Verdict: this film delighted me! It is like a filthy love letter to the Fox version of this universe as it walks out for one more encore before we wave it goodbye and the mutants join up with the MCU. Some individual scenes and bits dragged on for too long, but on the whole I loved it and I'm glad it's doing well. Even though I cannot quite imagine what anyone who doesn't understand all the fan service is going to get out of it. Although I guess Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are still very charming and good at their jobs even if you aren't the kind of person who literally screamed when ( spoiler. ) Conversly, if you didn't like the previous Deadpool films this one is unlikely to win you over.

It did not pull any punches - or rather any graphic stabbings and crotch punches - and it's not only the the first R-rated Disney film, but AFAIK the first Marvel movie from any studio to dromp the c-bomb - twice! It would have to be one starring an Australian, obviously. (I am still highly entertained that the first MCU film to drop an f-bomb is actually Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. I guess Wade and Logan had to escalate after that.)

And despite the director's recent complaints and the film literally opening with Deadpool ( more spoiler ) it's actually very respectful of Logan as a story in its own bizarre way.

( Many more spoilers for the film. Also spoilers for Marvel's SDCC Hall H announcment from this weekend. )

Seriously, though, if Thunderbolts is publicly announced next week along with a casting call for Moonstone, I will know Kevin Feige has been reading my diary. I cannot believe that, in the space of a single year, the MCU is going to give me Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel AND ( spoilers for the new Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness trailer. )

Another reason for us all to survive 2020 and its various nonsense: Tatiana Maslany just got cast as She-Hulk!

While I had been hoping for an older actress (she's almost twenty years younger than Ruffalo) she's so amazing that I cannot actually complain. In addition to regularly making me forget she was not a dozen people on Orphan Black, I recently had the delight of watching her be yet another completely different character in the gritty HBO reboot of Perry Mason. (Which I enjoyed a lot, despite it often seeming like it should be a parody of gritty reboots.)

Jennifer Walters is one of my favourite Marvel characters that the MCU has still to take on, so I'm over the moon to know they're moving forward with such a great actor. Because the internet is the internet, I am already seeing people complain that she's too short, which seems to be missing the point a bit. Mark Ruffalo is also not eight feet tall and green! The physical contrast between forms seems like it's part of the deal for Hulks.

Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed for Marc Spector and company getting equally good casting. (I am not very worried about Kamala, since 'adorably geeky and earnest teen girl who loves superheroes and wants to use her superpowers to defend New Jersey' does not seem like a particularly difficult casting brief.)

Brief, non-spoilery assessment: really good fun! Holland remains a wonderful Peter Parker and his European vacation is always entertaining to watch.

( Dot points and spoilers below the cut. )

Well, this is certainly the red-headed step child of the MCU. Not because of its quality, but because none of it ever gets followed up anywhere else. (Even the last scene with Tony and General Ross goes nowhere, since the Avengers end up being formed in quite a different way and Ross has nothing to do with it.)

Much has been said and written about the MCU's obsession with origin stories, but to their credit, they avoid them when the character in question has already had that story filmed in the recent past. Here, Marvel made the decision to cover the Hulk's genesis story in the opening credits and move along. On the one hand, at least that means it isn't covering the same ground as the then-recent Ang Lee version. (Speaking of the Lee version for a moment longer: I have never seen a film that misjudged its audience so badly. Ang Lee wanted to make a psychological drama about man's relationship with his abusive father and his own inner monster. The audience wanted to see the Hulk smash tanks. And the thing is, the audience was not in the wrong! Lee's film might take visual techniques from comic books, but it's just not a good Hulk story at the end of the day. In that sense The Incredible Hulk does better even if it's not as interesting to look at.)

On the other hand - without the origin story to drive it, there's not really much going on here that's of any wider importance to the MCU or even Bruce as a character. We get to see a handful good character moments for him at the end of the film - the first time he becomes the Hulk voluntarily, the scene where it becomes clear that Hulk is heroically protecting everyone from Abomination, and his apparently success in controlling the transformation at the end - but it doesn't add up to much over the course of two hours.

That's partly because, due to the actor change, nothing Ed Norton does with the part ever gets any further development. On the whole, I'm not sorry that they ultimately went with Ruffalo going forward. It's not that there's anything really wrong with Norton's performance, but I just don't find him convincing in the part and he has none of Ruffalo's charm. I feel like anyone who's casting Bruce in future, needs a large sign that says 'BRUCE BANNER IS A GIANT NERD' posted somewhere, since it took three tries to find an actor who could really get that across.

On the other hand, it's a great shame that Liv Tyler is probably never going to be in another MCU film. She sells Betty's relationships with her estranged father and her ex boyfriend instantly and makes her character sympathetic throughout. (Hopefully she sorted things out with Leonard Samson later, at least to the extent of 'sorry, I thought I was over my ex but I was wrong' and 'he actually seems like a really nice guy, sorry I called your arsehole dad on him.') And I'm really sorry we'll never get to see Samuel Sterns again, either, despite the fact that he was in the process of turning into a supervillain when we last saw him. (Maybe Hulk sorted him out some time between the first two Avengers films? If not, he is probably still out there plotting.) Unfortunately, this film is a complete waste of Tim Roth, who ends up playing one of the most underwritten and disposable of the MCU's villains. He deserved a better part.

In hindsight, it's difficult to see the point of any of this. The film-going audience already knew about Bruce and the Hulk and what their deal was. Hulk was one of the best-known Marvel heroes before the MCU came along, and if anyone was coming in late The Avengers does a more than adequate job of introducing the character. The recasting and lack of further solo Hulk films means that William Hurt is the only actor to have appeared on screen in the MCU since, and he hasn't even had any interaction with Bruce and/or the Hulk. It's a perfectly serviceable film, but in hindsight, maybe Marvel Studios should have saved their time and money for something else. Like a Black Widow film. (Or just cast Ruffalo in the first place. I probably would like it better if they had.)

As it is, if I want a Bruce Banner fix I will probably just go watch Ragnarok again, which is a hell of a lot more fun than this. And the CGI has improved a lot over the past decade.

So, last year I had this idea that I would watch all of the MCU films before Infinity War came out. I ... completely failed at that. However, we've got almost a year before Avengers 4 - or whatever it's actually called - arrives, so I thought I would give it another shot.

It's quite strange going back and watching the foundational statement of the MCU at a decade's distance. On the one hand, you can see how this is a template for everything that follows it - the much-discussed MCU formula is all laid out here, complete with post-credits scene setting up the sequel(s). In other respects, though, it feels like we've come an enormous distance in ten years.

The creators of the various MCU films have been making smart choices from the beginning, and one of the smartest was choosing a relatively grounded property like Iron Man to start their shared universe with. Sure, there's a lot of ridiculously advanced technology and abuse of the laws of physics on display here, but it's a lot closer to a standard action film than the superpowers, aliens and magic that are all over the MCU now. Tony and Stane talk about Howard working on the Manhattan Project, not helping to create Captain America. (Which raises an interesting point: do Tony and/or Obadiah even know about Howard's relationship with Steve?) They've been clever enough to build these elements in slowly, so that by the time Tony says "he’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard" the audience doesn't bat an eyelid.

The smartest choice on display here, though, is the casting of Robert Downey Jr. I am one of the many comics fans who owes RDJ an apology: when he was first cast I thought he was a poor choice. Not so much because I doubted his ability to play the part, but because it seemed a little too apt and I doubted that he would stay sober long enough to fulfil his contract. Yet here we are a decade after I ate my words while coming out of the cinema. He gives the first of many great performances here, and it's easy to see how he became the linchpin of the entire MCU.

The other outstanding cast member here is Gwenyth Paltrow, who makes Pepper instantly charming and memorable in a role that could have easily been thankless and generic in other hands. I can't say I'm sad that they recast Rhodey, though. (Howard isn't bad, but Don Cheadle is better. And reportedly a less awful person than Terrence Howard.) It's also nice to see Clarke Gregg! (I mean, not that I didn't see him in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finale last week, but it's nice to remember where he started.)

Not everything has changed in the space of a decade - rewatching this made me long more than ever for the MCU debut of Kamala Khan. So far Muslims in the MCU get to be villains or victims to be rescued, and one managed to get promoted to 'sidekick who dies tragically in the first act.' So far they do not get to be heroes. So please bring on Ms. Marvel! And her friend Red Dagger! (And Yinsen's daughter should turn out to be alive and become a superhero too, like in the comicsverse.) It has taken us a decade for us to get an MCU solo film about someone who isn't white, and it's going to take eleven years to get one about a woman. So it would be nice if it doesn't take us another decade to get to Kamala.

Anyway, that aside, I don't think this is the best MCU film, or my favourite, but it's an incredibly solid foundation that the studio have been able to build on for an entire decade.

Hooray, eBay brought me T'Challa!



I had to resort to the internet, because he was sold out everywhere locally. Which is great because I'm delighted that Black Panther merchandise is selling and also irritating because I had to pay postage. However, the base price was reasonable and this was a good excuse to buy another figure.

( More photos below the cut. )

Meanwhile, I am trying to work out if the above characters would make the best or worst Defenders team ever. On the one hand: plenty of raw power and a wide array of useful skills. On the other: Jessica would not want to be anywhere near Charles and Charles would not want to be anywhere near Marc and honestly Marc should just not be allowed to join teams anyway and Charles and Stephen and T'Challa would eventually fight over who was in charge. (Meanwhile Jennifer and Kamala would get along fine and solve whatever the actual problem was.)

Despite having watched The Defenders within four days of its release, I feel like I'm well behind the rest of the internet in commenting on it. Still, here are my thoughts!

Brief, non-spoilery version: I enjoyed it a lot, despite not finding the central plot very interesting. However, even though I was over the Hand two Netflix series ago the character interaction was great and I adored what they did with the soundtrack and the colour palette. (Some people mind find the colour scheme too obvious and attention-grabbing, I guess, but every colour-coded frame delighted my vidder heart. Can't wait to see what fans do with the footage ...)

Netflix and Marvel have been promising us this team-up for literally years, and it's the relationships we see forming or developing here that make it worth watching for fans. Both inside and outside of the core team, there's a lot of interesting conversations going on here.

( Who missed me? )

Several years ago, I started keeping a list of Marvel characters that might show up in the cinematic universe, purely for my own curiosity. What can I say, I enjoy lists and the making thereof. Post-Civil War seems like a good time to update it, and I thought I'd post it here so I can look back at it in a few more years and see how wrong I was about who they'd put on film. (Because let me tell you, I would not have guessed that Scott Lang would make it.) The previous version of the list has been quite reliable, though.

I used comicvine's list by appearance function to compile a list of the fifty most frequently appearing Marvel superheroes and villains that haven't made the transition to the MCU yet. This only takes volume of appearances into account, and while that's a reasonable guide to popularity over the long term, it's a metric that breaks down for characters invented more recently. I think it's safe to say that Ms. Marvel would be a more popular addition to the MCU than, say, Speedball. But Speedball has been around decades longer and thus had more time to build up the numbers.

This list does not include people Marvel Studios clearly do not have the film rights to - all X-Men and X-Men adjacent characters belong to Fox, and so do the poor Fantastic Four. (I am actually fine with Fox keeping the mutants. I like what they've done with them from the most part, and I don't think that they would benefit from being included in the MCU or that the MCU needs them. I do sincerely hope that they stop abusing the FF, Doctor Doom, Galactus and the Silver Surfer and hand them over to people who might have some idea of what to do with them. Surely this has to be cheaper and less humiliating than making movies that bomb just so they can keep the rights?)

There are a couple of Civil War spoilers below the cut, and also casting spoilers for a bunch of MCU stuff that isn't out and in some cases won't be for several years. I also mention a couple of rumoured characters for Thor: Ragnarok, but who knows if the rumours are accurate.

( Like I said, spoilers below the cut. )

I thought I was going to binge watch this with everyone else, but actually I ended up drawing it out as long as I could stand because I loved it and did not want it to be over. I'm sure everyone already said anything I wanted to say about it over the last month and a half. I do have two thoughts:

1. You know you are a real comic book nerd when someone says ( technically this is a spoiler ) and you start waving your arms, swearing and saying 'noooooooooo!' at the television. All of which I literally did. The character has such a generic name that I missed who they were until that very moment, but there's, um, precedent for what happens to them in the comic universe.

2. I really, really want a Hellcat Netflix series, like, yesterday. Because that would be awesome, and somehow I am not tired of 'It's Patsy!' jokes yet.