving its comic book offerings: they sold film rights to at least 3 franchises I can think of from that era. I like the MCU, but Marvel Comics have been pretty bad for a long time.

I didn't say they did. I specifically mentioned that they were getting royalties off of early 2000's cbms. What I'm referring to is you saying they were going broke for decades when the comic book industry didn't crash until about 1995. From 95 to 2005 is 10 years. In terms of quality, I think most would say they sucked in the late 90's but did a lot of good stuff in the early 2000's up until 6-7 years ago when they let Brevoort run them into the ground with his combination of woke and 'I think readers actually like to buy stuff that pisses them off' way of thinking.