Quiver

Well, there's also a problem with the actors. Unless they re-cast (which will be controversial) sooner or later they'll have to address the fact that the actors are going to age out of their roles. 

(Though, Old Man Steve might be cool)

Yeah. And, to be fair... Doctor Doom is kind of the best villain in Marvel's house. I just wish the Fantastic Four were still around.

I guess the question is, "What is the plan for the MCU-post Thanos". They've been building to Infinity War for... what, about ten years now? They obviously have no plans to stop making the films, so hopefully they have an idea of where they are going in the future.

(Galactus might make a cool thing they could build up for years... but it also ight seem like a repeat of Thanos, so. I dunno.)

Well, I think that's the interesting thing. Between Guardians, Doctor Strange and Ragnarok, I think Marvel is starting to tap into that zany Kirby well.

Honestly, I just hope the MCU doesn't do what the comics have done, and decide that Doom is the most and only important part of the Fantastic Four franchise. Doom is cool, sure... but it's kind of frustrating for me seeing him everywhere without the Richards.

Maybe we'll see Galactus as something other than a giant cloud.

X-Men is unlikely. Apocalypse wasn't great, but it still made them money... but before that they had Deadpool, and afterwards they had Logan, both of which were commercial and critical smash hits. No way is Fox giving up the rights to the X-Men anytime soon. 

You have no idea how much I want the Fantastic Four to be integrated into the MCU though. I've always been fond of them as characters and a concept, and it would be great for them to finally get a half-decent film under their belt. 

Er... maybe edit or hide the above post? Might be spoilery for anyone who stumbles across it in status updates and hasn't seen the film yet...

But yeah, that cameo surprised me. I figured that was off the table due to rights issues. 

I did indeed! I'm not actually overly familiar with Cosmic Marvel, to be honest, so all I know about the Guardians come from the movies...

But it was a fun film. It felt like "more of the same" rather than a complete overhaul and step up for the franchise alá The Winter Soldier... but the original Guardians was still a good movie, so. 

True story: I recently saw someone map characters and their motivations/secrets onto a four-circled Venn diagram.

The essayist ultimately complained that getting all the circles just right to reflect the story was maddening, so I'm sort of impressed at someone managing a fourteener.

I'm kind of curious as to what prompted this opinion

Why do I think "mandolin-playing" is one of the pre-requisites for becoming sheriff of the secret police?

I assumed everyone was aware of my views on Scott Summers by now

Is that what Bert appears in all those old photos?

Oh, bleh. Sorry, mis-read that!

More seriously... if you want, you could maybe go as something Night Vale inspired? Like, take elements from different characters you like, put it in a blender of your own style, and come up with a fictional Night Vale character? I mean...

Maybe that sounds like a cheat; I'll concede that on some level it is. But Night Vale is a pretty big town, and we never see more than a tiny fraction of it's citizenry. There's room for OC's is what I'm saying

A lot of the Cecil's I've seen painted a purple "third eye" on their forehead, if that helps?

If you want to go a bit further afield from your regular wardrobe, Steve might be a better choice. Unless you want to go even further afield and do something like John Peters- you know, the farmer?

(Sadly, I suspect two days simply isn't enough lead time to build an elaborate costume comprising of five mechanical, puppet-operated dragon heads.)

Cecil is probably the easiest one; it seems like there is more consensus on what he looks like, while still being vague enough that you can put your own spin on it.

When I was at Ghost Stories, a lot of people had rigged up Glow Cloud umbrellas; that might be a good diea

(Ya mind telling me what the show is like? I'm undecided on whether or not I'll be attending All Hail during the Europe Tour, so knowing if it's worth it would be helpful)

Plot twist: Bruce isn't Batpug. 

He's the Joker.

Study the Christian symbolism of Evangelion?

Beyond "Because it looks cool," of course. 

I actually dropped the series around the Ichigo Ulquiorra fight, when they both started pulling new transformations out of nowhere. I've been reading about the arcs after that, though, and, honestly, if not for the fact that the ending sounds rushed and terrible, I might have been persuaded to pick up the Vandenreich arc.

Honestly, from the dropped characters, dragged out arcs and tonal shift, it sounds like editoral killed that series. 

Even longer since Bleach has been used with the words "is a good series"

... I'm just going to chime in and add, as a comic, The Oath does a lot of damage.

Looking at screenshots, it's fantastic capturing the mood of dread and foreboding going into Secret Empire, a snapshot into the mind of a villain.

... but it's done so at the expense of making the Steve Rogers book enjoyable as a villain series. 

There have been villain books before (and now) and that was what the hook of Steve Rogers was to me; watching the subterfuge and the cloak and dagger, the plotting abd scheming, the cover ups and the Conspiracy. I reiterate:"The world's greatest superhero is secretly the world's greatest supervillain" is a fantastic concept, and I am -sincerely- jealous that that idea has never occurred to me.

... but, the Oath shows that Steve's vision of the future involves mutants and Inhumans -Marvel's metaphor for minorities- in internment camps. It shows school children Hailing Hydra, and police state monitored by air blimps.

Divorce it from the modern politics for a second. The Oath is filled with images of Steve's vision of the country, and it is fascistic - in the classical, Nazi version of the word.

Hydra has a complicated history in the comics, where it's been used as everything from."Necessary Evil", to "Generic Terrorism", to "Nazi Analogues".

The Oath confirms Steve is the last of those. Steve Rogers book is no longer a goofy, silver age concept of "Use the mind control McGuffin," and watching the results. There's no longer any ambiguity about what "version" of Hydra Steve is. Steve Rogers is, for all intents and purposes, the Red Skull. 

This is the moment where Steve's book stops being a Machiavelian game of cat and mouse, and becomes a flat out horror story. 

Again, I can, maybe, see an audience for that. Maybe Secret Empire will be an amazing event. But personally, the reveal of how demented Steve as become has removed a lot of the benefit of the doubt goodwill I was affording Spencer.

Night Vale?

Does that mean we can start blinking again?

You know, because...weeping angels and...

...I'll shut up now. Glad you're feeling better.

Have I started a thing with video status'?

Also, A Muppet Christmas Carol is amazing.

Five bucks says he becomes an Inhuman within a year.

But is 'Wind' a character or the force of air? Autocorrect makes things unclear!