Yeah, although they kinda had to do that, because Shang-Chi was almost entirely reinvented for the MCU. He bears next to zero resemblance to the character from the old Moench series, who was pretty much a straight-up Bruce Lee clone with Fu Manchu as his dad, rather than the Mandarin. The movie is more of a…

And those vehicles look very unrefined, modular, and literally glued together

Overpriced?  They’re like $15.

There’s a hot air balloon, a tractor…

Or even the Burton Batman, which I think is a flawed movie, but does a really good job encapsulating the hero’s origin story and how that motivates him without stopping the action or wasting 40 minutes on a glorified training montage. (I do think that making the teenage Joker his parents’ killer was dumb, but that’s…

E.G., the utter brilliance of the opening panels of All-Star Superman. Entire origin story in eight words, four panels, and we’re off to the good stuff. I was so instantly and fully glad when the MCU skipped Spider-Man’s origin entirely, and Reeves seeming to realize the same thing with The Batman is a good sign.

Even when I was a kid, I thought origin stories were boring as fuck. They were seldom interesting or compelling in the least bit. I think one of the reasons why I loved Chris Claremont’s X-Men was because we knew next to nothing about the new team, apart from little bits here and there. Little details that accrued…

In what way?

This! Thank you!

WTF are you talking about?

being Trans doesn’t miraculously make you incapable of being a predator

I was kinda that guy. I’ve seen a total of 4 of the MCU movies: the first two Iron Man movies, Infinity War & Endgame. I saw the Iron Mans with an Iron Man fan, who hated the second one, so he didn’t drag me to the third one, and then I saw IW/Endgame once they were both streaming (on Netflix at the time I think)…

Feige famously loves the Donner Superman and for a long time it was the default model for introducing new characters to the MCU. But Marvel stopped doing proper origin movies after Doctor Strange, and I think that was because they realized the public had gotten more literate as to how superhero stories worked. Black…

They literally do not need to worry aobut that though. All they have to say is that there were Robin’s before him, show Dick and Barbara mourning at a memorial for Jason Todd and comment that not all Robins made it out safely.

Yeah man, this. It’s like how in BvS Bats and Supes knew each other for a very small amount of time before Supes was killed (and it was mostly Batman trying to murder him) and then in Justice League it was played as if Bruce was mourning a good friend. Whatta bunch of BS.

Once Marvel introduced the Tom Holland Spiderman which glossed over his entire origin, the need to go back and “start at the beginnning” was 100% GONE.

I just don’t hold high hopes for it, since I really started enjoying recent DC movies more when they were doing their own thing and having really distinct tones. I just want more stuff like Wonder Woman 1, Aquaman, Shazam, and The Batman.

Been making the same argument for years. Also recently read Michael Uslan’s memoirs about bringing Batman to the big screen (which I HIGHLY recommend) and he says the exact same thing. There’s no need to try and emulate Marvel. Ultimately, it limits possibilities and creativity. I’d love to see smaller budget projects…

While I agree with the argument that they don’t need to be I don’t buy the “how can you do x when you haven’t done y”. Like how do you just start with the 4th Robin when you haven’t done the other 3. Just start wherever makes the most sense. Much like how you don’t need to have the movies connected, you don’t need to…

“Trans rights are human rights, BUT…” nope. Nope. There is never a “but” there.