The Marvel Disney+ series (all of which tie in to the MCU movies) are the new hotness right now, but I think it would be a disservice to forget what came before it. That's why I cooked up this Five Comics entry. THE THEME: Before Marvel Studios began releasing MCU series for Disney+ in 2021, an entity called Marvel Television existed that was responsible for pretty much everything live-action that was produced in the 2010s. This started with Agents of SHIELD, then eventually expanded to all the Netflix series (of which there are five, plus the Defenders limited series), and also included stuff like Agent Carter, Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, Inhumans, and even Hellstrom (which I still haven't seen and heard was not good, which means I have to see it). Marvel also did a bunch of mutant-related stuff on top of all that, with shows such as Legion and The Gifted. To honor all that, I have selected five comics that saw live-action adaptations under Marvel Television, but before I get to that, I got a little story to tell. Bear with me. Although many of these shows I mentioned were marketed to be connected to the greater MCU (Agents of SHIELD most notably had the "it's all connected" slogan), I came to learn that some corporate horseshit led to a schism between Marvel TV and Marvel Studios. Apparently some dickbag exec at the tippy top of Marvel was way overstepping in the movies side of things and insisted on some questionable creative decisions (one choice that irked me in particular was refusing to have Maya Hansen be the villain of Iron Man 3, because women villains "aren't marketable" or some nonsense like that), which Kevin Feige took exception to. Hell, this guy didn't want to pay money to get Robert Downey Jr. in Civil War, so clearly this guy doesn't know shit. In any case, Feige's frustrations led to Marvel Studios branching off to be its own sort of entity within Marvel, allowing it a greater deal of autonomy (which meant not having to deal with dumbass exec's nonsense). The unfortunate side effect of this is that meant Marvel Studios effectively cut itself off from Marvel TV, and that led to less coordination between them in terms of crafting stories. The change is quite evident if you watch Agents of SHIELD (which you should absolutely do if you haven't already, because it's great). Seasons 1 and 2 are pretty well-connected to the MCU (with S2 actually explaining how two plot points in Age of Ultron came to be), but every season after that (and every other show that came after, for that matter) barely had anything connecting it to the MCU apart from a few throwaway lines of dialogue that allude to stuff from the movies. Plus, most of these connecting threads (even before the whole debacle I described) are one-sided, so it's almost exclusively the TV shows being influenced by the movies and never the other way around. It then became a great debate amongst fans whether any of the shows were canon, with one side maintaining everything is still connected, while the other citing specific events in the movies as an argument against canonicity. Things can get real fucking heated within fan circles if you bring this up, since some folks from team non-canon act like the shows have no value because they don't connect to the movies, and people from team canon act like they've been betrayed and denied by Marvel Studios for the past seven years when the reason stuff from TV never made it to the movies was mostly unrelated behind-the-scenes drama and not some spiteful creative decision. Marvel Studios producing for Disney+ did not help things, since now team non-canon gets to be all snarky and go "now this is canon" like that proves anything, while team canon treats the Disney+ series with unwarranted resentment, as if these shows exist purely to spite them. Needless to say, I get very annoyed when loudmouths from either side of this argument speak, because both have a lot of stupid shit to say. One side seeks to invalidate the quality of most of Marvel TV's content; apart from a number of duds, I'd argue that a lot of Marvel TV is worth watching, regardless of canonicity. The other side wants to make play like Marvel TV not being referenced in movies is a grievous case of historical revisionism on par with the denial of war crimes while also refusing to understand the situation that led to things being the way they are. That so much bandwidth on the Internet was wasted on such pointless, ill-conceived hot takes like this (and in the case of team canon, without looking up the full context first) is infuriating to me. So, are these shows canon? At this point, I don't think it matters because of multiverse horseshit, and the lorekeepers at Marvel Studios can probably just pick and choose how much stuff from each show makes it into the Sacred Timeline with that plot device (or through some crafty retcons). If you ask me, at this moment (when there's currently no conclusive evidence to really show that each series is canon or not canon), I would assert that most of the shows are canon, and I have hypotheses that explain to what extent I believe each show is canon. I won't go into that here, because this is not the place for it, and I also don't want to spoil anything about the shows should anyone be interested in revisiting them. Anyway, I've prattled on long enough. You're not here for this diatribe. Or are you? That would be odd. THE COMICS: ![]() DAREDEVIL (1964-1998) #1 Publisher: Marvel Writer: Stan Lee Artist: Bill Everett This is the very issue that introduces the Man Without Fear (one of my all-time favorite characters), and it shows his entire origin (from how he got his powers, his time at law school, and all the stuff related to his dad, boxer "Battlin'" Jack Murdock). If you've watched the Netflix (which you should), it's nothing you haven't seen before. Most notable here is Daredevil's original costume; before he donned the iconic all-red suit, he wore this yellow-and-red getup. ![]() RUNAWAYS (2017-2021) #25 Publisher: Marvel Writer: Rainbow Rowell Artist: Andres Genolet Karolina and Nico Minoru are out and about in Los Angeles playing superhero (which is uncharacteristic of Nico, I might add), but it seems their exploits have drawn attention to the Hostel (the base of operations of the Runaways). The pair also meets Doc Justice, who's apparently been protecting LA for a long time, and has been dealing with the Pride way before the kids found out about them. I definitely need to buy physical copies of the this whole series soon so I can read more of it and see more of Karolina and Nico be the power couple I always wanted them to be. ![]() THE PUNISHER (2018-2019) #16 Publisher: Marvel Writer: Matthew Rosenberg Artist: Szymon Kudranski This is a jam-packed issue that sees Punisher enlist Ghost Rider's help in taking down Baron Zemo, who has a new team of Thunderbolts, an army of HYDRA agents, and the backing of Mayor Wilson Fisk. A bunch of other heroes and villains show up, and we also get to see what happens when Punisher takes Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. ![]() LEGION (2018) #1 Publisher: Marvel Writer: Peter Milligan Artist: Wilfredo Torres Though the TV show captured a few key elements of Legion (him being Charles Xavier's son, for one), the show was ultimately pretty different from what I expected. The most defining aspect of Legion that didn't really show up in the show was his incredible powers: he has hundreds of personalities in his mind, each having a different mutant power, and this makes him one of the most powerful mutants in existence. In this comic, David looks to seek help as one of his alters intends to take full control, and he goes to a psychologist named Hannah Jones, who appears to be quite the professional, but seems to have problems of her own. ![]() MARVEL DIGITAL ORIGINALS: CLOAK AND DAGGER (2018-2019) #1 Publisher: Marvel Writer: Dennis Hopeless Artists: David Messina, Elisabetta D'Amico Though they've always operated as a duo, Cloak and Dagger are separated in this one, and they're not exactly on speaking terms, either. Tyrone is moonlighting as a bodyguard for some famous celebrity, while Tandy is working alongside a detective on superhuman cases. Circumstances will force the two back together as a string of murders Tandy discovers seem to point at a figure from Cloak and Dagger's past. Marvel TV brought a lot of characters to live-action, some with decades of legacy, some more recent, a bunch of them not well known to mainstream audiences, and even a few completely reimagined takes. Not everything they put out was perfect, but I still had a great time following all these shows, seeing how they adapted character origins and catching the little comic references they made. I'd recommend giving at least some of the shows a chance, as many feature characters I never imagined would ever be adapted in live-action. PANEL OF THE WEEK: - end -
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June 2024
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