JeanGreyForever

The difference is that Loki was the most watched Disney+ show and also had 2 seasons. He's the most popular Marvel/MCU villain, or at least tied with Thanos, and he's been part of the MCU since Phase 1. Agatha has only appeared in two TV shows. She's not a household name or capable of sustaining a movie or film franchise on her name alone. And with Thunderbolts, while most people here including myself were quite receptive to the characters, such as John, the truth of the matter is that people don't really want to see more of them. Thunderbolts was supposed to be the next franchise but the film's box office failure was proof that there's no commercial future in those characters. Even with actual film characters like Bucky and Yelena at the forefront, since John wouldn't be known to anyone who only watches the movies which is most of the audience. And now Disney+ streaming reports are showing that Thunderbolts is basically the least watched MCU movie so it's still not attracting an audience. Agatha would be exactly more of the same. I actually agree with you about Shang-Chi as a character. I liked the movie but I found the entire supporting cast way more interesting especially the father and the Awkwafina character. Shang-Chi himself felt very bland and not compelling at all. Also, while this isn't PC to say, I agree with Chinese audiences that his actor was unattractive and not leading man material in terms of looks or charisma. But the bar is so low with new MCU debuts that Shang-Chi still stands out amongst the rest or did anyway. I think Sam's Avengers were supposed to focus on Sam, Carol, and Shang-Chi and the former two are both duds while Shang-Chi gets eclipsed by virtually all other characters. I never saw Secret Invasion but I've heard Marvel is more or less ignoring it now. I have no idea what's going on with Rhodey but he's a character I can also see being essentially phased out, if that hasn't already happened. He was supposed to headline the Armor Wars show that would bring back Vision but it got scrapped. Vision is still coming back in some other project but I haven't heard anything about Rhodey. I think the formula worked when it was fresh, like for Steve (good guy) and Natasha (conflicted hero). But seeing the sidekick characters now relive the same arcs as the originals (Sam, Bucky, Yelena) is where the issue is because we've already seen this before over and over. It's also why Wanda broke out because she departed from the MCU's standard heroine template of a quippy action heroine like Natasha and Gamora. But you can see that the attempts to replicate Wanda with Sue didn't really work either. Do you think they'll bring back some of the other Fox/Sony characters from the 2000s like Tim Story's FF, Nicholas Cage Ghost Rider, Ben Affleck Daredevil and Jennifer Garner Elektra? Definitely. In Phases 1-3, you basically saw the characters at least every 2 years whereas for Phases 4-6, there are some characters we haven't seen in 4-5 years. And they introduced so many in post-credits scenes, like Starfox and Hercules, who will probably never see the light of day now. Marvel seems to be hoping Doomsday/Secret Wars will boost the FF since they're saying a sequel isn't off the table yet if what happened to Doctor Strange in Infinity War/Endgame happens to them and increases their audience reception. It would be a nice variant but the first Elektra minifig definitely needs to be the classic Elektra. Or maybe a Jennifer Garner version if she pops up in Secret Wars/Doomsday like she did in D&W.

GOTG is still really popular and well-liked. A lot of audience goodwill towards those characters. I think Gamora should be retired now but the rest would all make sense as continuing on. Star-Lord isn't part of the team anymore but him showing up in Doomsday means that Chris Pratt is still game to come back. I don't think Agatha would be able to carry a story, not on film anyway. Not sure about the viewership for Agatha All Along but I think it was one of the least-watched Disney+ shows and it seemed fairly disconnected from the rest of the MCU, outside of Billy and teases for Wanda. The little bit of attention the show did get was purely based on the goodwill for WandaVision and Wanda's character. Similarly, John and the whole Thunderbolts team have proven they can't lead their own film. Bucky is the most well-known character and both FatWS and Thunderbolts have proven twice over that audiences don't care to see him except as a side addition to Steve Rogers. I don't think any post-Endgame characters are really capable of leading their own movies or the franchise. All the goodwill is for previously existing characters like Spidey, Strange, Wanda, GOTG, Daredevil, etc. Shang-Chi is the only one who did get a lot of goodwill but the failure to do anything with him since has probably killed his momentum. I think Doom not being played by RDJ would be too much of a blatant-faced lie (like JJ Abrams saying Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't playing Khan) and would backfire. I think it's possible Doom is opting to use Tony's face if he's not a variant, especially to engender trust in the other characters. And there's also a good chance that RDJ has multiple roles if we see him playing an Iron Man variant as well, in addition to Doom. But whatever the case, RDJ is going to be the main character and face of the movie, because if they're paying him as much as they are, Disney will want their money's worth. If RDJ wasn't Doom, it would beg the question as to who the real actor is and with leak culture, I don't think they could conceal that some other big actor (because it would have to be a big name to stand up to this cast) is involved and playing the main part. Feige apparently said that RDJ played Doom in the FF end-credits scene although I did find it suspicious since you'd think they'd show his face or give him some lines then. Agreed. To be fair, I wasn't even familiar with comic Hawkeye until way after the MCU. I never read anything with him in the comics since my reading list was usually based on the X-Men, FF, or Spider-Man. I knew comic Hawkeye was very popular with fans but the appeal was lost on me since I wasn't familiar with him outside of his purple costume and the fact that he has no real powers. My intro to the character was mainly through the MCU and even as a fan of Jeremy Renner from Mission Impossible, I remember feeling he was really dull and colorless in Avengers. Felt very tacked on in the movie and AoU basically had to invent a family for him to try and make him relevant. It was only recently that I started reading the 60s/70s comic books with Clint and I finally realized why he's so beloved with comic fans. So in my case, it's not that I disliked MCU Hawkeye because he wasn't the comic Hawkeye. But I'll also say that in general, I'm not a fan of most MCU character interpretations. I've mentioned before that I was never really into the MCU (and based on the comic books I mentioned reading above, you can see my interest was mostly in the Fox or Sony properties rather than anything Disney was making) so I never had that strong a relationship with it and only got interested around AoU when Wanda, Pietro, and Vision were added to the cast.

Yeah, that's why I didn't question Kingpin's boost in strength in Hawkeye too much. Since I didn't see DD: Born Again, I didn't realize this is something they've kept for him now. I've only seen Black Widow and Hawkeye once each so I don't remember now if Yelena was depicted as an expert fighter, on par with Natasha, and if that means she'd be equal in fighting prowess to Sam, Bucky, and John by extension. But considering she's a Black Widow who was trained all her life to be an assassin since she was a child, I didn't find it implausible that she'd hold her own against John. Technically speaking, she's probably more experienced than he is. Even in Civil War, Bucky was able to hold off Steve, Sharon, Natasha (and I think some other Avengers characters) all at once, so you can see how inconsistent these characters all are depending on whatever story or situation they're placed in.

Stoic is probably the issue I have with him. Comic book Hawkeye isn't meant to be characterized as stoic. He's a wisecracker, constantly taunting his teammates and thinking he's better than everyone. A real jerk, especially to Cap, which is partly out of jealousy and insecurity for lacking any actual powers (he starts using the Pym Particles to become Goliath for a while to compensate). They turned MCU Hawkeye into a more stable character who's suddenly a family man. His caustic personality at odds with Cap was basically given to Tony instead. And in the comics, Clint is probably the Avenger with the biggest ego so the fact that the MCU Clint is the one with the least amount of ego also shows how drastically they failed to capture the character. He lacks the leadership role that he develops in the comics as well, when he starts leading the West Coast Avengers and even the Thunderbolts. MCU Hawkeye is basically just Clint in name only. His portrayal in the Hawkeye show was probably his best just because it's the closest to the comic material but like you said, it's more focused on Kate Bishop, in order to spearhead a Young Avengers cast. And I think that was partially also because Disney knew Hawkeye wasn't popular enough to get his own movie and even his own TV show would be a hard sell, whereas comic Hawkeye tends to be one of the most popular characters. Echo was pretty obscure even in the comics and I think they just focused on her in the MCU because they liked the representation she offered. Yelena was more placed in the show because they wanted to replicate the Clint/Nat relationship with their younger counterparts. Both Kate and Yelena have been pretty well received by audiences but neither have become household names or really taken off in popularity.

The last time Wanda and Simon were together was during Rick Remender's Uncanny Avengers run. They were a couple then but this was still pre-MCU for Wanda. I don't think Marvel would stick her with a C-Lister anymore especially after the success of WandaVision. Comic fans will expect to see her with Vision and from what I've heard, she and Vision are back together now or at least more closely linked again. But they were apart for basically the entirety of the 2000s/2010s and even in the late 90s, she was involved in a love triangle with Vision and Simon and I think mostly linked to Simon after the loss of her children in the 80s. I did notice Kingpin seemed a lot stronger in Hawkeye than he ever was in the Daredevil show. The characterizations for the Netflix characters seem all over the place so it's clear Disney didn't really know what to do with them and how to fit them in the MCU properly. Honestly, it would be really nice to see many of the Fortnite minifigs actually made in real life. I wish the next Marvel CMF could just be a line of those characters, but I imagine it would be hard to only pick 12. And so many of those figures are superior to the ones we actually got. The FF stand out in particular with dual molded legs/arms which just makes it more sickening that Lego recognized they needed dual molding but still didn't give them any in the physical set. Rogue, Gambit, and Cyclops have way superior Fortnite minfigs over the physical ones we got. For Dark Phoenix, they actually gave her pearl gold instead of the yellow they gave the SDCC Phoenix minifigure. You can go on and on. For Thor, I'd be really shocked if we get any minifigure not from the MCU anytime in the next 5 years. They can't even get his costumes from the MCU correct, often reusing the same torso for the wrong movies. There was a joke in the 80s She-Hulk comics about her getting away with nudity because she was green. Marvel's heroines do seem a lot more covered up now (Carol Danvers being the biggest example). The Lego Marvel Super Heroes game did give us Carol as Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Elektra, and Psylocke and they're all basically in bathing suits but Disney seems more averse to that now. Outside of She-Hulk, we never got any minifig from those characters in their "bathing suit" costumes. Black Cat tends to be especially sexualized which is probably why they toned down her design and removed the cleavage. And it always makes me laugh that they gave Leia dual molding when so many Marvel and Disney characters actually need that but never get it. In Steve's case, it doesn't seem like it's a variant but the real deal. And especially since RDJ won't really be our Tony, I don't think they'd take that risk and have Chris Evans be another Steve. They'll want some sort of attachment for the audiences to latch onto emotionally. The funny thing is that the whole Kang debacle can't even be blamed for not setting up Sam's Avengers because Doomsday was originally Kang's Dynasty which presumably would have also introduced Sam's Avengers. So we were still going to have to wait this long for the team reveal. There's really no explanation as to why they dropped the ball on this team so much, especially since this would have been planned long before The Marvels flopped or BNW flopped. It's almost like they never really had any faith in Sam and his team in the first place because it's all so half-hearted. I think I read that if you account for inflation, the 2005 FF was actually more profitable than the new MCU one. Which is fine with me since I much preferred those 2000s FF movies and think they were more accurate in spirit, whereas the MCU one was just obsessed with a 1960s aesthetic but had no substance beyond that. There's a reason that most audiences stayed away and even the ones who did watch felt it was just meh. Feige and James Gunn have a good enough relationship that Gunn could return to the MCU to do another GOTG movie, even while helming the DCU. Would be nice to see the real Silver Surfer pop up. I'd like to see a Marvel Knights or especially Midnight Sons movie. Although the latter would be hard to pull off without Strange and Wanda, and also with no real Blade and Ghost Rider introduced yet. I know the X-Men are meant to be the next big thing in the MCU but people said that about the FF as well and we saw how they fizzled out. The X-Men are going to be completely recast with young, new actors which is basically what the Fox universe did with the First Class and Apocalypse movies. That cast was never accepted by the public so it's ludicrous to me that Feige thinks he'll have a better attempt at recasting. First Class was meant as a soft reboot after the failure of Wolverine Origins (which also led to the cancellation of the Magneto Origins movie that more or less was turned into First Class) but the film didn't do well at the box office. It made Fox panic enough that they decided to do DOFP next to bring back the original X-Men cast. That film was a huge success because it brought back the original cast and was the highest grossing X-Men movie until Deadpool & Wolverine. Both films have the original cast coming back, which is also what Doomsday is hinging on, so I don't know how Feige thinks he can set up a new X-Men cast that will be accepted after the last hurrah of the original FoX-Men cast in Doomsday/Secret Wars. Especially since even in the First Class movies, they kept Wolverine the same, but Feige seems to think audiences will accept a Wolverine recast without Hugh Jackman.

I'm happy for Steve and hope that means Peggy is coming too (either the real Peggy or Captain Carter. I imagine there will be a team-up scene between Steve and Captain Carter in Secret Wars). RDJ as Doom is stunt casting at its worst. Reducing Marvel's biggest villain to what's probably a Tony variant is one of the worst decisions they could have made. I think that would have worked better if they made RDJ Kang since Tony and Kang have a lot of connections in the comics. I didn't know there were rumors about ScarJo coming back but she's someone I'd rather stay dead. I don't really see what can be gained by her returning, unless it'll be a variant of her we encounter (like in the What If? series where one of the Natashas bonds with Captain Carter). Unfortunately, Thunderbolts grossing the least out of the MCU movies this year, plus it being one of the least streamed MCU movies on Disney+, means that even with all the positive critical attention, it probably won't have much of a future. I think Thor is done as a solo hero. He'll probably continue as a supporting character especially since Chris Hemsworth has no Hollywood career outside of Thor and he seems game to constantly return. But I'm not expecting Thor 5. Hulk's biggest asset is that he was never a solo hero, so the fact that he can't have his own solo films means he can have a lot of longevity as a supporting character. I think they won't retire Hulk for that reason and Thor will end up in a similar position, where as damaged as their characters are, they can keep returning in supporting roles. Ant-Man characters are all over. No one ever cared for Ant-Man and I hope Quantumania's failure means that his screentime is reduced as much as possible in Doomsday. No point wasting time on a useless character from a failed franchise that has nothing left to offer the universe. MCU's failure was relying on irrelevant characters like Scott and it will continue to die a slow death if they keep bringing Scott back. Hopefully his part in Doomsday is just getting killed off since Evangeline Lily has retired, and the Hank and Janet actors both wanted to be killed off already. There's literally no one in the Ant-Man family left that warrants keeping Scott around. Killing him off also helps set up Cassie for the Young Avengers, assuming that hasn't already been shelved. Hawkeye also seems done due to the payment issue. That's also fine with me since MCU Hawkeye was always a bore and lacks the personality he has from the comics.

It's been a long time since the show came out so I don't remember the exact plotline (especially since most of the show was incredibly boring whenever the two leads were onscreen), but I do remember disliking John Walker at first. He seemed deranged and like the Super Soldier serum he was taking was a form of steroids that were affecting his mind. When he kills someone in cold blood, it wasn't supposed to be a heroic feat but a public confirmation that he's past the point of no return and desperately needs some help. There's a reason he's on the Thunderbolts with assassins and former villains. But even when I disliked him in FatWS, especially due to his entitlement in thinking he should be the next Captain America, I always found him interesting and he had a lot more depth than the actual leads of the show. So it's been fun seeing him get more of a spotlight and gradually become worthy of the Captain America mantle. From Sam's POV, I can see why he would distrust John if his last impression of him was that public freakout/murder. Thunderbolts showed that Bucky didn't have much of a high impression of John at first either before he learns to trust him. I imagine the same will occur between Sam and John in Doomsday. Lol, I liked Karli. All the female characters you morally despise are the ones I like! Maybe because I recognized her as Enfys Nest from Solo so I viewed her as a freedom fighter like she was in that movie. From what I remember of FatWS, I felt more sympathetic towards her like Sam was since I didn't view her as a terrorist. The morally gray characters (John, Karli, Sharon, Zemo) were the most interesting ones in the show and the only reason I was able to stomach it. Of course, all of them except John have been MIA and something tells me we're never going to get back to Sharon's arc ever again. I despised Val in FatWS and thought the brief screentime she had was still too much. I don't know if it was the writing or the acting, but the mere presence of the character would annoy me. I expected to hate her in Thunderbolts so I was shocked at how much I enjoyed her there. She was a horrible person but actually funny, and by the end I was even rooting for her to get away with it all like she did. If this had been FatWS, I'd probably have been hoping she'd have been killed off immediately lol.

That makes sense. Sometime back, I posted some Target store stats for the Marvel Lego sets and the Doc Ock set was the one selling the most. The theatrical re-release of the Raimi trilogy last weekend and this weekend proves there's still an audience for these films (not to mention, all the recent speculation and rumors about a Spider-Man 4) so Lego really needs to make at least one set per film. There's no connection between Vison and Simon in the MCU (presumably) so a love triangle wouldn't make sense here. Unless Vision is still pretending like he's dead for some reason and that Wanda has to move on (that's a real life lesson which only works in real life, not in a universe where nobody stays dead) and she falls in love with Simon. I remember hearing that Born Again was originally intended as a sort of soft reboot for Daredevil and the Netflix characters before they changed that idea due to backlash. That might explain why Punisher goes through a sort of soft reboot as well, like no time has past since his show ended and he has to go through his arc again. It was basically Disney trying to remake those characters in a Disney+ format without being beholden to the original Netflix shows. Considering the lackluster classic Thor we got once and the lack of Beta Ray Bill, I can't see any 90s Thor variants coming anytime soon. I really liked his Fortnite figure for the Herald outfit but I imagine like 99% of the Fortnite figures, we'll never see that materialize. I think Iron Man and Black Panther get more variants mainly because all their costumes are basically armor variations. You don't have to worry too much about making them look unrecognizable. I don't think Elektra's outfit is really that revealing so much as impractical. Especially when She-Hulk shows more skin in her outfit/Lego minifigs. But most modern costumes for Elektra do cover her up more. Presumably, if Wolverine, Punisher and all the Marvel villains can get minifigs, despite all the blood on their hands, Elektra being an assassin wouldn't be a point against her. I agree with you that they'll probably just make Punisher more cartoony when it comes to his weapons. I think Blade is more hurt by being rather irrelevant at this point. HIs movies are so far back in the public zeitgeist that most kids wouldn't know of him or that he's a rated-R character. In his first appearance, his costume was red and black. Like an actual spider's colors before the black gradually turned into blue due to comic book coloring. A red and black classic Spider-Man would be a nice variant. Or the dark blue like you said.

Also expecting Oscorp. Daily Bugle is retiring and there's a new Spider-Man movie out next year. Way too big a void not to fill. We've just gotten a regular Oscorp set and most modulars get made after at least one regular set exists first. Plenty of Spidey minifigures in the current and upcoming sets that can be reused in Oscorp.

I've seen some incredible MOCs with people combining two Arkham Asylums and that really improves the overall model. But one set alone is expensive enough, let alone two, that I don't think it's worth it. As unlikely as it is, I'm hoping we might get a Supergirl set to tie-in with the movie after the overwhelming success of Superman.

I was wondering if they'd introduce the Wanda/Vision/Simon love triangle in the MCU with the Wonder Man show but now I'm not even sure if that's still on the table or if it's been cancelled. I know Hal Jordan was similarly deemed too untouchable for a long time at DC after he became a villain. I thought Hela appearing in Ragnarok was meant to set up her story with Thanos in Infinity War but that never happened. So I doubt Eternity will be referenced in Doomsday either. I didn't get why they gave Foggy and Karen such small roles. Sounds like during the extensive rewrites and reshoots that they realized there was going to be backlash from the lack of original cast members so they shoehorned in Foggy and Karen but could only give them so much. Otherwise it seems plain ridiculous if that was always the plan to have them in limited roles. Punisher at least might have been sidelined due to plans to incorporate him into Spider-Man. Yeah, they'd probably reuse the current Wanda/tiara mold or maybe even the old Wonder Woman one. The CMF Hawkeye minifig was pretty close to the Matt Fraction version. But I think when it comes to the comics, most people associate the characters with their classic costumes from the 60s/70s. The MCU Hawkeye minifigs aren't far off from his modern costumes but comic fans would want and expect his classic look with the mask. 90s era costumes generally haven't aged well (thinking of Thor's look lol) outside of the Jim Lee X-Men designs which is probably why they don't get much attention in Lego or merch in general. Maybe Daredevil's armor could work as a minifig. I think that's also why they didn't prioritize the FF and X-Men even after getting the rights back, because they felt they could focus instead on obscure characters and launch them to super stardom. Hence why they waited to introduce the FF right at the very end and are saving the X-Men/Mutant Saga for after Phases 4-6. In theory, the FF should have been introduced immediately after Endgame when Phase 4 began. They should have been filling in the gaps of the Avengers as the new premiere franchise for the MCU and introduced Doom from the start. Galactus and Surfer should have been saved for a sequel instead of in the debut film. I think I heard that Ironheart was actually finished a long while back but only released recently and basically dumped on Disney+ with little fanfare or promotion because they knew they had a subpar product that wasn't of interest to anyone. And doing it this way meant as little negative attention as possible when their reputation is already in dire straits. Marvel Zombies has always been popular which is probably also why they put so many lesser known characters in it, thinking the premise of the show would be strong enough to boost the profiles of the characters Marvel wanted to push. Yeah, Deadpool's real test will be if they include him in Secret Wars sets or not. I can see Lego skipping him altogether, even if they include Wolverine in sets that might also feature Deadpool in the same scenes. I think Punisher is probably the most difficult out of the other Marvel Knights characters (Daredevil, Elektra, Blade, Moon Knight, etc.) to incorporate because he's mostly tied to firearms and guns, which both Lego and Disney don't like to promote if they can help it. Plus Punisher has become a symbol for different organizations and groups so there's some weighted political context to him now as well when it comes to vigilantism.

That really is a wildly unpopular group of characters. I guess Marvel is hoping to build their popularity or it's just cheaper to get their actors back then any of the A-Listers. I read an interview with Elizabeth Olsen where she said that she voiced her Marvel Zombies character years ago, so that implies the characters were chosen around 2020/21 if the actors were already filming this then. Probably was too late in development to switch to a more prominent cast now that all these characters have more or less failed with the public. After the ScarJo lawsuit against Disney, I don't think we'll ever see her back in the MCU. It's been notable that there's no leaks or rumors about her coming back for Doomsday/Secret Wars unlike some of her co-stars. The Marvel Legends action figure line for Doomsday is featuring Cyclops and I think Gambit as well. So they're likely choices for Lego minifigures in Doomsday sets. All the hints about Nightcrawler make me think we'll see him and maybe Mystique. Wonder Woman is in development and apparently the next big film that James Gunn is planning. The success of Superman caused Gunn to mobilize all efforts on getting that movie made next. Wondering if Punisher appearing in a mainstream PG-13 movie means he'll be considered acceptable to be used in regular Lego sets now, rather than being essentially grandfathered into the Daily Bugle set with Daredevil and Blade. She's another good example of a wildly popular character whose fate was massively polarizing and more or less ruined the franchise. Good catch, because I didn't even think about her and how she fits the same tropes. MoM had a lot of hype for building up on the multiverse presented in NWH with Doctor Strange probably their most profitable existing character after Spider-Man. Wanda was at her peak after WandaVision. The amount of leaks and theories about which characters/variants were going to show up in the movie was also a big deal (Tom Cruise as Superior Iron Man, Magneto as Wanda's dad). Sam Raimi's involvement was also promising because of his Spider-Man movies and hopes that he might direct a Spider-Man 4. From what I remember, MoM had a strong opening weekend but crashed on successive weekends because of bad word-to-mouth and negative feedback from audiences. Which is one of the reasons why it came close to a billion but didn't reach it. When I look at people discussing the state of the MCU and MoM online, I pretty much only see bad things written about the movie now. It wasn't like that when the movie first came out, but every year, the reception towards MoM seems to get worse and worse.

I feel like they'll either skip the beret or use the beret as an excuse to skip John altogether so they don't have to come up with a new hair/beret mold. Lol, with my username I felt I would be a bad fan if I didn't muster some sort of defense for her. I'll just say that if you're a fan of Wanda, then you'd probably like Jean because MCU Wanda took heavy inspiration from Jean. In many ways, she's more like comic Jean than comic Wanda. And comic Wanda also has a very convoluted history with at least 3 parental retcons and her powers regularly getting retconned throughout different eras to fit the needs of certain storylines. Wanda is basically the Jean of the Avengers and that includes the messy love triangles, which the MCU actually didn't incorporate. And Wanda's ultimate fate in MoM (turning evil, but redeeming herself through suicide since she can't control her powers) is also more or less stolen from Jean's ending in The Dark Phoenix Saga. That's part of why MoM was so unpopular, because the same antiquated storylines that Marvel used for Jean in the 80s and again in the 2000s (that powerful women go bonkers and have to be put down) was still being used in the 2020s. Oh I see, that makes more sense because I didn't know Gorr had a daughter. Reminds me of how Wolverine adopted a Japanese girl in the comics and she was barely ever mentioned after that. With Thor, they'll probably just ignore her altogether. Shang-Chi's director was put on Kang Dynasty because I think the implication of the Shang-Chi end-credits scene was that Shang-Chi was connected to Kang. Same with Ms. Marvel. I believe Shang-Chi 2 would have been made after Kang Dynasty, but now we'll have to see where that goes. WandaVision was a special case because they announced from day one that it would be a single season series only. Each character's story would continue in different shows/movies. Wanda would continue in the Doctor Strange movies, Vision was supposed to show up in the now cancelled Armor Wars, and the twins were supposed to eventually end up in Young Avengers. Monica ended up in The Marvels and not sure if that was always the plan or if they only went ahead and boosted Monica to a lead because of the success of WandaVision. Agatha All Along was only greenlighted because WandaVision was such a success, particularly the Agatha character, and they tied in one of the twins there too. Considering how limited the roles were for Karen and Foggy, it doesn't surprise me they wouldn't bring back a more minor character like Matt's mom. We still haven't seen Elektra since the Defenders. With Kingpin, there were lots of rumors that he was supposed to end up in the Spider-Man movies as a villain so they may have gone out of their way to keep him a villain in the show to not axe that potential. I had no idea the Echo show did that to defeat the mob empire lol. I can see why nobody talks about it now, besides the low audience ratings. Marvel fell into the trap of thinking that because they had some successes with turning Z-listers into A-Listers (like GOTG), that they could make spinoffs for every Tom, Dick, and Harry and turn them all into A-Listers in the public eye. Echo being one of the latest examples of this, along with the Eternals. Hopefully there's a chance then. And I'd definitely love to see more comic book sets. The problem is that so many characters have such specialized looks in their classic outfits that they would need new molds, like classic Hawkeye or classic Scarlet Witch.

The Raimi trilogy is back in theaters this weekend (and next weekend) and so far, the first two films were both packed houses. Last year, when all 8 live-action Spider-Man movies were re-released in theaters, the Raimi trilogy easily outgrossed the rest of the films and the fact that they're getting a second re-release only a year later is a testament to their popularity. This shows that there's very much an audience for these films still and I hope that means Lego will give us more sets like the subway one. The first Spider-Man in particular could use so many set remakes, like the World Unity Festival scene where the Goblin attacks. Minifigs for Green Goblin, MJ, and Harry should be a must. And if we can't get a comic book version of black suit Spidey, we should at least get the option of Spider-Man 3's black suit in minifigure form.

I saw that as well but I'm not really surprised. The first one was really popular and had a really long shelf life (like the first Death Star set). The second one was basically just a slightly larger recolor while being way more expensive. I imagine most people who ever wanted a Disney Castle probably had the first one already. The fact that it's being retired so quickly seems to confirm it didn't sell all that well, despite being the flagship set of the theme. It's actually a little annoying because the BATB castle set was purposefully scaled down in size because they didn't want it to compete with the Disney Castle as the flagship set. If the Disney Castle was meant to retire so early on, they could have waited to introduce the BATB castle and given us a better version worthy of being the new flagship set. That indicates to me that retiring the Disney Castle wasn't planned so early on but it's simply not selling well enough to justify being on shelves any longer. I hope this means we can get a Sleeping Beauty castle (with Prince Phillip and a blue dress Aurora) since there'll need to be some flagship set. It's too late to do a new BATB castle that's large enough to serve as the flagship set. Maybe in a few years.

That's true, that's a minor win anyway. LOL. I think Disney is very restrictive when it comes to their properties. I've heard people say that about their Lego themes but it's true even outside of Lego. The Kingdom Hearts game designers have talked a lot about how Disney, particularly for the third game, were very controlling on what could be included and what couldn't. Pixar is less restrictive though. You can see it too in KH3 with how the Pixar worlds are all original stories whereas the regular Disney worlds are basically just identical copies of the movies. Wicked is also a very hot property right now and relevant because of the movies. I guess most Disney Lego sets feature films that are often decades old so there's no immediate need or relevancy to them. Which is why the Lilo & Stitch set was released along with the remake rather than being made years before. The success of the Wicked sets have made me wonder why Lego hasn't made any Wizard of Oz sets but I imagine that might fall in the same problem as classic Disney sets that while they might sell, they wouldn't be considered immediately relevant and might only attract a niche group. That's just a theory though.

WandaVision was my favorite and surprisingly Hawkeye came next. I enjoyed that one a lot more than I thought, especially with the holiday season being utilized in the setting. This is coming from someone who's always found the MCU Hawkeye to be a bore which is why I skipped the show when it first came out. FatWS was a real letdown. Maybe because I've never had an attachment to the lead two characters (neither of whom are lead-worthy imo) and I only watched out of interest for the return of secondary characters like Zemo and Sharon Carter. Both of whom never appeared since then, which really surprised me as they set-up a new status quo for Sharon and Zemo seemed like an obvious choice for Thunderbolts. John Walker was really good though so if you can't find some sort of compilation of all his scenes from the show on YouTube or somewhere, then I would recommend watching just for him. But be warned that you're going to be sifting through a lot of superfluous material just to get to him. I was on my phone for much of that show. People did seem to resonate the most with the Thor/Loki dynamic and it's pretty telling that Loki was brought back almost instantly after his death. Ironically enough, Infinity War was probably my favorite depiction of MCU Thor and when he was the most interesting. But I agree with you that it came at the cost of killing off his entire supporting cast, which I think also exposed the fact that Thor isn't really that interesting in the movies without people to play off of. But I always thought MCU Thor was a very poor imitation of the comics. Chris Hemsworth is more eye candy than an actual actor so he just comes across like a frat boy/male model impersonating Thor. He lacks the regality or noble character that radiated off of comic Thor. Wasn't a fan of Hemsworth's Thor look either since his hair wasn't as sleek, he had facial hair, and lacked a helmet. I think we'll be spared that possibility simply because sets on a film titled Doomsday couldn't possibly go without including Doom himself. He's already being promoted by Disney/Marvel now so they clearly aren't hiding him. I've also skipped Agatha. I actually like witch shows but it seems really out of sync with the rest of the MU. I heard it got good reviews but also low audience views, so it seems like it mostly resonated with non-Marvel fans. Yes and no. Jean was Phoenix from the mid-70s to early 80s, and was the first female cosmic superhero, designed to be the female equivalent of Thor, Silver Surfer, and Doctor Strange. She was even supposed to fight Thor and beat him but Marvel editorial took offense at Thor being beaten by a woman so they nixed that plot and had her fight Firelord (a Galactus herald) instead since he was on Thor's power level and it could establish the same thing. Then she was killed off in 1981 because the character accidentally destroying an inhabited planet hadn't been planned but it was considered too controversial to leave a genocidal character as a superhero. She was brought back in 1986 by establishing a retcon that she hadn't ever been Phoenix but was replaced by a cosmic entity. And this was the status quo up until the early 2000s when she and the Phoenix became reintegrated again. So for much of her history, she wasn't really a vessel for the Phoenix or connected to it, particularly during the 90s. Even when she did become Phoenix again, Jean was killed off almost immediately and left in character limbo for more than a decade, along with several other prominent female characters (once more, going back to Joe Quesada who had a real hatred for redheads since he also engineered the destruction of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's marriage). When she finally came back for good, she was separated from the Phoenix since it was now considered part of the Avengers brand. Only in the last two years or so did they establish her as Phoenix again. So while she's had a very choppy continuity, it isn't that different from many other characters who also suffer from lots of retcons and editorial changes. I didn't even know Thor had a daughter and this is the first I've heard of that lol. Yeah that might be an easy thing to skip or overlook then. I'm wondering if Hulk's son will ever be mentioned either. They only seem interested in Black Panther's son, for the purpose of replacing him with a legacy character, since I don't think Shuri has taken off as the new Black Panther. Marvel likes to reuse directors. Shang-Chi director was supposed to do Kang Dynasty but when that was cancelled, he got put on Spider-Man: Brand New Day instead. WandaVision director did the FF movie. So I think it's not necessarily a bad sign for Thunderbolts that its director is signed on to do the X-Men movie. However, I did see that Thunderbolts is apparently one of the least streamed Disney+ MCU movies since it joined the service, either the least or second to least watched. People were saying that doesn't bode well for the movie, since even BNW, with a much worse reputation, has had more views. Even though Thunderbolts had the best critical reviews, the fact that it's grossed the least and is getting low viewership indicates to me that a sequel is unlikely. I've heard some rumors about Tom. Nothing overly substantial but also nothing to indicate he's definitely not in it. I loved the Netflix Daredevil show and that's exactly why I didn't bother watching Born Again on Disney+. I figured they were going to ruin the property somehow and I heard really lukewarm reactions to it online. Daredevil's Catholicism being toned down or nonexistent doesn't surprise me because Disney likes to avoid anything even remotely religious (they scrubbed all the religious elements from their live-action adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time and pretend The Hunchback of Notre Dame doesn't exist anymore). Wasn't Matt's mom alive in the Netflix show as well? As a nun? All I know about Ironheart is that Mephisto was the big bad in it which really confuses me because why would a supernatural devil character be in a show about a technological-powered hero? Echo I heard was one of the least watched Disney+ shows (and I'm guessing Ironheart got even less views than that) and I can believe that because no one ever really talks about it. The only times I've heard Echo referenced are in this thread and how she managed to get a minifigure despite being from a rated-R show and why that was a fluke out of Lego's control. Have there been any Spider-Man sets without some sort of Spider character (Peter, Miles, or Gwen)?

That's really not so much a Jean thing as it is a Phoenix thing. Particularly during the period when Marvel cut off ties between Jean and the Phoenix to try and bring the Phoenix over into the Avengers side of things where just about every Avenger was hosting it. I think they did some retcon where Phoenix turned out to be Thor's mother as well. Since then, they've remerged Jean and the Phoenix into one entity, as was originally the case way back in the 70s when it was only ever one individual. Like Wanda, Jean has been victim to a lot of editorial mishandling in the comics. Marvel in the 2000s was also stuck with an extremely misogynistic EIC (Joe Q) who pretty much sidelined all the classic major female characters (Jean, Wanda, Wasp, Storm, MJ, etc.) while having an extreme vendetta against redheads (Jean and MJ). What's crazy to me is that the MCU saw all the worst things that happened to Wanda in the 2000s and decided to double down on that for the MCU, hence the current state we're in. They tried to link Ultron's creation with Tony's PTSD from seeing the Chitauri invasion and Thanos, but I never felt it was handled all that well. There's a reason Ultron was considered a dud, both the character and the movie. And it's interesting how Ultron and Tony's creation of him is basically never referenced again. I liked Monica in the comics from the 80s, when she was the Avengers team leader. I found her bland in WandaVision and just filler, especially since she had no real connection to either of the two title characters. Never seen The Marvels so can't comment on her there but it doesn't look promising. She's a character Marvel has sorta made an effort to push and I think the plan was that when Captain Marvel eventually retired, they'd have Monica take over the mantle for representation points. But the problem was that Captain Marvel herself failed to take off so why would a potential replacement be any better received. Hulk might still have some saving grace from the new Spider-Man movie. Thor seems completely dead as a character and I haven't seen any online interest in his being brought back. Not surprising also that talks of Thor 5 have more or less died down too. I feel like Thor's only significance will be for a Loki reunion and potentially a reunion with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans, but that's it, because the audience seems over him. GOTG is still a strong brand but I question how prominent Star-Lord can be without anyone else from his team. Thunderbolts had the best critical reception of the three MCU movies this year and probably the best critical reception of any MCU movie since GOTG3, so that might shield the B-list Thunderbolts. Also the director is supposed to helm the X-Men reboot so if he's in charge of the MCU's next big franchise (I say that with a grain of salt considering FF was considered to be that too), they might not want to sideline his characters and alienate him. Here's hoping. Tobey Maguire and Hugh Jackman are long overdue for a film together. Frankly, I think they should give Tom Holland a rest in these Avengers movies. He's already allowed his own solo movies so hope Tobey and maybe Andrew get their time to shine. I might have to check out Loki S2 then. I know it'll probably be required watching for Doomsday anyway considering the new status quo for Loki. It's been hard for me to muster any interest in any of the recent Disney+ shows. I actually stopped after Loki S1 and only watched Hawkeye some years after it debuted. I was never a fan of the MCU Hawkeye which is why that was the first MCU show I skipped but I heard good things about Kate Bishop and the Yelena content turned out to be a great segue into Thunderbolts all this time later. The original planned crossover movie between the X-Men and FF seemed like a more accurate portrayal of the Civil War event from the comics, minus Cap and Iron Man. The superhuman registration was more along the lines of the mutant registration act from what I remember. With the price of the set, I can't imagine more than 2 characters and with how Lego's been functioning these days, I'm almost surprised we're even getting 2 minifigs for that price.

I'm not really impressed with the reused figures.

Also it just dawned on me that blame was put on Wanda for joining Ultron which is ignoring the obvious elephant in the room as to who created Ultron. These are two major examples, between Wanda's family getting killed by a Stark weapon and Ultron being created to manipulate the twins into joining him, where the common denominator behind them both is Tony Stark. Ultron would literally not exist without Tony creating him and it's funny that MCU Tony doesn't get nearly the same amount of flack that comic Hank Pym got for creating Ultron. That's what I've heard about Monica as well. It's impossible not to include her because of The Marvels end-credits scene, as she'll be the link to the FoX-Men, but I wouldn't be shocked if her role was heavily cut down too. And considering that The Marvels must be the least watched MCU movie of all time, I can't even imagine how they'd explain Monica to general audiences watching Doomsday. At best, they'll remember her as a little girl from the first Captain Marvel. Somehow from there, they need to catch up on her as an adult in a Disney+ show, WandaVision, and how she got to the FoX-Men universe. The one thing that makes me think Miss America might still be somewhat plot relevant is that she's a multiversal anomaly and that seems like something that either will be important or it'll be completely ignored like Secret Invasion was. Lol, tbh I agree that it's probably better for them to kill off some of Sam's Avengers just to up the stakes. Thanos got a brilliant intro in Infinity War by killing off Loki. Loki was a fan favorite but this current cast of Doomsday features very few characters who could qualify as such. Doom might just get more audience sympathy for knocking off some filler characters, much like how general audiences were unanimously in support of Taskmaster getting killed off almost immediately. I feel out of all the Thunderbolts characters, Ghost is the one I'd be most worried about. She's the least known or popular and she also had the least material in the first film. Which normally would hopefully mean she'll have more presence in future installments (like how James Gunn promised that Isabella Merced would get more screentime as Hawkgirl in future DC films since she had the least amount of screentime from the Justice Gang in Superman), but the MCU can't afford to do that. They have way too much going on. My guess is also that we're going to have an Infinity War/Endgame situation where the heavy hitters are saved for the final film (Secret Wars) like the core/original Avengers were mostly neglected in Infinity War until Endgame gave them center stage again. I enjoyed Loki S1 until the Kang reveal and it killed my interest in S2. I also heard Loki fans who loved the dynamic between Loki and Sylvie complain that S2 really sidelined Sylvie. She wasn't a favorite of mine but it doesn't give me much faith in how cohesive the show is, especially with Kang removed from the MCU. The amount of filler projects that most people didn't watch is also why I can believe the rumors that Doomsday is going to be catered towards audiences as a direct sequel to Endgame. Which based on Anthony Mackie's comments about Doomsday, seems very likely. Most of the films in-between Endgame and Doomsday failed to resonate so it makes sense to build on the last big film that everyone did watch (NWH aside, which is Sony anyway). Good points about potential tension from politicians and bureaucrats being more annoyed that their own were killed instead of regular civilians. It's funny that Civil War was nearly adapted in the Foxverse as well, for a potential FF vs X-Men movie. I think Johnny was supposed to get the blame for the accident that would kill people (I think a school like in the comics) since he failed to stop Nitro, a mutant. GR set is also on my list. Because of the price point and because I missed the first set with him and Hobgoblin so I've wanted a properly-scaled bike for him.

How was Tony Stark not complicit? Before becoming Iron Man, he dealt in munitions and weapons manufacturing. You seem to be trying to whitewash his image with the dubious claim that although the missile was Stark tech, hat doesn't mean he sold that specific missile which killed Wanda's parents, which is hilariously a sidestep. Considering he was a known arms dealer for the government, doesn't it make the most sense that the Stark missile that was sold to Sokovia came directly from him and his company? Why wouldn't Wanda blame him for the destruction of her home and parents? And interesting that you feel she isn't right to blame him but how do you feel about Tony blaming Bucky for his parents' death (or his mother I should say, because he barely seems to care about his dad dying in comparison)? Bucky was brainwashed and conditioned for decades against his will and no control over his actions, but Tony held him accountable and didn't care to see reason, even going up against his friend and teammate out of pursuit for his vendetta Why blame only Wanda for being indoctrinated into HYDRA when half of SHIELD was also HYDRA? And unlike Wanda, who would have grown up in an environment where she believed anything HYDRA said, because it was anti-west and promised her vengeance for her broken family, those SHIELD agents should still have known better but all of them, starting with Alexander Pierce from the topdown, knew what HYDRA was and still believed in its tenets. You blame Wanda for joining Ultron and "traumatizing" Stark lol like he's some innocent child. You do realize that considering the arms business Tony was in, he must have more innocent blood on his hands than Wanda ever had? If he's traumatized, it's his own actions finally catching up to him after years of not caring. Why shouldn't Wanda let him feel what he's done to probably thousands or millions of families all over the globe. And from what I remember, Tony's trauma had less to do with anything Wanda did to him and more to do with his experience in space with the Chitauri and Thanos. He had PTSD from that, not Wanda's powers. You claim Wanda has no morals and has no right to join the Avengers, but even ignoring war profiteering Tony Stark, how come Natasha and Clint don't get this treatment? Both of them were assassins and make no pretense about this. We don't know much about Clint's background in the MCU but we've seen everything Natasha has done over the years and why she thinks there's red in her ledger. We've even seen what other Black Widows had to do, such as Yelena. If Nat and Yelena can become Avengers, why shouldn't Wanda have the same right? Natasha and Clint probably had more blood on their hands than Wanda, although even that duo probably wouldn't match Tony in how many lives were lost from his actions. And Tony's actions, mind you, weren't even part of some greater good. He was into weapons manufacturing simply because of the profit involved, which is the most selfish motive there is. It isn't until he sees the consequences of his actions and how that's backfired on him, that he develops a little bit of a conscience and tries to amend his ways and gets out of the business. She frees the town at the end of WandaVision. The whole show is about her slippery slope and how she eventually realizes the error of her actions. Everything else you list is MoM and part of the character assassination which fans did not appreciate and why the film failed to make a billion dollars despite a strong start. They butchered their most popular new character in ages and haven't had anyone come close to her level of popularity since. Which Strange variant does Wanda kill? I don't remember that. And she doesn't stop trying to take back her children because she realizes it won't work but because she realizes how low she's descended when she sees the reaction of the children and how they're scared of her and think she's a witch rather than their mother. That's what snaps her back to reality. Doctor Strange was designed to be the next Iron Man post-Endgame (as part of a new trio that was supposed to be him, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel). An extreme egotist who walks a thin line between hero and villain. It's no coincidence that most Strange variants we've met go bad or that Doctor Doom, the ultimate villain, will presumably be a Stark variant. What If? Doctor Strange (Strange Supreme) doesn't just go bad but becomes a power-hungry egomaniac as well as the big bad of the show by S2. MoM starts off showing a Strange variant who's willing to kill America and seize her power. Earth-838 Strange went bad and was even executed. He was considered such a danger that the Illuminati say every Strange they've ever encountered ultimately threatens not only the world but the multiverse and needs to be put down. They don't even consider Wanda a multiversal threat on the same scale of Strange, which shows that in the multiverse, most Wanda variants are well-adjusted and are content with a happy home unlike most Strange variants who become world-breaking threats. We see this with the third-eye Strange variant as well, that he's also evil and destroys his world. 616 Strange actually does kill him but 616 Strange isn't a bad guy for killing his variant while 616 Wanda dreamwalking into 838 Wanda is unforgivable for you? If Wanda dreamwalking into her variant's body is considered to be something so wrong and profane, then why is Strange dreamwalking into his dead variant's body not looked at the same way? You claim he's doing it out of good for the world, unlike Wanda who has selfish motives, but does that really matter? Some of the most evil people in the world have convinced themselves it's fine to do bad/evil things because the ends justify the means. That they're making the world a better place. If dreamwalking is such a slippery slope to madness, then shouldn't Strange recognize that he's falling under the same trap as Wanda did by using the Darkhold and that he's set himself on the same path of ultimate corruption as well? Wanda even points out the hypocrisy of this but as usual, Strange is defended for his actions. You say 616 Strange isn't a villain but is even that true? MoM seems to show he's well on his path to corruption, including the fact that we see 616 Strange manifest the same third eye that the evil variant he killed had. It's an unmistakable sign that the Darkhold's corruption has seeped into him too, so as I pointed out, his actions have led to his corruption and proven the Illuminati right. Wanda at least acknowledges that her actions were all selfish and just for her own family's sake, but Strange is the ultimate hypocrite who makes every wrong decision, alienating everyone close to him, but still tries to claim he's a hero and doing it all for the sake of the world. That excuse can only hold up for so long, particularly when every variant we encounter of his makes the same mistakes out of the justification that he's saving the world, and all of them end up becoming villains or murderers for that reason. Calling 838 Strange's intentions benign is laughable to me because one could easily claim the same about Wanda's motivations, which actually weren't world-breaking beyond one individual's life. Once more, going back to why the Illuminati saw the greater scheme of things and prioritized Strange as the higher threat. And based on potential leaks, they were right to do that. The next part I'm putting in spoilers because they're potential leaks for future movies but it goes to my point on why even 616 Strange can be considered a villain now (if MoM didn't make it explicit enough). I agree with you though that MoM Wanda only caring for her children and not thinking of the rest of her family, especially Vision, seemed super OOC. It also shows how dependent these characters' writings are based on contracts and actor obligations. With Wanda's power, there's no reason Pietro couldn't come back in WandaVision but either there was no interest to bring back Aaron-Taylor Johnson or he refused to return. Vision was supposed to show up in a Disney+ series (the now cancelled Armor Wars) instead of the movies, so he's not included in MoM, which feels very jarring. But the MoM writers have confirmed that they didn't watch WandaVision or keep up with it while writing their movie which explains why the film fails to continue Wanda's arc and why Elizabeth Olsen said she didn't like what they did to her character. She wasn't alone because even Hayley Atwell disliked MoM and said she shouldn't have agreed to cameo in the movie since a character like Captain Carter deserved better than just appearing to be instantly killed off. I've read very little of her in the comics outside of the Ultimates comics where she was part of an already OP team ensemble and so she didn't hog the spotlight thankfully.. MoM using this newly introduced character just to cause problems between two of the MCU's most popular characters, Strange and Wanda, probably didn't engender anymore sympathy towards her in what was an already thankless part. With her powerset, it'd be reasonable to assume she'll have a big role in Doomsday/Secret Wars but there was so much backlash to the character that I imagine she won't have much more than a minor part at best. Ah, seeing those names does show that the MCU is definitely prioritizing those more popular characters then. I don't mind those characters you listed, but the Sam's Avengers team (whoever they even are at this point) doesn't engender much confidence if they're being paired along with those names. I can easily see their parts being cut down in reshoots since they'll be like a sinking weight. I agree that it doesn't bode well for the rest of the Thunderbolts who aren't included in what's probably the A-Team. I'm guessing Marvel realized it was a mistake for Disney+ characters to have such a heavy role in Doomsday, hence why there doesn't seem to be a Moon Knight or She-Hulk. Moon Knight was actually well received but I think he's in the same boat as Shang-Chi now that there's been so much content since without him that any momentum he had is presumably gone now. I actually skipped his show because it came out around the time I gave up on the Disney+ shows. The last one I watched was Hawkeye (not including What If? Seasons 1-2 and even those I only watched much later on). Yeah, blaming Wanda for the incident that causes Civil War is rather silly. Crossbones is the one who sets off the explosion with an intent to kill everyone around him. Wanda at that point isn't powerful or skilled enough to fully contain the blast. She's only able to essentially compress the explosion but it's very obvious that if she hadn't intervened, everyone in that area would be dead instead of just the few who did end up killed. Her actions saved lives rather than cost lives. The media crucifies Wanda and the Avengers, but there's a reason Cap and the Avengers make very clear to her that she has no reason to feel guilty. No one else on the team even had the powerset to handle an explosion like that so if Wanda was not considered morally fit to be an Avenger, as has been stated here, then there would have been way more lives lost and probably many dead Avengers as well.

Carol definitely comes across as stoic, which is more associated with male characters. However, I can't think of any MCU male character who comes across as stoic as Carol is. I don't think her not being presented as emotional is the real issue with her, because a character like Black Widow was also not emotional. She had two close ties, to Hawkeye and Yelena, but otherwise, the film that makes her the most "feminine" or traditionally gender-coded was also the one she got the most hate from: AoU with fans unanimously hating her romance with Bruce and trauma from being forcibly sterilized. There's a reason both of those plot points never came up again after AoU. I think that hurts Carol is the inconsistency in her writing because she's not as well-defined as her predecessors, which is also a main problem for most of these post-Endgame characters. Carol's in a gray area where she's technically a pre-Endgame character but written like a post-Endgame one since most of her material was written or came out after Endgame, so she's held to a higher standard with the Phases 1-3 characters. Her other issue is that she has no strong emotional ties to any characters the audience cares about. Monica and Kamala are not really characters the audience is interested in, especially as they're Disney+ characters that most people wouldn't be familiar with. Doctor Strange definitely got a boost from all his screentime with Spider-Man, starting in Infinity War, but Carol doesn't really have that boost from any A-Listers. As for Wanda, you said she was mostly evil from the start, so do you mean from her first appearances in The Winter Soldier/AoU? I think audiences can sympathize with her more because we've journeyed with the character since 2015, even when she was essentially just a side character. She also broke out in a streaming show during the midst of the pandemic, which really helped boost her popularity and exposure. The MCU project where she's written to be the most evil is MoM and that's a film that's lost more and more goodwill as time has gone on for a reason because Wanda is so one-dimensionally evil there. I think Elizabeth Olsen's acting helps make the character still sympathetic, plus the fact that the other characters can come across as worse. Wanda calls out Strange for being a hypocrite because he breaks all the rules she does, but only she gets vilified for it. I found Strange really unlikable in his sequel, because he breaks almost as many taboos as Wanda does and the film still expects us to side with him, even after we learn that basically every Strange variant across the multiverse ends up going bad. And the other character, Miss America, was such a generic cipher of a character, that you're almost rooting for her to get killed just to get her off the screen. Honestly, the Wanda scenes are the only repeatable ones for me in MoM. Honestly, most of the Sam's Avengers characters don't seem all that popular with general audiences either. Marvel might be trying to push them as important but the failure of BNW basically shows that nobody cares about Sam or wants to see him as a lead...again. Shang-Chi had potential but he's been gone from the screen for so long that he's become irrelevant and that momentum is gone. Carol is DOA. Haven't even heard about Moon Knight or She-Hulk, but even they're Disney+ characters with Shulkie rather controversial herself. So regardless of which side the Thunderbolts are on, the main group or the side group, I think most audiences will lump them all together as side groups in general. Most comments I'm reading for Doomsday are why are all the heavy hitters people actually care about missing, like Doctor Strange, the trio of Spider-Mans, Wanda, Wolverine, Deadpool, etc. Marvel is going to have a really hard time pushing a cast of characters that most audiences are generally apathetic towards now at best. I don't think I've seen any major media with a civilian Gwen in ages. The ASM depiction was the last major one and probably more or less the deathknell for the character. Even that depiction was rather controversial as people felt Marvel hadn't aged with the times for killing off such a popular character/love interest. So I'm not surprised that since Spider-Gwen appeared on the scene, they basically act like the classic Gwen Stacy doesn't exist anymore. Classic Gwen, for better or for worse, is a PR nightmare now, so that's the main thing I can see explaining why we haven't gotten a proper minifig for her yet and might still not even in a modular Oscorp set. Exactly, all those minifigs were given names from the most obscure characters imaginable, just to fit Marvel's criteria. I don't see this brought up enough but even Robbie Robertson and Ben Urich look nothing like their characters. Robbie should have gray hair and no facial hair. And he's traditionally clad in a suit or vest like J. Jonah Jameson is, so putting him in a sweater was even more odd. Ben Urich is also given facial hair when he doesn't sport that in the comics. Ironically enough, the Robbie Robertson minifig we did get has more resemblance to the Netflix Ben Urich from the Daredevil show.

Trailer for the Wolverine Insomniac game came out. Hoping future Marvel sets could pepper in some characters from the game like some of the Spidey sets have done, such as Norman Osborn in the Oscorp set. Would like to see Mystique and Omega Red. This would also be a good way to get a new Sentinel set. Aren't all the characters going to be mixed up and split into different groups, like with what happened to Infinity War? That's what I remember reading although I don't recall the groups. Hopefully they'll just ignore Sins Past then like Marvel does. I think her portrayal in the ASM films sorta helped reinvent the character for a modern age but then Spider-Gwen, who basically has nothing in common with the original Gwen Stacy, took off and more or less overshadowed the original Gwen. Marvel seems to have essentially replaced her with Spider-Gwen now and doesn't seem to have any interest in revisiting the original Gwen. I'm guessing the only reason there was a civilian Gwen minifigure in the Daily Bugle was just because they already had a random blonde minifigure and we know Marvel didn't like the idea of Lego populating the Daily Bugle with generic minifigs so they made them rename them to existing characters from the comics. Hence why most of them don't look anything like their comic counterparts.

Yes, comic Shocker is what I specifically meant. Although it's just as well we haven't gotten him. He'd look really bland without arm/leg printing to match the diamond pattern of his torso. Mysterio is a character I'd like to see redone so we can get leg printing that has the netting pattern from his torso.

It was sorta ambiguous for me. It felt more maternal or sisterly, particularly with Yelena taking on the older sister role that Natasha had with her. But a few times, I also felt they might be trying to recreate the Natasha/Bruce relationship, which seemed rather unanimously disliked so I don't know if they'd go there again. But Bob with his Void personality isn't far off from Bruce with his Hulk troubles and both Nat and Yelena are some of the few people to be able to calm them down. I honestly didn't even like the original Captain Marvel movie. It felt like they had no idea how to handle Carol's character so they deliberately left her a cipher, with little personality. It didn't help that all her Endgame scenes were filmed before Captain Marvel was even finished, so she was left a blank slate there too in order to not conflict with her solo movie. That meant in her first two major appearances, she was basically only characterized by being the most powerful. Then Wanda came along and took that role, and unlike Carol, she actually had a personality and audience acceptance, which is why she became the most popular post-Endgame Marvel character with no competition. That made Carol even more irrelevant while also further exposing how poorly written she is. Wanda was probably their best written female character, especially as she wasn't Marvel's usual template for an action heroine with quippy one-liners (Black Widow, Gamora), but they killed her off. I felt with Sue, they were trying to replicate Wanda's popularity (especially since the FF writer also wrote WandaVision) except Sue didn't seem to have much of a personality beyond being a mother whereas Wanda was more multifaceted than that. MoM Wanda was rather less complex in order to easily villainize her, which is why that film hasn't aged well with fans. I feel like the days when the MCU were planned have been long gone, if they ever truly existed. An example is that Wanda wasn't meant to be the villain of MoM. The idea was that she was a supporting character who assists Strange against the real villain, Nightmare. At the end, she'd be corrupted and turn dark in order to be the villain for a future movie. Then the writer of the movie decided that it wasn't fair that a future film would benefit from evil Wanda so why not start off with her evil so MoM can benefit from using her. The Kang stuff also shows how much rewriting there has to have been since he was the big bad villain and now he's been replaced with Doom. I heard the reason they haven't been able to bring back Shang-Chi yet is because his end-credits scene was supposed to tie into Kang, particularly with that film's director as the original director for Kang Dynasty which is now Secret Wars. We saw Thanos multiple times before Infinity War, whereas we've only seen the back of Doom once, with no dialogue or references to him. So it seems like Marvel is scrambling between bringing back Robert Downey Jr. and a lot of other legacy characters who were supposed to be retired. I'm not sure if Loki's death in Infinity War was ever supposed to be permanent since those Disney+ shows were in development for a while, so Loki's return was probably planned around that time. And now he's going to have a major role in Doomsday. James Gunn seems to have realized that cutesy non-human characters really gel with the public, between Groot and Krypto in Superman. So I'm guessing Groot really does sell well enough to justify another set.