Welcome to Nothing in Particular! Now let’s talk about the MCU!!!
Hello, and welcome to my umpteenth attempt at minor internet (and by extension social) relevance. I’m not actually trying all that hard this time around — at 36 fame actually doesn’t seem all that worth it anymore. However, I am hoping for a few people to read the things I write some time relatively close to the time I write them, and hopefully get a laugh, or have a thought, and really not much else. In a post pandemic world I think we would all do well to keep our expectations modest, wouldn’t you agree?
As far as what this space is, what it’s intended for, and why it has such a funky/borderline offensive to it’s authors name, well… I suppose I’ll address all of that at some point in the future but just know that after 15 months of talking to almost no one but my gf, my dog-son and cat-daughter, and roughly 25 grad students on zoom more or less twice a week, I’m pretty ready to start slamming my head against a wall just to make the blaring sound of my own stream of consciousness quiet down just a skosh. And somehow starting (or re-starting) and internet blog seemed like roughly the same thing with less clean-up and recovery.
Will this last?
Who knows!
I’m kind of a fickle guy. But as long as there is something I’d love to scream into a pillow over, and I’m relatively sure my dog-son still doesn’t have the power to give me the kind of engaging back and forth I crave, I might continue to update this page. For the moment let’s just start this journey together and see how far we make it.
Now, Let’s get to the red meat you all came here for:
WILD SPECULATION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE MCU!!!!
First let me state that I’m clearly nobody. Just a guy sitting in his apartment watching all the same YouTube theory channels as everyone else. I tune into the Ringer-verse and Still Watching like a good fanboy, and avoid sites like “We Got This Covered” while embracing /Film and Screen Crush. I’m just a normal man obsessed with a mass entertainment franchise ultimately intended for children like every other adult member of his disaffected generation; and like every other member of that cohort I can’t help but speculate.
And sure, I’m watching Loki as religiously as I used to attend Sunday school, and yes, I too am curious about whether that woman in the background was Agent Carter, or whether Lady Loki is actually The Enchantress. IS KANG A FUCKING TIME KEEPER??? These questions keep me up at night, just like the rest of you; but what has really grabbed me lately is a quote from show runner Michael Waldron that Joanna Robinson keeps throwing around, and while it may or may not be apocryphal, it has captured my imagination lately. According to Joanna part of Michael Waldron’s pitch for Loki was simply “What if we just made the best television show of all time?”… or something like that. Honestly, at this point, the quote as it exist in my head is probably a variant of a variant (AT BEST), but I can’t stop thinking about it. And the reason I can’t stop thinking about it is because of the X-Men.
It’s true that so far there are no X-Men in the MCU, but supposedly now that Kevin Feige has all his toys back in his sandbox, that is a wrong he intends to right as quickly as it makes logical and narrative sense. In fact, last I heard is there could be an official mutant project in theaters by 2024, but who knows. Honestly, whatever the folks at Marvel Studios are doing with the X-Men is fine by me, but to prepare for their inevitable big screen arrival I started reading the Jonathan Hickman relaunch of the X-Men comic book lines, and that has really been the thing driving all of my wildest hopes and dreams for the MCU.
Ya see, a whole bunch of corporate rivalries, and insane editorial decisions lead the folks at Marvel Comics to basically shelve the X-Men as long as the rights were still at Fox, but when old Daddy Warbucks Iger made the bad studio go away all that changed, and so Marvel brought in a ringer to relaunch the books. And what a relaunch it was!
In some ways the books are kind of just business as usual for comics. A whole bunch of sci-fi and fantasy nonsense happens allowing a 50-year-old soap opera for teen boys to continue in basically the same was it has been for 50 years. But in one big way Jonathan Hickman upended the status quo and did something totally new! Without spoiling something that 99% of humans will never even know existed Jonathan Hickman made the Mutants a people. He gave them a new home: The sentient Island of Krakoa. He gave them a purpose: to unite all mutant kind into one nation. And He gave them a really big obstacle: The united might and confusion of humans all around the world.
And for me, this is where the Michael Waldron quote starts to matter. Because in Marvel’s “Phase 4” everyone is expecting the MCU to introduce at least 2 new major fictional nations, Atlantis (with the arrival of Namor the Sub-Mariner), and Latveria (with the arrival of the Fantastic Four and their Arch Nemesis Doctor Doom). That would be in addition to the fictional nations of Wakanda and Sokovia that already exist in the MCU, and who knows, with them bringing in the new Ms. Marvel maybe we’ll finally get a proper nod to the Inhumans and their city/kingdom on the Moon! And finally let me not forget The Eternals who have their own base of operations in Antarctica, and the Deviants, their mortal enemies in Lemuria. Adding Krakoa to that mix seems not only easy, but incredibly necessary.
What having all these fictional nations gives the MCU is something that it hasn’t really had up until now: Centers of Power. Each location has the ability to have its own history, and culture, as well as world view and interest. We’ve already seen this with Wakanda and seeing how those interest and world view conflict with the very real world we all inhabit could be incredibly fascinating. Throw in the added twist that mutants can be born anywhere in the world, to any person or peoples, and the idea that mutants are hated and despised the world over suddenly becomes an easy scenario to imagine. It actually starts to mirror some real-world dynamics we already live with if you think about for even just a moment, and suddenly the story telling possibilities seem pretty endless.
Assuming that quote attributed to Michael Waldron is accurate, then he was 100% on the money. Why Shouldn’t Loki be the best TV show ever? And why shouldn’t the MCU be like the best movie/tv/cultural phenomenon ever? For the first time these movies and TV shows don’t just have to focus on individual heroes battling individual villains every three months, but they can rise to the level of high fantasy or hard sci-fi. They can occupy a space similar to Game of Thrones and give us the stories of warring factions, and the people caught in between. We could spend the rest of our lives (because let’s face it Marvel isn’t going anywhere) watching morally grey characters all acting in mostly rational ways from their various perspectives, and all clashing as they pursue their wants, secret desires, and unrealized needs, as all those things fall in line with their stated world views and philosophies.
I’m no smarter than anyone already working at Marvel so I’m sure these conversations have already been had. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are already planning out the war between Latveria and Atlantis and Krakoa 6 movies from now, with several tv shows to follow (all of which will of course include several chart topping hits on Spotify), but this page is for me and my own flights of fancy, and all I want is for these stories to continue to be great; and for the Mutants to be something more than a metaphor for “the other” they’ve always been. I want to see that “other” fight back. I want to see them come together and take their place among the world powers, and I want to see those powers say “No” and watch the fall out because that shit is happening every single day in our world, and I think it could be cathartic to see it happen to our heroes, too.
Anyways…. That’s pretty much all I have tonight. I really have no idea if that made a lick of sense to anyone else, but I’m also not sure it’s my job to care. I’m just one man screaming into a void. I’ll let the void figure it out.
BYEEEEE!
