i like to imagine that every universe's mysterio lies about knowing there's a multiverse, but each universe's mysterio happens to choose the correct number for the earth they're on
@James Moriarty wrong, MCU while not being the same as the comics 616 is also the 616 as it's not meant to run in parallel. Marvel Studios and Marvel comics aren't in the same multiverse, they're each their own multiverse harbored under the Marvel Megaverse. However, you could make a case for Agents of Shield's (and maybe the netflix defenders?) timeline that was perfectly lined up until the 2012 avengers movie, so those events happened in both MCU 616 and MCU199999
his universe being 616 was not discovered by or invented by Mysterio. Erik Selvig first deduced that they reside in Earth-616 in Thor: The Dark World. All Mysterio really had to do was brush up on Selvig's research (which is the most comprehensive publicly available multiverse information in the world) in preparation for his character
@ZeeDrakon Witch trials were extremely common in Europe. But they were not common in the North American colonies. Salem was an outlier. It was the Jonestown of the era.
I don't think it's "weird" at all. You ever heard the phrase "art imitates life"? People have been using historical events and figures since FOREVER in their fiction. Go read the Divine Comedy.
@Both Parties are Crazy correlation doesn’t mean causation, where is your causative evidence? I was just using the information given by that person, you still haven’t refuted that witch hunts had gendered outcomes. I’d offer data, but I suspect that you would just discount it because of “liberal academics”. So I’m just talking about “data” that you accept.
Phase 4 was about legacy, for sure. Shang chi and his father’s rings, the Hawkeyes, black widow’s family being introduced, Falcon becoming Captain America, the thors, Spider-Man meeting two versions of himself and fighting their villains, she hulk ignoring her cousin’s advice and learning from it to be a hero like him and a lawyer like her
Agreed. That's kind of what Nando was hinting at with Dads and bracelets. In terms of motivation and overarching theme. It's all about passing down and introducing the new heros and using family as the mentor. Not just dads, but general family and how family doesn't need to be blood to be mentors. That's the key difference with pause 4 vs. Phase 1 -3. Captain, iron man, etc made it clear that their family was themselves, their avengers team. They had no one else, including Thor after he lost everyone. The new and young avengers is about building a family outside of their team now that their own mentors (cap and iron man) are no longer around. This theme continues into Antman with his family and daughter and that will be the key motivation for our heroes. They aren't protecting the universe and world. They want to protect the people they've grown to love despite any animosity they had before (Clint didn't want anything to do with Kate bishop originally, black widow and their estranged father, black panther and fighting through the loss of their leader and wakanda struggling, etc). They're fighting for family. Unlike in phase 1 to 3, the key motivation/overarching theme was saving the world from their own mistakes to fight through their trauma. I think in terms of meta/powers, I think we will find out that the quantum realm that Kang controls is connected to every dimension. Dark dimension, Noor dimensions, 10 rings, even Valhalla and the gods we found are real, including eternals. There are overarching themes about death and loss and how these alternate dimensions can be used to either connect with the dead or be manipulated. And Kang is going to collapse not just the mutliverse, but also the dimensions that we've learned about from phase 4. What we will find out is that all these dimensions were separated and created after the multiversal war and that's where all of these dimensions, powers, artifacts and infinity stones came from. The birth of the universe that created the infinity stones? Well yes and no. The stones was one of the many branches and powerful objects created when the multiverse collapsed into the main timeline. This retcon is the only way they can save phase 4 reviews similar to how after endgame, age of ultron ages much better and create the sentiment that "its all connected". If they don't do that and basically do a soft reboot because they're pushing back Kang dynasty then phase 4 will quite simply be forgotten and rewritten in phase 5. Which, honestly would be a shame...
I think it was more about choice in being your own person, loki had the free will or predestined thing, shan chi chose to not be like his dad, kamala chose to be herself, same with shehulk chosing to follow both lawyer and hero paths. legacy falls into that cause theyre carrying what came before but they arent the same as what came before
@Princess Lioness so I'm right they did nothing with her punisher mentality she just said grrr im angry a few times and then by the end she's chill. They do nothing interesting with it that she'll have to deal with in future shes just the best in everyway. Mbaku should of been king and panther it makes much more sense... suddenly shuri just has fighting prowess 😂
@Undying ArtDid you even watch the movie, Shuri doesn’t want to be queen and even gives it up at the end. Of course it’s set up, because she was forced into the hero role because someone died. That’s usually how it goes, it didn’t take Tobey or Andrew 3 films to actually feel like Spiderman. She didn’t do anything bad because her anger was directed at Namor for killing her mom, not at the whole world. She more sad and frustrated than angry for the most part.
The action figure portion reminds me of Logan not liking the comics that Laura had and loved, saying that “maybe a quarter of it happened and not like this” signifying that someone wrote and drew fabricated stories to make themselves feel better about the disappearance of mutants (also him saying some of it happened while looking at him save a friend from falling in the comic he’s wearing the accurate suit, maybe he wore the suit before he retired)
@Nando v Movies 15:30 Shang Chi was live action Dragonball Z, lets not lie. That's Trunks and Bulla vs their daddy, Vegeta. Running down dragons was ana homage to Goku.
I interpreted the witch trial thing as there were _some_ witches but the rest was still complete paranoia. Also how would Wenwu have helped during the battle in New York when he was in Hong Kong and how would he have helped the battle of Wakanda if I kinda was closed after the rest of the world? Same with Endgame? Wenwu probably did his best to police his own corner of the world.
The more we go on the more the MCU is gonna become like the comics. You don't need to watch or be "caught up" on everything because it'll become less and less feasible to binge all of them at once Just roll with what's interesting to you, if the movies are well made than anything you missed that's important will be explained just like any other backstory in a movie.
Well after the Armageddon plot the Bible doesn't say anything about what happens after. They flipped that script well enough but now they have nothing else to really talk about 🙂
They will start putting those notes in movies like the comics have yknow where they say something like "Read Amazing Spider-Man #35 -Editor" when something from another comic is happening, but they'll say "Watch Moon Knight episode 4" or something
Sharon Carter is the one person I can think of who I really want to be a Skrull because I think her Power Broker villain turn just did not make sense. If she was replaced by a Skrull during the Snap, it suddenly totally makes sense.
Two months ago Jonathan Majors said he just had a chat with Kang Dynasty director Destin Cretton. When asked what can he say about it, he responded with "We are dealing with myths. What is a Kang? What is a movie? What is a MCU movie? What does that mean, what does that look like? Those are the questions we are asking." The fact that he said Kang Dynasty will explore "what is a MCU" movie really makes me think you are onto something here.
We all know what a phase 5 movie is going to be. More strong wahmen and destruction of beloved male characters. It's beyond predictable at this point 😂
idk if thats really fair, eating food at a table was literally the last thing that happened in phase 1 and was very impactful there so it's not really unique to phase 4
Phase 4 felt like a "consequence/reality" phase. A lot of the shows specifically show a new side of the MCU where you see how "the real world" is handling heroes and stuff.
53:36 was an absolutely perfect analogy for phase 4. After three-peating with its first few phases, this dynasty is rebuilding and developing its draft picks. And just like in sports, some of the lifelong fans are looking at these new faces and wondering if they can reach the same heights.
I saw Druig's stopping but not stopping the conquistadors as his dereliction of duty from the role of being an Eternal. He decided mankind was too destructive and no amount of intervening would stop their atrocities against one another so he carved out a mini civilization that he could manage and basically retired there with it. He was done with worldly matters and decided to spend all his time and energy on the people he knew he could save. He didn't save a civilization, but he saved a town and grew that
The retcon phase you’ve discussed made think how the MCU really does work like comics; kingdoms, deities, organizations randomly pop outta nowhere and we’re expected to believe they’ve existed for a loooong time
@duntrump duntru I honestly like to think that after the death of He Who Remains (the writer of the timeline), history as been fluid and trying to accommodate all the changes being made from other timelines and universes onto the main 616 (NOT) timeline.
Something I find myself continually coming back to as far as the retcons, is specifically that Eternals tells us that life-bearing planets are created by Celestials as eggs for incubating new Celestials... But cut back to GotGv2, where Ego calls himself a Celestial, says he believed himself alone, and embarks on his whole Expansion plan by which he seeded a bit of himself on a bunch of life-bearing planets with the intent of turning them all into extensions of himself. He even gets to start doing some of it, with a big glowing blob of Ego-ness erupting out from behind the Dairy Queen and also on Xandar! What would've happened if he'd fully succeeded, as far as Arishem and the Eternals and all that? That seems like something they should've maybe gotten a bit involved with, if they'd always existed all that time.
I’ve always argued that Phase 4’s big shared theme was “Self-Identity” Almost every story is about someone grappling with what it is that makes them *themselves,* and how that’s informed by their background, their biology, their “destiny,” or perspective/philosophy.
I always thought the underlying theme of phase 4 was Legacies. It feels like almost every major character is worrying about their legacy, trying to live up to a legacy they've been given, dealing with how the legacy (or lack there of) left in the world by another effects them, or making a legacy they are now a part of, either by happenstance or design, their own.
My favorite films from phase 4 were the standalone projects, like Shang chi or moon knight. They’re focused on one main character throughout and tells their story. As fun as the rest of phase 4 was, not many of the projects stuck with me.
Phase 4 is about growing pains to me. I feel like this universe is still reeling after the snap and a lot of them are snapshots of the aftermath of the snap. Yeah COVID really held back this phase into just bunch of movies but again it's a reaction towards the tragedy whether it's in the MCU or in the real world. Hopefully phase 5 it will be more streamlined.
technically, every single property from phase 4 took place in 2023, the same year that everyone was brought back from the snap. Marvel made a conscious effort to not have too much media directly cause the next piece of media. they roughly all took place at the same time as each other (so as to catch up to the five year timeskip they tried). so yeah, society here is definitely still reeling from the snap
Nando made me realize a weird thing There is an eternal named Thena There is also confirmed a Greek pantheon which includes Athena...so....are there just 2? And which one came first?
This has been a decades-long problem for The Eternals in the comics, too. Jack Kirby's original comic was set in a weird "is it in Marvel canon/is it not in Marvel canon" grey area. In Kirby's eyes each Eternal acted as the real inspiration for myths across the globe, however the pantheons and gods (Athena, Hephaestus, Mercury etc) Kirby drew from already existed in Marvel Comics canon. So now they all tentatively coexist and nobody explicitly points out the paradox. The popular theory is that the Eternals co-opted the names of deities to do stuff while withholding their true identities.
If Phase 4 had a theme, I think it was probably something to do with the heroes' relationship with the world, probably best demonstrated by Hawkeye, TFATWS, Ms Marvel, She Hulk and Black Panther 2, with nods in Thor 4 and Guardians Hoiliday special. But my read was that Phase 4 was intended to expand the MCU from one franchise to many franchises; it feels more like Marvel Comics to me now, where the reader knows everything is happening in the same universe, but not every book is about the same theme or subject, or told in the same style or genre, but which can cross over when the story demands it.
The Mandarin was shown to be real ever since that one DVD short with Trevor in prison, which I am 100% certain you know about because you've talked about it before
Great minds think alike :D Kidding aside, fantastic video as always, and huge thanks for that shoutout! I probably wouldn't be making videos at all if it weren't for your channel - I had my first successful video blow up thanks to the One Villainous Scene playlist - so I was beaming from ear to ear at 55:05!
So happy to see this shout out too, you're one of my favorite creators on KZclip today and seeing your channel grow has been wonderful. You always have something insightful to say and I appreciate your honest, no nonsense approach to discussing political aspects of media.
Legacy. The new generation. Also Marvel trying hundred different things to see what sticks. The Phase One 2.0 if you will. I personally liked it. Very comic booky in a sense of having so many completely different runs of stories and letting people pick and choose which to follow. But that's just me.
@Racool I would argue if you don’t watch Wandvision, the narrative falls apart very quickly and Strange was most definitely sidelined in the story, he may have been a main character but I couldn’t think of a single thing that made his character interesting in any way other than to progress Wanda’s character arc from Wandavision
@alita Ignoring the sidelining part, cause he's clearly the main focus of the story, (Wanda has similar focus cause she was the villain) the investment part is overall true for the entirety of the MCU. Your investment SHOULD be greater if you bothered to watch the previous installments of the franchise, but it is never a necessity
@Racool all that character building happened in a show that wasn’t shown on the big screen, it removes a MASSIVE part of the investment in the story without watching it. Strange shouldn’t have to be sidelined in his own movie for a movie that’s mainly about Wanda really.
@Racool Having seen that movie with people who hadn't seen Wandavision...yes, you did need to watch it. (It didn't make a lot of sense even if you did watch it, though.)
@Racool But Wanda was already an established character. If someone was just watching the movies then all of a sudden Wanda had and subsequently lost children, gained greater power, and got a hold of a magic book that's turning her evil, all offscreen.
I’m not going to pretend that phase 4 was some meticulously crafted master plan that was perfectly executed. It had some high highs but really low lows. And it’s to be expected after their big conclusion in Endgame and all the chaos IRL. So there were bound to be some missteps and growing pain when trying to introduce new characters and concepts. But themes of loss, grief, legacy, and expansion of the multiverse are present throughout. Hopefully now that phase 4 is over we can learn from our mistakes and successes and move forward together.
@RtsIII I don’t really know tbh, all the other phases feel exactly the same. I’m not really sure why it’s a big surprise that the MCU has been pretty mediocre in a lot of their movies, they need to do bigger changes and take way more risks for the burnout of MCU films that has been showing lately
@quidam they didn’t “take risks” they made bad story and character decisions. While the two are not necessarily different in certain cases, we mine as well be precise here. There are several who might say the “risks” they supposedly took are actually very in line with the rest of the “entertainment” that Disney, and many other studios, put out these days, and therefore rather safe, myself being one of them. All said, however, I’ve found most of the MCU to be rather….meh. I’ve seen many action movies, now I’ve seen many action movies with comic book characters and novel visual effects, although one can’t deny their impact on cinema. If anybody is looking for a defender of the other phases, I’m certainly not the one to do so, I simply find Phase 4 to be exemplary in its typicality for the times and “meh-ness.” The positives I found in the earlier movies are just not there much in this phase.
@RtsIII The first three phases had tons of mistakes that they didn't learn from, they doubled down and people still heaped praises on them so phase 4 hasn't been any different in that regard. So many ways the movies could have been better but they didn't want to take those risks and now that they are, y'all want them to just keep doing more of the same old stuff.
But, they don’t acknowledge large portions of their mistakes….they don’t even think many of them ARE mistakes. They clearly don’t like feedback that doesn’t tell them how wonderful they are either, so, I’m not sure I see anything changing without some serious internal upheaval that even Disney’s dire financial situation hasn’t yet elicited. I mean, if you liked Phase 4….well, if you liked Phase 4, I’m sure you’ll get much more of it.
Super enjoyable video. Nice job nando and I agree this phase does feel like they're finding out what might and might not work in later phases while also establishing new elements and playing on the grief from older phases
The action figure phase is the most thematically relevant because it foreshadows how the franchise would continue to devolve into self-insert fanfiction.
@Rich Castle How? The entire premise behind why WandaVision happened had to do with The Snap happening, Wanda's grief manifesting in harmful ways, and Vision's remains being cast aside like a piece of equipment. The antagonists of Falcon and Winter Soldier are entirely linked to the chaos the world would be thrown in not only after The Snap but the return of everyone 5 years later. Granted, Loki wasn't about The Snap itself, but arguably about multiversal events of similar scale, collectively. That's at least 3 shows out of 6, and Multiverse of Madness definitely had the after effects of The Snap as a continuous story element. I'd say describing that as one of 3 major things the Phase was about is entirely accurate.
To be fair on the Deviants thing I feel like it’s pretty believable that the Celestials would just shrug and be satisfied that the Eternals solve that problem and not bother fixing the root issue
@Jonas Quinn I mean, there's like 6 ways that the celestials' plan is complete nonsense. Like you said, the Eternals are against genocide. But why would the celestials program their genocide robots to be against genocide in the first place? Because now they have to lie to them and constantly wipe their memories instead of, ya know, programming them to be okay with it?
@Teven Powell But then you have have them wipe out all the Deviants in the planet they were already sent to and contend with them probably not wanting to commit genocide
I think the obvious answer is to just, ya know, send the Eternals to do the extinction part. Missing such an obvious solution really makes the all powerful celestial gods look really dumb
Nando admitted that this phase doesn’t have a solid chain holding the movies together, but it has a few semi transparent strings delaying the inevitable.
There were a lot of mirrors and reflections in Phase 4, along with people that drowned (Strange's sister, Marc's brother, Queen Ramonda). Also, lots of Ultron references (What If, Ultron helmet in Bruce's hideout, Ultron bots in Earth 838, the AI takeover mention in Wakanda Forever) Wouldn't be surprised if Ultron shows up from another universe in Secret Wars...
I really like the conclusions that you drew! For me Phase 4 is about centering yourself, in a way, that you on one hand focus on, who are you and what are the things, themes and people, that are most important to you, which is why in my mind a very big topic is also family. All of the remaining heroes from the first three phases, they won. But the cost was high for everyone and yet, no one knows how to get back to a normal life, which is why they turn to their families (and expand them for some), even newer heroes like the Eternals show us the connection between people and that this is what we need to focus on, to have something to fight for (in extent to all the other topics from that movie). As you said, there are a lot of organizations within Phase 4, that are more hostile towards superpowered individuals, and for me that emphasizes the lack of SHIELD and Nick Fury, that brought the Avengers together in the first place. Right now, we have a lot of heroes, but they know very little about oneanother, let alone trust each other enough to fight alongside like the Avenergs did. Spiderman not only rejected being the new Iron Man (which for me would have given him the role to bring the next Avengers together), now noone even knows who he is. I'm really excited to see, how they will come together!
I think the theme was legacy and this was sort of a building phase with phase 1, with fury assembling the avengers, who knows maybe Kant will assemble the time avengers or something
@227someguy because it's still something that he shouldn't have done, but Shang chi notably wanted revenge too, and both Father/son take out the flaws they see in themselves on the other
@227someguy Shang chi wanted to be an assassin tho, it's part of his story that he felt the same as his dad up until he actually killed the guy. Not that it makes it right, but it wasn't exactly forced.
@Mystic_Midnight and then he massively degraded. He killed someone in front of his son, forced said kid to become an assassin, punched him into a lake, and neglected his daughter because she reminded him of his wife.
Love this so far ! Just pausing to say phase four is about interdicting new characters and teams, grief for the remaining avengers and that feeling of " where do we go from here ?" "Why do I even fight ?" Once kang fully appears that will be their " why " :)
Not sure, but I'm pretty confident that they're going to do Young Avengers. 24:56 yeah, we got more dad's. Also, more parents in general. Then again, this is becoming a thing so I'm surprised that no one over at DC is letting Bruce start adopting again.
I thought the whole “you don’t know who daredevil is” thing from shehulk as a meta joke for all these ret-cons. The show is introducing a character as if he’s always been there- either pointing out how hard it is to keep all the jerks straight or how crazy it is that new heroes are constantly showing up
I will be very disappointed if the X-Men turn out to have been there the whole time. I'm cool with the Eternals or Wen Wu or Black Widow's family staying out of things, but the X-Men couldn't possibly do that. I really thought that they would introduce mutants by folding two universes together (not necessarily the Fox X-Men universe) in NWH (most likely) or WandaVision or MoM, but not having done that, it could still happen in Kang Dynasty or even Quantumania.
Although....he is technically Bohner, he has mentioned when he's bored he just runs around I believe, also they introduced the mutant town & Logans bar too in ftws. Could be hiding out if logan is cannon, they were being wiped out 🤷🏽♀️
The way I would do it, I would have something in Secret Wars cause the mutant gene to activate causing The Mutant Saga. This event could have something to do with Kamala.
Okay, this is the first I remember hearing about the Selvig 616 Easter egg, and I love the theory that he published a paper about it and that that's where Mysterio got that number from.
Yes. It is the Recon phase. Kevin Explained in an interview that this is what it feels like when your reality is being twisted changed and invaded by other universes. They have impact... in their own timeline, but now the timelines are collapsing. And that's the problem that Strange talked about. Collapsing timelines feels like recon whip lash.
i like to call it the wattpad phase because this is definitely disney just letting writers do way more of whatever they want because they're only doing it for the money now
The harrow stuff in the afterlife was their subconscious. Harrow is the figurehead of it because throughout the show he's had them question who side is really right.
Gotta say, you made me appreciate Phase 4 a bit more... I still wish all of these themes and attentions to detail didn't feel like they came at the expense of the individual pieces suffering for the sake of a greater whole.
Love the opening (how superheroes are represented in their world, etc..) because I’ve been wanting to talk about this but didn’t know how to go about it
I was watching/listening to this video while I was trying to organize some thoughts about a writing project I want to take on. But the thoughts were scrambled and chaotic. Then you got to the World Anvil ad, and this is the first ad that came at just the right time in my life and was an instant click for me. Well done.
An important point that I feel many overlook, is the extensive set ideas covered in phase 4 that were previously covered in Agents of SHIELD. (Also in Agents of SHIEL the inhumans were made by the Kree which seems to contradict the skrull made Inhumans in Inhumans.)
About the SWORD thing, they mention Monica is limited to Earth missions until she recovers, and at the end, a skrull points up, to indicate Fury wants to talk to Monica. So there is a space element to the organization.
Falcon and Winter Soldier definitely had identity issues. Sam figuring who he should be as a brother and as a hero post Endgame. Bucky figuring out If he truly is redeemable and if he can be a hero.
25:38 Worth noting that the concept for ankle monitors comes from a Spider-Man comic where Kingpin imprisons Spider-Man. Scott from Nerdsync made a great video about it
It was pretty simple to me: Phase Four was about the aftermath of Endgame while also introducing new characters and further delving into the concept of the Multiverse
Phase 4 was the multi-version phase of the multiverse saga. It introduced multiple versions of characters from the same universe before introducing the multiverse. I think it was a way to ease into the multiverse idea. It also may be to not have to rely on the current stars, kind of how you mentioned in the video. They can’t depend on all of the actors to stick around for a whole saga. That’s why the movies are coming quicker now. You don’t know if these actors will continue to play characters for 10 years or if they may pass away in that time.
I don’t particularly like this idea of people thinking each phase needs to be about something. I don’t think the other phases were about stuff particularly either, not obviously at least. I think after the Thanos events, fans have become too concerned that each individual movie must lead up to something in the grand scheme. I think it’s perfectly fine for a movie to be self contained and just be a fun joy ride.
right? like my thinking was that phase 1-3 are only cohesive in retrospect thanks to the wonderful work of the Russos in Avengers 3 and 4 (which I have a soft spot for Age of Ultron and the leg work it put in in terms of universe building but anyway). like realistically Guardians of the Galaxy didn't have anything to do with the other properties when it came out, and it was still awesome!
@StarryEyed0590 the problem with this line of thinking is that the original 3 phases did this because the universe wasn’t very big yet. Each phase needed a bigger movie to tie it all together because we were using them as stepping stones to get to where we are now. The MCU is massive nowadays, and trying to tie EVERYTHING together into one movie at the end of each phase would be a nightmare. Plus, remember not every phase-ending movie encompassed absolutely everything from that phase. Age of Ultron had absolutely nothing to do with Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man, for example (and I know technically Ant-Man came out after Ultron but the argument still applies).
I think the reason that people are scrambling for a central theme or premise to tie the phase together is because this Phase doesn't build to anything. Each previous phase was capped by a big Avengers movie that tied together most, even if not all, of the movies from that phase. With nothing like that, and even the movies (No Way Home/MoM) that heavily featured crossovers occurring early to mid in the phase, people want to know the point. Nando can compare it to a season of sports, but it's really more like a season of television. If something like Doctor Who had no series/season finale and the last episode of a run was just a normal, self-contained one, people would be going back to try to figure out what was going on.
I have this weird feeling, that once phase 5 is over, and we're knee deep into phase 6, knowing how much Feige hates taking L's, and especially multiple consecutive L's, we're gonna all go back through and watch it again and see it in a whole different context.
When you started the video talking about the themes, I immediately thought "this is the fase of the things that we haven't know about but were always there apparently" and later you said "retcon" and my comic reading brain lighten
I might be misremembering this, but I recall at some comic con panel Kevin talking about the transition between phase 3 and 4, stating that phase 4 is going to be a soft reboot to the franchise. The retcon phase makes perfect sense knowing we're leaving the avengers/thanos arc behind, fox buyout, and contracts ending.
48:18 her creator revealed that kamala was created originally with the intention of being a mutant but pearlmutter’s ban on mutants to highlight inhumans forced their hand But now they basically get to do their original vision basically
Ok, but you have to admit that the retcons should have interacted more. Yo remember that time the stars were strobe lights? What's the statue in the middle of the ocean? What do you think about the new Captain America? Have you seen that white Vision flying around? SOMETHING
Phase 4 is like gravel, but sometimes you find that super cool rock that is just too perfect to leave, so you take it with you, and show all of your friends and. Then you prop it up for displa- I forgot where I was going with this.
I think phase 4 should have partly built towards thunderbolts and phase 5 should have built towards a young avengers team. Then phase in phase 6 they can all come together along with everyone else and tackle kang
Perhaps all of the problematic retconning can be eventually resolved by the multiverse, and like, the Eternals, for example, could have always existed in a parallel universe, but their reality quietly merged with the main universe and they didn't even realize because they're so absorbed in their own stuff anyway.
For the people talking about how phase 4 was (mostly) about "Legacy" and "Passing thr torch", while I do agree that it was very much about that, it didn't feel like it was planned that way. What I mean by that is: because so many protagonists from the infinity saga are getting old, retiring or dying, Marvel was forced into those themes, because that's really the only way they can keep the universe going. So even though those were definitely recurring themes in Phase 4, it was mostly because of necessity, not desire.
Identity crisis and looking for a purpose, that’s the vibe I got, and it’s a messy process, discovering things about yourself that you never knew existed(retcons)
First off - EXCELLENT take on Phase 4; I felt like my sheer frustration and anger was somewhat brought down a notch thanks to this perspective. I think the "rebuilding year/sports team" analogy is very apt and warranted - I think any reasonable comic fan would assume this (I think you mentioned in a previous vid/some comment mentioned that the only reasonable thing to do after a blockbuster event like Endgame is to focus on smaller stories to lower the scale). Going back to the sports analogy - I don't think people are mad at Disney for being in a rebuilding year, they're mad because Disney is the Mets. They have a TON of money to spend, and are a professional baseball team. Therefore you assume that at the very least they focus on the fundamentals to a professional degree, and have enough capital to make it to the playoffs every year. tl;dr In movie terms - people are frustrated that despite the amount of money Disney has access to, they should have competent CGI and writing as a bare minimum. We don't care if they are testing different characters to see what sticks - that's perfectly fine. Losing the fundamentals that made MCU great is a cardinal sin.
What’s tough for me is that usually during building years you dont make your team a loveless cash grab which so many of the projects clearly have been. We deserve better and I want to see it in phase five.
i like to imagine that every universe's mysterio lies about knowing there's a multiverse, but each universe's mysterio happens to choose the correct number for the earth they're on
@The Diamond Planet you sound like your name is Dwight Schrute
This is definitely amongst the greatest comments I have ever read on this platform.
@James Moriarty wrong, MCU while not being the same as the comics 616 is also the 616 as it's not meant to run in parallel. Marvel Studios and Marvel comics aren't in the same multiverse, they're each their own multiverse harbored under the Marvel Megaverse.
However, you could make a case for Agents of Shield's (and maybe the netflix defenders?) timeline that was perfectly lined up until the 2012 avengers movie, so those events happened in both MCU 616 and MCU199999
his universe being 616 was not discovered by or invented by Mysterio. Erik Selvig first deduced that they reside in Earth-616 in Thor: The Dark World. All Mysterio really had to do was brush up on Selvig's research (which is the most comprehensive publicly available multiverse information in the world) in preparation for his character
@raiden stark wait what
Somebody FINALLY talked about how weird it is to make the Salem witch trials about actual mischievous witches!
@ZeeDrakon Witch trials were extremely common in Europe. But they were not common in the North American colonies. Salem was an outlier. It was the Jonestown of the era.
I don't think it's "weird" at all. You ever heard the phrase "art imitates life"? People have been using historical events and figures since FOREVER in their fiction. Go read the Divine Comedy.
@Both Parties are Crazy correlation doesn’t mean causation, where is your causative evidence? I was just using the information given by that person, you still haven’t refuted that witch hunts had gendered outcomes. I’d offer data, but I suspect that you would just discount it because of “liberal academics”. So I’m just talking about “data” that you accept.
Phase 4 was about legacy, for sure. Shang chi and his father’s rings, the Hawkeyes, black widow’s family being introduced, Falcon becoming Captain America, the thors, Spider-Man meeting two versions of himself and fighting their villains, she hulk ignoring her cousin’s advice and learning from it to be a hero like him and a lawyer like her
*Stretching*
Agreed. That's kind of what Nando was hinting at with Dads and bracelets.
In terms of motivation and overarching theme.
It's all about passing down and introducing the new heros and using family as the mentor. Not just dads, but general family and how family doesn't need to be blood to be mentors.
That's the key difference with pause 4 vs. Phase 1 -3. Captain, iron man, etc made it clear that their family was themselves, their avengers team. They had no one else, including Thor after he lost everyone.
The new and young avengers is about building a family outside of their team now that their own mentors (cap and iron man) are no longer around.
This theme continues into Antman with his family and daughter and that will be the key motivation for our heroes. They aren't protecting the universe and world. They want to protect the people they've grown to love despite any animosity they had before (Clint didn't want anything to do with Kate bishop originally, black widow and their estranged father, black panther and fighting through the loss of their leader and wakanda struggling, etc).
They're fighting for family. Unlike in phase 1 to 3, the key motivation/overarching theme was saving the world from their own mistakes to fight through their trauma.
I think in terms of meta/powers, I think we will find out that the quantum realm that Kang controls is connected to every dimension. Dark dimension, Noor dimensions, 10 rings, even Valhalla and the gods we found are real, including eternals. There are overarching themes about death and loss and how these alternate dimensions can be used to either connect with the dead or be manipulated. And Kang is going to collapse not just the mutliverse, but also the dimensions that we've learned about from phase 4. What we will find out is that all these dimensions were separated and created after the multiversal war and that's where all of these dimensions, powers, artifacts and infinity stones came from.
The birth of the universe that created the infinity stones? Well yes and no. The stones was one of the many branches and powerful objects created when the multiverse collapsed into the main timeline.
This retcon is the only way they can save phase 4 reviews similar to how after endgame, age of ultron ages much better and create the sentiment that "its all connected". If they don't do that and basically do a soft reboot because they're pushing back Kang dynasty then phase 4 will quite simply be forgotten and rewritten in phase 5. Which, honestly would be a shame...
I think it was more about choice in being your own person, loki had the free will or predestined thing, shan chi chose to not be like his dad, kamala chose to be herself, same with shehulk chosing to follow both lawyer and hero paths. legacy falls into that cause theyre carrying what came before but they arent the same as what came before
@Princess Lioness so I'm right they did nothing with her punisher mentality she just said grrr im angry a few times and then by the end she's chill. They do nothing interesting with it that she'll have to deal with in future shes just the best in everyway. Mbaku should of been king and panther it makes much more sense... suddenly shuri just has fighting prowess 😂
@Undying ArtDid you even watch the movie, Shuri doesn’t want to be queen and even gives it up at the end. Of course it’s set up, because she was forced into the hero role because someone died. That’s usually how it goes, it didn’t take Tobey or Andrew 3 films to actually feel like Spiderman. She didn’t do anything bad because her anger was directed at Namor for killing her mom, not at the whole world. She more sad and frustrated than angry for the most part.
The action figure portion reminds me of Logan not liking the comics that Laura had and loved, saying that “maybe a quarter of it happened and not like this” signifying that someone wrote and drew fabricated stories to make themselves feel better about the disappearance of mutants (also him saying some of it happened while looking at him save a friend from falling in the comic he’s wearing the accurate suit, maybe he wore the suit before he retired)
@Nando v Movies have me big homelander merch vibes
@Nando v Movies 15:30 Shang Chi was live action Dragonball Z, lets not lie. That's Trunks and Bulla vs their daddy, Vegeta. Running down dragons was ana homage to Goku.
I interpreted the witch trial thing as there were _some_ witches but the rest was still complete paranoia.
Also how would Wenwu have helped during the battle in New York when he was in Hong Kong and how would he have helped the battle of Wakanda if I kinda was closed after the rest of the world? Same with Endgame? Wenwu probably did his best to police his own corner of the world.
48:29 48:34 48:34
@Nando v Movies speaking of Deadpool 3 have you heard of Madcap?
The more we go on the more the MCU is gonna become like the comics. You don't need to watch or be "caught up" on everything because it'll become less and less feasible to binge all of them at once
Just roll with what's interesting to you, if the movies are well made than anything you missed that's important will be explained just like any other backstory in a movie.
Well after the Armageddon plot the Bible doesn't say anything about what happens after. They flipped that script well enough but now they have nothing else to really talk about 🙂
They will start putting those notes in movies like the comics have yknow where they say something like "Read Amazing Spider-Man #35 -Editor" when something from another comic is happening, but they'll say "Watch Moon Knight episode 4" or something
@Banana King no they aren’t
It's what Gunn wants to do for the DCU
And of course the best experience would be to watch everything, but that won't be necessary
Sharon Carter is the one person I can think of who I really want to be a Skrull because I think her Power Broker villain turn just did not make sense. If she was replaced by a Skrull during the Snap, it suddenly totally makes sense.
💯
Nah, Nando himself predicted she was a villain all the way back in 2016, no Skrull needed
I don't her character or twist interesting at all.
@Osvaldo Rubalcava Why? i thought it was a cool twist
Two months ago Jonathan Majors said he just had a chat with Kang Dynasty director Destin Cretton. When asked what can he say about it, he responded with "We are dealing with myths. What is a Kang? What is a movie? What is a MCU movie? What does that mean, what does that look like? Those are the questions we are asking."
The fact that he said Kang Dynasty will explore "what is a MCU" movie really makes me think you are onto something here.
@Lewis Mckenzieso far so true
We all know what a phase 5 movie is going to be. More strong wahmen and destruction of beloved male characters. It's beyond predictable at this point 😂
Wow that will be cool and perfect. Bcs Kang and his variants are only people who r aware of MCU as a whole they know the start and the end .
can't believe you didn't even mention eating food at a table as one of phase four's main themes.
@Jeffrey Denenberg you don’t understand, each movie and tv show in phase four had at least one scene where the characters sit at a table and eat food.
idk if thats really fair, eating food at a table was literally the last thing that happened in phase 1 and was very impactful there so it's not really unique to phase 4
Phase 4 felt like a "consequence/reality" phase. A lot of the shows specifically show a new side of the MCU where you see how "the real world" is handling heroes and stuff.
@duntrump duntru Is that REALLY some new concept in this universe?
invoking the "real world" in the mcu? really?
53:36 was an absolutely perfect analogy for phase 4. After three-peating with its first few phases, this dynasty is rebuilding and developing its draft picks. And just like in sports, some of the lifelong fans are looking at these new faces and wondering if they can reach the same heights.
I saw Druig's stopping but not stopping the conquistadors as his dereliction of duty from the role of being an Eternal. He decided mankind was too destructive and no amount of intervening would stop their atrocities against one another so he carved out a mini civilization that he could manage and basically retired there with it. He was done with worldly matters and decided to spend all his time and energy on the people he knew he could save. He didn't save a civilization, but he saved a town and grew that
The "rebuild season " idea is exactly what I thought this phase would be the whole time. I love the way you explained it.
The retcon phase you’ve discussed made think how the MCU really does work like comics; kingdoms, deities, organizations randomly pop outta nowhere and we’re expected to believe they’ve existed for a loooong time
@duntrump duntru Because apparently, the main MCU universe is 616 now. They confirmed it in Doctor Strange 2.
@Immanuel Arriaga why? how? and why earth 616 specifically?
@duntrump duntru I honestly like to think that after the death of He Who Remains (the writer of the timeline), history as been fluid and trying to accommodate all the changes being made from other timelines and universes onto the main 616 (NOT) timeline.
@Matt Wayne i gues you can just ignore my argument by calling it my head canon.
Gorr is definintly an A tier dad. Didn't do great things after his daugther died, but when presented to give her a second chance at life he did.
Something I find myself continually coming back to as far as the retcons, is specifically that Eternals tells us that life-bearing planets are created by Celestials as eggs for incubating new Celestials...
But cut back to GotGv2, where Ego calls himself a Celestial, says he believed himself alone, and embarks on his whole Expansion plan by which he seeded a bit of himself on a bunch of life-bearing planets with the intent of turning them all into extensions of himself. He even gets to start doing some of it, with a big glowing blob of Ego-ness erupting out from behind the Dairy Queen and also on Xandar! What would've happened if he'd fully succeeded, as far as Arishem and the Eternals and all that? That seems like something they should've maybe gotten a bit involved with, if they'd always existed all that time.
I’ve always argued that Phase 4’s big shared theme was “Self-Identity”
Almost every story is about someone grappling with what it is that makes them *themselves,* and how that’s informed by their background, their biology, their “destiny,” or perspective/philosophy.
@MrQuincy27 please elaborate
Ew
@Milkias Samuel I'll watch that now. I don't have them on my list, so I haven't seen it. Thanks
It was all about identity politics
@keelo brown I disagree
I always thought the underlying theme of phase 4 was Legacies. It feels like almost every major character is worrying about their legacy, trying to live up to a legacy they've been given, dealing with how the legacy (or lack there of) left in the world by another effects them, or making a legacy they are now a part of, either by happenstance or design, their own.
My favorite films from phase 4 were the standalone projects, like Shang chi or moon knight. They’re focused on one main character throughout and tells their story. As fun as the rest of phase 4 was, not many of the projects stuck with me.
Phase 4 was definitely about grief and coming to terms with loss, be it a person or identity
THANK YOU for the part about the Salem witches! Seeing it in movies so much always felt weird to me
Phase 4 is about growing pains to me. I feel like this universe is still reeling after the snap and a lot of them are snapshots of the aftermath of the snap. Yeah COVID really held back this phase into just bunch of movies but again it's a reaction towards the tragedy whether it's in the MCU or in the real world. Hopefully phase 5 it will be more streamlined.
technically, every single property from phase 4 took place in 2023, the same year that everyone was brought back from the snap. Marvel made a conscious effort to not have too much media directly cause the next piece of media. they roughly all took place at the same time as each other (so as to catch up to the five year timeskip they tried). so yeah, society here is definitely still reeling from the snap
Nando made me realize a weird thing
There is an eternal named Thena
There is also confirmed a Greek pantheon which includes Athena...so....are there just 2? And which one came first?
This has been a decades-long problem for The Eternals in the comics, too. Jack Kirby's original comic was set in a weird "is it in Marvel canon/is it not in Marvel canon" grey area.
In Kirby's eyes each Eternal acted as the real inspiration for myths across the globe, however the pantheons and gods (Athena, Hephaestus, Mercury etc) Kirby drew from already existed in Marvel Comics canon.
So now they all tentatively coexist and nobody explicitly points out the paradox. The popular theory is that the Eternals co-opted the names of deities to do stuff while withholding their true identities.
If Phase 4 had a theme, I think it was probably something to do with the heroes' relationship with the world, probably best demonstrated by Hawkeye, TFATWS, Ms Marvel, She Hulk and Black Panther 2, with nods in Thor 4 and Guardians Hoiliday special. But my read was that Phase 4 was intended to expand the MCU from one franchise to many franchises; it feels more like Marvel Comics to me now, where the reader knows everything is happening in the same universe, but not every book is about the same theme or subject, or told in the same style or genre, but which can cross over when the story demands it.
The Mandarin was shown to be real ever since that one DVD short with Trevor in prison, which I am 100% certain you know about because you've talked about it before
Also watchers showed up in gotg 2.
I mean before the movie it was uncertain if it was canon, the guy who kidnapped Trevor I don't think even appeared in the movie
35:21 I would say the most significant retcon in Sam & Bucky was all the super soldier serum stuff. Bradley’s whole existence.
Contact the above platform for INTERACTION on claiming your prize 🎁.........
Great minds think alike :D
Kidding aside, fantastic video as always, and huge thanks for that shoutout! I probably wouldn't be making videos at all if it weren't for your channel - I had my first successful video blow up thanks to the One Villainous Scene playlist - so I was beaming from ear to ear at 55:05!
@zeoberlerb L PoG
W Pillar W Nando
I lied no congrats for PoG hahaahha
So happy to see this shout out too, you're one of my favorite creators on KZclip today and seeing your channel grow has been wonderful. You always have something insightful to say and I appreciate your honest, no nonsense approach to discussing political aspects of media.
congrats my guy
Legacy. The new generation. Also Marvel trying hundred different things to see what sticks. The Phase One 2.0 if you will.
I personally liked it. Very comic booky in a sense of having so many completely different runs of stories and letting people pick and choose which to follow. But that's just me.
@Racool I would argue if you don’t watch Wandvision, the narrative falls apart very quickly and Strange was most definitely sidelined in the story, he may have been a main character but I couldn’t think of a single thing that made his character interesting in any way other than to progress Wanda’s character arc from Wandavision
@alita Ignoring the sidelining part, cause he's clearly the main focus of the story, (Wanda has similar focus cause she was the villain) the investment part is overall true for the entirety of the MCU. Your investment SHOULD be greater if you bothered to watch the previous installments of the franchise, but it is never a necessity
@Racool all that character building happened in a show that wasn’t shown on the big screen, it removes a MASSIVE part of the investment in the story without watching it.
Strange shouldn’t have to be sidelined in his own movie for a movie that’s mainly about Wanda really.
@Racool Having seen that movie with people who hadn't seen Wandavision...yes, you did need to watch it. (It didn't make a lot of sense even if you did watch it, though.)
@Racool But Wanda was already an established character. If someone was just watching the movies then all of a sudden Wanda had and subsequently lost children, gained greater power, and got a hold of a magic book that's turning her evil, all offscreen.
I’m not going to pretend that phase 4 was some meticulously crafted master plan that was perfectly executed. It had some high highs but really low lows. And it’s to be expected after their big conclusion in Endgame and all the chaos IRL. So there were bound to be some missteps and growing pain when trying to introduce new characters and concepts. But themes of loss, grief, legacy, and expansion of the multiverse are present throughout. Hopefully now that phase 4 is over we can learn from our mistakes and successes and move forward together.
@RtsIII I don’t really know tbh, all the other phases feel exactly the same. I’m not really sure why it’s a big surprise that the MCU has been pretty mediocre in a lot of their movies, they need to do bigger changes and take way more risks for the burnout of MCU films that has been showing lately
@quidam they didn’t “take risks” they made bad story and character decisions. While the two are not necessarily different in certain cases, we mine as well be precise here. There are several who might say the “risks” they supposedly took are actually very in line with the rest of the “entertainment” that Disney, and many other studios, put out these days, and therefore rather safe, myself being one of them.
All said, however, I’ve found most of the MCU to be rather….meh. I’ve seen many action movies, now I’ve seen many action movies with comic book characters and novel visual effects, although one can’t deny their impact on cinema. If anybody is looking for a defender of the other phases, I’m certainly not the one to do so, I simply find Phase 4 to be exemplary in its typicality for the times and “meh-ness.” The positives I found in the earlier movies are just not there much in this phase.
@RtsIII The first three phases had tons of mistakes that they didn't learn from, they doubled down and people still heaped praises on them so phase 4 hasn't been any different in that regard. So many ways the movies could have been better but they didn't want to take those risks and now that they are, y'all want them to just keep doing more of the same old stuff.
@RtsIII: I won’t deny that.
But, they don’t acknowledge large portions of their mistakes….they don’t even think many of them ARE mistakes. They clearly don’t like feedback that doesn’t tell them how wonderful they are either, so, I’m not sure I see anything changing without some serious internal upheaval that even Disney’s dire financial situation hasn’t yet elicited.
I mean, if you liked Phase 4….well, if you liked Phase 4, I’m sure you’ll get much more of it.
Nando I really enjoy when you put out a nearly hour long video. 😊
Super enjoyable video. Nice job nando and I agree this phase does feel like they're finding out what might and might not work in later phases while also establishing new elements and playing on the grief from older phases
The Nandolorian
Nando is the glue, the gel, the spin-master we need to justify the patchiness of the MCU.
The theme was Legacy. Everything was about passing the torch.
[edit]32:27 heh, then we get to him talking about this…
deep.
@Brian Guilfoyle Comedyno one’s ever really gone
The theme was the friends we made along the way?
Legacy and identity
The action figure phase is the most thematically relevant because it foreshadows how the franchise would continue to devolve into self-insert fanfiction.
Didn’t watch the whole vid yet, but imo Phase 4 was a few things: Loss and Legacy, Moving Past the Snap, and Fresh Faces. Love you Nando.
@Rich Castle How? The entire premise behind why WandaVision happened had to do with The Snap happening, Wanda's grief manifesting in harmful ways, and Vision's remains being cast aside like a piece of equipment. The antagonists of Falcon and Winter Soldier are entirely linked to the chaos the world would be thrown in not only after The Snap but the return of everyone 5 years later. Granted, Loki wasn't about The Snap itself, but arguably about multiversal events of similar scale, collectively. That's at least 3 shows out of 6, and Multiverse of Madness definitely had the after effects of The Snap as a continuous story element. I'd say describing that as one of 3 major things the Phase was about is entirely accurate.
yeah moving past the snap was barley what the phase for was about. It was more "Oh the blip happened" and that's it.
To be fair on the Deviants thing I feel like it’s pretty believable that the Celestials would just shrug and be satisfied that the Eternals solve that problem and not bother fixing the root issue
@Jonas Quinn I mean, there's like 6 ways that the celestials' plan is complete nonsense.
Like you said, the Eternals are against genocide. But why would the celestials program their genocide robots to be against genocide in the first place? Because now they have to lie to them and constantly wipe their memories instead of, ya know, programming them to be okay with it?
@Teven Powell But then you have have them wipe out all the Deviants in the planet they were already sent to and contend with them probably not wanting to commit genocide
I think the obvious answer is to just, ya know, send the Eternals to do the extinction part.
Missing such an obvious solution really makes the all powerful celestial gods look really dumb
Nando admitted that this phase doesn’t have a solid chain holding the movies together, but it has a few semi transparent strings delaying the inevitable.
To me it kinda always felt like “living in grief/ aftermath”
Thay message is basically repeated through the projects, (beginning to end) Wandavision then hugely in Black panther wakanda forever.
There were a lot of mirrors and reflections in Phase 4, along with people that drowned (Strange's sister, Marc's brother, Queen Ramonda). Also, lots of Ultron references (What If, Ultron helmet in Bruce's hideout, Ultron bots in Earth 838, the AI takeover mention in Wakanda Forever) Wouldn't be surprised if Ultron shows up from another universe in Secret Wars...
I really like the conclusions that you drew! For me Phase 4 is about centering yourself, in a way, that you on one hand focus on, who are you and what are the things, themes and people, that are most important to you, which is why in my mind a very big topic is also family. All of the remaining heroes from the first three phases, they won. But the cost was high for everyone and yet, no one knows how to get back to a normal life, which is why they turn to their families (and expand them for some), even newer heroes like the Eternals show us the connection between people and that this is what we need to focus on, to have something to fight for (in extent to all the other topics from that movie). As you said, there are a lot of organizations within Phase 4, that are more hostile towards superpowered individuals, and for me that emphasizes the lack of SHIELD and Nick Fury, that brought the Avengers together in the first place. Right now, we have a lot of heroes, but they know very little about oneanother, let alone trust each other enough to fight alongside like the Avenergs did. Spiderman not only rejected being the new Iron Man (which for me would have given him the role to bring the next Avengers together), now noone even knows who he is. I'm really excited to see, how they will come together!
I definitely think Legacy/Destiny is the best way to describe it. Not everything fits perfectly, but most of them do.
I think the theme was legacy and this was sort of a building phase with phase 1, with fury assembling the avengers, who knows maybe Kant will assemble the time avengers or something
Ay I meant kang
Famous philosopher Immanuel Kant? ^^
i love how optimistic you always are. thank you.
Giving the Shang-Chi dad B Tier after everything he put his kids through as children is very generous. 😆
@227someguy because it's still something that he shouldn't have done, but Shang chi notably wanted revenge too, and both Father/son take out the flaws they see in themselves on the other
@darknessknows1235 except Shang-Chi berates his dad for making him an assassin, which the latter doesn’t deny.
@227someguy Shang chi wanted to be an assassin tho, it's part of his story that he felt the same as his dad up until he actually killed the guy. Not that it makes it right, but it wasn't exactly forced.
@Mystic_Midnight and then he massively degraded. He killed someone in front of his son, forced said kid to become an assassin, punched him into a lake, and neglected his daughter because she reminded him of his wife.
I mean he gave up immortality for his wife and kids until his wife died
This is probably something you should include in your morning wake up routine because it is quite the stretch.
Love this so far ! Just pausing to say phase four is about interdicting new characters and teams, grief for the remaining avengers and that feeling of " where do we go from here ?" "Why do I even fight ?" Once kang fully appears that will be their " why " :)
"everything but Fan-four-stic is in play." Lol, that was truly fantastic.
Not sure, but I'm pretty confident that they're going to do Young Avengers.
24:56 yeah, we got more dad's. Also, more parents in general. Then again, this is becoming a thing so I'm surprised that no one over at DC is letting Bruce start adopting again.
I thought the whole “you don’t know who daredevil is” thing from shehulk as a meta joke for all these ret-cons. The show is introducing a character as if he’s always been there- either pointing out how hard it is to keep all the jerks straight or how crazy it is that new heroes are constantly showing up
I will be very disappointed if the X-Men turn out to have been there the whole time. I'm cool with the Eternals or Wen Wu or Black Widow's family staying out of things, but the X-Men couldn't possibly do that. I really thought that they would introduce mutants by folding two universes together (not necessarily the Fox X-Men universe) in NWH (most likely) or WandaVision or MoM, but not having done that, it could still happen in Kang Dynasty or even Quantumania.
Although....he is technically Bohner, he has mentioned when he's bored he just runs around I believe, also they introduced the mutant town & Logans bar too in ftws. Could be hiding out if logan is cannon, they were being wiped out 🤷🏽♀️
The way I would do it, I would have something in Secret Wars cause the mutant gene to activate causing The Mutant Saga. This event could have something to do with Kamala.
Phase 4 was Into the Spider-Verse, except the latter fought to resve its own cynicism, while the former is still finding its footing in that regard.
Okay, this is the first I remember hearing about the Selvig 616 Easter egg, and I love the theory that he published a paper about it and that that's where Mysterio got that number from.
Yes. It is the Recon phase. Kevin Explained in an interview that this is what it feels like when your reality is being twisted changed and invaded by other universes. They have impact... in their own timeline, but now the timelines are collapsing. And that's the problem that Strange talked about. Collapsing timelines feels like recon whip lash.
i like to call it the wattpad phase because this is definitely disney just letting writers do way more of whatever they want because they're only doing it for the money now
I'm really enjoying your content. Thanks Nando!
Love the longer format. Kevin's going to call you one of these days!
The harrow stuff in the afterlife was their subconscious. Harrow is the figurehead of it because throughout the show he's had them question who side is really right.
Gotta say, you made me appreciate Phase 4 a bit more... I still wish all of these themes and attentions to detail didn't feel like they came at the expense of the individual pieces suffering for the sake of a greater whole.
Now this, puts a smile on my face! 😌
Love this! 🙏🏽💪
The dad tier list is every thing I needed
Love the opening (how superheroes are represented in their world, etc..) because I’ve been wanting to talk about this but didn’t know how to go about it
I was watching/listening to this video while I was trying to organize some thoughts about a writing project I want to take on. But the thoughts were scrambled and chaotic. Then you got to the World Anvil ad, and this is the first ad that came at just the right time in my life and was an instant click for me. Well done.
An important point that I feel many overlook, is the extensive set ideas covered in phase 4 that were previously covered in Agents of SHIELD. (Also in Agents of SHIEL the inhumans were made by the Kree which seems to contradict the skrull made Inhumans in Inhumans.)
Needs T'Chaka as an S tier dad from that What If episode... started his own space program just to find T'challa
About the SWORD thing, they mention Monica is limited to Earth missions until she recovers, and at the end, a skrull points up, to indicate Fury wants to talk to Monica. So there is a space element to the organization.
I always thought phase four was about telling smaller self contained movies. Introducing new characters for the future
Please complete the tier list with the dads from previous phases
Falcon and Winter Soldier definitely had identity issues. Sam figuring who he should be as a brother and as a hero post Endgame. Bucky figuring out If he truly is redeemable and if he can be a hero.
25:38 Worth noting that the concept for ankle monitors comes from a Spider-Man comic where Kingpin imprisons Spider-Man. Scott from Nerdsync made a great video about it
It was pretty simple to me: Phase Four was about the aftermath of Endgame while also introducing new characters and further delving into the concept of the Multiverse
I love the way you explain things! You should make a video about how you would change the DC universe that would be crazy cool !!
Fun fact, the toy used in the moon knight show is actual a comic based moon knight legends figure, just with (as you said) a custom cape and hood
Phase 4 was the multi-version phase of the multiverse saga. It introduced multiple versions of characters from the same universe before introducing the multiverse. I think it was a way to ease into the multiverse idea. It also may be to not have to rely on the current stars, kind of how you mentioned in the video. They can’t depend on all of the actors to stick around for a whole saga. That’s why the movies are coming quicker now. You don’t know if these actors will continue to play characters for 10 years or if they may pass away in that time.
I don’t particularly like this idea of people thinking each phase needs to be about something. I don’t think the other phases were about stuff particularly either, not obviously at least. I think after the Thanos events, fans have become too concerned that each individual movie must lead up to something in the grand scheme. I think it’s perfectly fine for a movie to be self contained and just be a fun joy ride.
right? like my thinking was that phase 1-3 are only cohesive in retrospect thanks to the wonderful work of the Russos in Avengers 3 and 4 (which I have a soft spot for Age of Ultron and the leg work it put in in terms of universe building but anyway). like realistically Guardians of the Galaxy didn't have anything to do with the other properties when it came out, and it was still awesome!
@StarryEyed0590 the problem with this line of thinking is that the original 3 phases did this because the universe wasn’t very big yet. Each phase needed a bigger movie to tie it all together because we were using them as stepping stones to get to where we are now.
The MCU is massive nowadays, and trying to tie EVERYTHING together into one movie at the end of each phase would be a nightmare. Plus, remember not every phase-ending movie encompassed absolutely everything from that phase. Age of Ultron had absolutely nothing to do with Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man, for example (and I know technically Ant-Man came out after Ultron but the argument still applies).
I think the reason that people are scrambling for a central theme or premise to tie the phase together is because this Phase doesn't build to anything. Each previous phase was capped by a big Avengers movie that tied together most, even if not all, of the movies from that phase. With nothing like that, and even the movies (No Way Home/MoM) that heavily featured crossovers occurring early to mid in the phase, people want to know the point. Nando can compare it to a season of sports, but it's really more like a season of television. If something like Doctor Who had no series/season finale and the last episode of a run was just a normal, self-contained one, people would be going back to try to figure out what was going on.
Right, the first three phases weren't each about something specific, more generally about the infinity stones.
The three animatronic alien judges in Loki were functionally action figures, physically and thematically.
To me phase four was about grief and who we become after loss.
51:05 Matt as a character prefers to stay off the radar away from the limelight the fact that no one has heard of him makes complete sense
He’s secret
Phase 4 was the red herring phase. The whole phase was about allowing the fan base to make theories so they can punch holes in the theories later.
I have this weird feeling, that once phase 5 is over, and we're knee deep into phase 6, knowing how much Feige hates taking L's, and especially multiple consecutive L's, we're gonna all go back through and watch it again and see it in a whole different context.
Phase 4 is a segue phase. It’s a transition in which foundational characters are replaced with newer, younger counterparts. It’s a fulcrum.
When you started the video talking about the themes, I immediately thought "this is the fase of the things that we haven't know about but were always there apparently" and later you said "retcon" and my comic reading brain lighten
Weird that Moon Knight’s dad got 5 tier for enabling abuse, whereas Shang Chi’s dad didn’t for actually abusing his kids.
I might be misremembering this, but I recall at some comic con panel Kevin talking about the transition between phase 3 and 4, stating that phase 4 is going to be a soft reboot to the franchise. The retcon phase makes perfect sense knowing we're leaving the avengers/thanos arc behind, fox buyout, and contracts ending.
48:18 her creator revealed that kamala was created originally with the intention of being a mutant but pearlmutter’s ban on mutants to highlight inhumans forced their hand
But now they basically get to do their original vision basically
What a well researched and presented video....well done.
To me, phase 4 was all about reflecting on the past and the things this universe has gone through.
Ok, but you have to admit that the retcons should have interacted more. Yo remember that time the stars were strobe lights? What's the statue in the middle of the ocean? What do you think about the new Captain America? Have you seen that white Vision flying around? SOMETHING
Phase 4 is like gravel, but sometimes you find that super cool rock that is just too perfect to leave, so you take it with you, and show all of your friends and. Then you prop it up for displa- I forgot where I was going with this.
I think phase 4 should have partly built towards thunderbolts and phase 5 should have built towards a young avengers team. Then phase in phase 6 they can all come together along with everyone else and tackle kang
Definitely the phase of retcons, they literally have a song about how it was Agatha All Along!
Perhaps all of the problematic retconning can be eventually resolved by the multiverse, and like, the Eternals, for example, could have always existed in a parallel universe, but their reality quietly merged with the main universe and they didn't even realize because they're so absorbed in their own stuff anyway.
Come to think of it Tchallas son had to have been conceived between BP1 and infinity war because 5 years before BP2 tchalla was dust
For the people talking about how phase 4 was (mostly) about "Legacy" and "Passing thr torch", while I do agree that it was very much about that, it didn't feel like it was planned that way. What I mean by that is: because so many protagonists from the infinity saga are getting old, retiring or dying, Marvel was forced into those themes, because that's really the only way they can keep the universe going. So even though those were definitely recurring themes in Phase 4, it was mostly because of necessity, not desire.
I genuinely can't tell if this is serious, or the most straight faced joke video that Nando's ever done, but either way I'm here for it.
What? Did you watch the video? He makes clear points throughout that make sense.
Identity crisis and looking for a purpose, that’s the vibe I got, and it’s a messy process, discovering things about yourself that you never knew existed(retcons)
Screencrush had great video explaining how phase 4 is about identity crisis and understanding who we are
First off - EXCELLENT take on Phase 4; I felt like my sheer frustration and anger was somewhat brought down a notch thanks to this perspective.
I think the "rebuilding year/sports team" analogy is very apt and warranted - I think any reasonable comic fan would assume this (I think you mentioned in a previous vid/some comment mentioned that the only reasonable thing to do after a blockbuster event like Endgame is to focus on smaller stories to lower the scale).
Going back to the sports analogy - I don't think people are mad at Disney for being in a rebuilding year, they're mad because Disney is the Mets. They have a TON of money to spend, and are a professional baseball team. Therefore you assume that at the very least they focus on the fundamentals to a professional degree, and have enough capital to make it to the playoffs every year.
tl;dr In movie terms - people are frustrated that despite the amount of money Disney has access to, they should have competent CGI and writing as a bare minimum. We don't care if they are testing different characters to see what sticks - that's perfectly fine. Losing the fundamentals that made MCU great is a cardinal sin.
What’s tough for me is that usually during building years you dont make your team a loveless cash grab which so many of the projects clearly have been.
We deserve better and I want to see it in phase five.
A musical about the attack on NY is beyond weird, it’s like making a musical about 9/11
Right? And barely a decade later
I really want Agents of Shield to work into this seamlessly as well. Nicely done!
Loved the rebuilding comparison!
i honestly loved the analogy of the phases being like a sport