The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Meadowlarkers 86: Marvel Cinematic University Crossover

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Howard Bryant is joined by Anthony Canton III and Jake Christie of the MCUniversity Podcast to discuss all things Marvel! They touch on the current state of the MCU, Post Endgame Traumatic Syndrome, stories they'd like to see told, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, the problems with trying to interconnect everything in the universe, and so much more. Follow Anthony and Jake's work and listen to their podcast: https://linktr.ee/mcuniversitypod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. This is the Dunluba Tarshou with the StugatSpotcast. Welcome to Metal Archer's 86. I am however, Bryant. Kate Fagan is not here. Amino Hassan is not here But let's not concentrate on who's not here. Let's let's concentrate on who is here We've got some old friends from the Marvel Cinematic University podcast you get Anthony Canton the third What's up? What's up? What's happening Howard? Long time no see. It's happy to see you again. How long has it been?

It's been a few months since the disaster of quantum media. It's the disaster of quantum media. We've got, we've got Mets hat behind him as well, but not a fire sale over at your place. Jay Christie, how are you? I'm doing well. Yeah. I'm your team this year. I mean, I think I said, on a podcast, we recorded right after the trade deadline, but like if they think that a fire sale is going to break my spirit, the wrong, it was broken a long time ago. Yeah, you can't kill me. I'm already dead. Exactly. Yeah. Um, it has been a while. My apologies. It certainly has never been my intention for us not to, uh, to talk on a regular basis. However, this is a perfect time to talk considering that I just saw the Loki trailer just a couple of hours ago. But before we get started, we have to take care of one piece of housekeeping, which is our Metal Arca's 86 honorary captains for today. There will not be honorary captains in the plural just one, just one captain for today.

And that would be Matt Murdock. Why? Because 86 January of 86, the epic daredevil 227 came out. I was a senior in high school. It was the beginning of born again, the greatest, along in my opinion, the greatest comic story, along with the dark Phoenix Hellfire Club saga. These are my top two. I'm sure there are others worthwhile that deserve some space, but in my world, I love those two the best. Maybe, obviously, if you wanted to go infinity, you can do that, but these two are from the

one again. That's a classic huge shout out to born again. And we've got born again coming in the spring next year on Disney plus supposedly. Yeah, the strike is yeah, exactly. But all things are all things are up in the air because we have a we've got labor going on. So we are in phase five. I can honestly say, as you guys know, as we have gone on, I am suffering. I've got a name for it now. I'm going to call it pets. That's my new acronym, post end game traumatic syndrome. I have been hoping to come out of it. I haven't exactly come out of it. I am deficient in a few areas. I have not seen all of the Disney Plus releases.

I have not seen Where All of By Night. I have not seen Sheelk. I think the last one that I finished was Moon Night. I am up on the movies, of course, but I, and I think I've seen the first four of Secret Invasion. So I'm finding my way, I'm finding my way, but pets is a real thing. And I wanna go to the experts, Jake,

why don't you start us off? As we are looking at phase five, and as we're looking at the post end game landscape, and as we get ready to see Loki coming out in October has the MCU bound its footing we're at 44 programs and counting right now. I would say no, this year was a stumble for then for sure. And I think that they stumbled a little bit last year and I stumbled a little bit in 2021. And I think that while on a like movie by movie quality basis, you can make an argument that there have been lower periods in terms of like, you know, that I would talk a lot about how Guardians 3 we really love and we think is, you know, I personally

put it in my top 10, MCU property and I was like, I'm't say him. I'm saying. And so I think that it definitely, that something like that is a, you know, of really good and well received movie made a lot of money, et cetera. But I think when you're the MC, when you're the king, you can't have two projects in a year that are full on, they don't work. The Quantamania was a disaster both in the critical reception,

how good it is, and it didn't make a lot of money. And Secretivation was a quality disaster. both in the critical reception, how good it is, and it didn't make a lot of money. And secretivation was a quality disaster. I think secretivation, I do think now that secretivation is probably, I would say, the worst thing. In my opinion, probably the thing I've enjoyed the least that the MCU's ever put out. And I think that when, in the problem with that is the things I'd be comparing it to are things that the MCU did in its first two phases and you can't be doing that now, you know, and I think that

whether I always would push back into the phrase Marvel fatigue because I would say is if the quality was still good people would still like it but it's easy to get fatigued the moment you put out stuff that is like, uh, this is really is not working well. if it's the moment that you put out stuff, that is like, this is really something that's not good. Exactly. And the thing I've been saying of late, and before I talked to Anthony, is it feels like a lot of the bad decisions they've made, is that they've been operating under the idea that late 2017 to the end of 2019 is the norm

of how successful they can be. And that is a huge outlier in movie making and any franchise. And it feels like so much to this end the post end game, traumatic syndrome you talk about is that they keep operating as if each one of the projects, a project can and should be as big as everything right around end game. And if you take swings that big, your helmet might fly off and you look silly. It just, I, I, it just feels like they're taking a lot of home run swings, not a lot of singles and doubles. And it keeps backfiring on them. And so, yeah, this is definitely the most precarious state I think the MC has been in a while. Isn't that also the law of diminishing returns as

well? I mean, if you're taking a grand slam swing with every swing, it's not a grand slam anymore, it's just a hit. And so you lose that power. The reason why 2017 to 2019 was so good was because we've been waiting for the culmination. It was exactly what it was supposed to be, which was you lead up to something. If the effect of Infinity War and endgame had the same effect as Winter Soldier did or as the same effect as age of ultra on did, then it wouldn't have hit as much. AC, what are your thoughts? Well, Bob Eiger made some comments a few weeks ago that got him in some hot water, but

and remember, disclosure, I still are an employee of ESPN, so I'm not going to talk about that. Well, no, but I was just about to say he did make a comment that actually did make some sense and did have a kernel of truth into it was the fact that the MCU has hit the saturation point as far as it's a product is concerned, especially with the TV shows. I think Jake and I have discussed this on the show plenty of times and it has proven true. They don't know how to do television. They haven't done television properly. They haven't done television properly,

they haven't done television correctly, except for a few instances. I'd say the shining examples, obviously, WandaVision, Loki, and Shehawk to me are the three things that were done that were done like TV shows, and there was a reason that people were into them and followed them week to week and the conversation always continued about them because of the structure of the story. The story at the end of the day has to mean something and I always felt like especially when it comes to these Disney push-ows you are supposed to get these characters over to your audience in a way that the movies did. And for example, Secret Invasion, Nick Fury is somebody that we don't really know. We have a good feeling about him, but I thought personally when this series was coming out, that we were going

to get Nick Fury and learn more about him. What is the story with the scrolls? Why is he coming back? All of that. And the show is he coming back all of that and the show decided to not say any of that and just have stuff happen. Stuff happens straight into action. Well, this is the thing. It's you could say it's action. I can arguably say it's just stuff that happened over six years. But it went straight into stuff. Yes, just a whole bunch of stuff and exposition over six weeks without really telling the story in a situation where I thought with the actors that they had in that cast, they

could have told the story that was something meaningful and just decided to put something out that was just there. And I think what Jake said as far as a lack of enjoyment of that series couldn't be more true. I felt so empty after watching that because it was nothing that I could take out of it, going forward for any story or any character, especially Nick Fury, who comes in,

makes a mess out of things, and then just goes back to space. It just, it didn't, it did not hit at all. And I thanks for that. That's a spoiler alert, by the way. Oh, she's a forgot to wipe out my bed. Bad love and thank you for that. I will say also, and I'm glad you both have said this

for one very important reason. And that is that I was concerned that it was just me. I was like, maybe I just have hit because you guys have always been far more enthusiastic about a lot of these programs than I have. I've always found my way with them in terms of being able to enjoy them, but you guys have found the things that have given me enjoyment as well. I enjoyed them because you enjoy them as well. But this one I wasn't, I was wondering because we talked about it on your program, on your pod often, that for me personally, most of what I watch on television has to be something

that hit me when I was a comic collector, when I was reading as a kid, and I hated the scrolls. I hated the scrolls and the fantastic four, and I didn't, I mean, I love the fantastic four, but I never liked when they thought the scrolls. And the reason was because the scrolls always struck me as an impossible villain. How do you actually beat them? You don't know who's, you know what I mean?

It's almost like time traveling away. Eventually, the entire scroll story falls apart because they're too powerful. Like, they're too difficult. I mean, and the whole spy, spy shield, no shield, double agent story itself is difficult enough to follow. And then trying to figure out who's who. All of that can work with great storytelling. It falls apart really, really hard when the story's not strong. These types of stories require airtight storytelling. And they require great characterization.

Like the way I would describe secret invasion is a class example. I think this has happened a lot with MCU stuff of late. Because I think that what are the MCU's great strengths was creating characters that people loved out of nobody comic book characters. It feels like secret invasion is a classic example of plot cannibalizing character that so much stuff, so many individual events happen that like the thing that I enjoy about a spy

thriller is you don't know who people's allegiance is are you don't know who to trust all this, but that requires you to have such strong and well. And then it almost feels like they were writing it like basically, like a pink by numbers of what they think a spy through what should look like as opposed to making it specific in any way. And also it feels like that they didn't want to make the twists too complex because they're afraid the audience might be too dumb to get it. Now, I'm not saying the audience is too dumb to get it, but it really feels like they left a lot on the table in terms of intrigue and twists. It's like, well, everyone

has to be able to understand this. And if you want to make a mass media product, absolutely fine. Just don't try to do a 70s political stuff like it just, you know, they didn't have to do this. Yeah. So it was essentially spies for dummies is, it's how I would classify it. And I just think, and they blasted Maria Hill. Oh yeah. Well, this is a thing. Yeah, the fridging of characters,

the constant killing of characters throughout this show, and then on top of it, I didn't feel anything to come of it because I'm still wondering what is Nick Fury's thought process, what is he feeling, what is he thinking? They didn't want to give you that for whatever reason. And to be quite frank about it, it just is honestly, it's terrible. It's either to me, it's either negligence or just bad. So which one do you want to be here?

I think it also goes back to the thing, how would you talk about a lot? And if you, I mean, you're not the first person to raise this, but you always will bring up on your show and our show and it's right. And this is why I brought up thing by hitting singles and doubles is that like, this is a six episode Disney plus show that is clearly made so that you don't have to watch it. And I think that that's a smart thing to do with the Disney plus show is because not everyone has a time to watch all of them. So therefore, if it's something that not everyone has to watch and is not going to have our big name superheroes in it, it can't be a plot that is about the end of the world. They don't know how to tell stories that are not about the end of the world. And even I'm

kind of in spoilers for you, but I assume you know that the Avengers don't come down and fight the scrolls, right? And they don't, they give a sort of kind of explanation of why the Avengers don't come down and fight the scrolls. But I'm like like Nick Fury has to be the worst protective earth in the world if he's like no for personal reasons I'm gonna let the scrolls maybe take over the whole world because I don't want to invite the Avengers Like it's common. I think so much of what because like I said like we're talking about I think that Guardian's three really worked for me And I worked for most people I know like I don't think that we're on an island really liking it And I think that's so much what worked about it for us is while there were like big explosions and like technically speaking a lot of lives were at stake. The stakes of the movie were about characters we cared about. It wasn't like, oh my god, the whole thing blow up because it's one. It's a side movie. It's not infinity war. And so I care very deeply about whether the characters I like are going to die.

And I think that that is the much stronger way to like storytelling, whereas something like secret invasion or the other projects that don't work as much, you know, something like, a turnels where it's like, okay, the world in general might die. So why aren't the characters we care about here? Why is this like, there just needs to be small, state stories. Like that is I think, I think we forget too about so many of the other early projects that work. Is it like, yeah, when our soldier is technically speaking, yeah, a lot of people die, but it's really just like, it's about a new weapon that's going to take out some people. Like it's not about the whole world ending. Well, and that's the thing.

Is that those stories, I think what makes it all work, what made it all work, was that we didn't know the stakes. The stakes kept growing Movie after movie after movie and the thing that I really enjoyed most I think the the greatest piece of genius of the of the MCU up before up until endgame was By the time you got to end game The original threat looked so small end game. The original threat looked so small. The original, but when you were there in 2012 watching Avengers, the original threat looked like end game and it just kept getting bigger and bigger

and you really see it until you got to the end. It reminds me a lot, I think, of sports teams in a lot of ways where the most successful teams for the franchise When when you're not supposed to win The you don't win the year you load up and get everybody unless you're the 97 Marlins But for the most part you your team has that surprise year and then you build off of it all of a sudden You got the 2015 Warriors and you go whoa, right? And now you build off of that. And the beauty of the MCU was that you didn't know outside of Robert

Downey Jr. How many true stars you had. You didn't know that was an all star cast. They grew into those characters and they grew into that cast. And before, you know, before long you go, wow, everybody in this lineup can play, but we didn't really know everybody in this lineup could play. And so that is a is something that you can't duplicate. You can't duplicate the end of the story as if it's the beginning every single time. 100% right on that.

But the other thing about this too, that I think does deserve some deserve some explanation is 44 is a lot of programming. That's a lot. And so maybe, you know, I wouldn't call it model fatigue, but accumulation is a real thing. How long does this go? And it also isn't just 44. It was 44 with no break. After endgame, they immediately went back into programming. And so that made it hard too. So do we need some form of a breather? Do we simply need better stories? Do have you the is the the difficulty of this also knowing that these people are real people and I'll get to that piece in a second, but Chris Evans has a life. He wants to make other movies. And the same mystery of Robert Downington, or these guys have lived. So is it the fact that the speed of the programming, the volume of the programming is not even giving you a chance to

slow down and then ramp back up? I think the pandemic was, unfortunately, what it caused was 2021, where we all of a sudden had 9 or 10 things come out any year. Yeah. And nothing to do. And that's the thing. It's great for our show, for me, and Jake to do content. It's great to review the stuff, and it's great to get into it. But boy, it is a lot.

21 and 22, I think it was something around 16 projects in total if you combine the movies and the movies and the TV shows. So they're now just starting to get in a spot now where they're starting to slow down and talking about let's just release three movies and two TV shows in a year and even that you can make the argument and it would be a fair one at this point is that too much too. That's a lot. So.

And I think that this would be a non-issue. This initial I bring up a lot and I think I'm kind of annoying about it because it's not I think that fans really need to care about. But like if the TV shows were costing $90 million and not everyone had to watch them, it wouldn't be a big deal. Like, I think what I would, what I think they should do if I were running Marvel is that I would instead of arranging how many projects I'm going to do, I would have like a sort of like a, this year we're going to spend a billion dollars. We can do it across three movies. We can do it across two movies. We can do it across two movies

But the fact that matter is Secret invasion cost Disney. I think what is it? $212 million which although that doesn't mean anything to your eye because it's not our money You know that creatively they're making decisions that they need it to be one of the biggest shows of the year and that every movie They make needs to be one of the biggest movies of the year. So, that becomes an impossible thing to live up to because I think a feasible way to put out as much content as they do is if you put out like a Guardian's 3, which is a big combination of a trilogy people like, yeah, spend $250 million on it, it's gonna make $800 million. But then, if you want to put out, say like a Kate Bishop Hawkeye movie,

make that for $70 million, so you're not sweating if it only makes 300. And I think the fact that Disney doesn't really know how to make movies for less than $200 million anymore puts them in a position where they can't make anything that's really that interesting because it has to be brought enough to make $800 million. And also they set themselves up for horrible headlines. Only quantum media made like $600 million, which is a horrible result for what that movie is, but $600 million is a lot of money. And so it feels like they're...

And why is it a horrible result for that movie? That movie cost what to something? Because you need to double the amount at least for any movie always will cost double because the ads. And then if you're... And then if you're only cleaning like $50 million, that's not gonna make Disney happy. I mean, that's at least what they say.

I'd like to see those books. I mean, that's at least what they say. I'd like to see those books. I mean, that's the thing I'll think about Hollywood accounting. There's a big thing that the writer of Men in Black always tweets about how he, that Warner Brothers keeps telling him that not Warner Brothers whoever made that movie, keeps telling him that that movie's never made money. He's never gotten a residual for it.

So, that's Hollywood is just like, but anyway, I guess my point is that it feels like they constantly keep hooting themselves in an impossible position and we're like, but anyway, I guess my point is that if it was like they constantly keep hurting themselves in an impossible position, we're like, yeah, if every movie you make needs to be a top five movie of the year and you release four movies in a year, of course, you're going to be disappointed. It's such a silly business model. It's such, it's so difficult to kind of put it all into perspective, but if you really bottom line it, this will, I mean, for somebody like me, and you mentioned it earlier Howard, we, me and Jake are two very passionate people about this subject. We love it. We love it a lot. By the end of secret invasion, I could not tell you how much

I was so ready to just move on to something else, just be done with it. And that was the first time I had ever felt that way about anything in Marvel to this point. So the fact that I feel like that is, is a sign that there is something wrong. And I think the something wrong is, it's a combination of things. With everything as far as what Jake mentioned with budgets and the films and the cost of these films and all of these things, the quality has gone down. The all of the VFX stories that you've heard, we've had, marvelous had such a bad press run this year between, you have the Victoria Alonzo thing with the VFX workers, you have that. You have the Jonathan Majors thing.

This is the person that you built your entire saga around. The multi-series guy. He is the guy. He is number one. You have it in quotes that the only reason we decided to go this way is because we have this guy. And guess what? I watched that Loki trailer and I said to myself, man, this looks great,

but guess what? He's right in the middle of there and what are they going to do with that? Because he doesn't even have a, I don't think he has a line in that trailer, does he? It's just his face. Just one brief line. Just one brief line. And they've essentially taken him off of the marketing of they didn't release the assembled the behind the scenes of quantum media until about two or three weeks ago from a movie that was released on Disney Plus in June. And basically everything that he's been in otherwise, I mean, we know the story. He's been dropped from almost every, from his own PR agency.

He's been dropped from a bunch of projects that he was, he was supposed to be involved in. And this is the one that everybody wonders. He is the face of this right now. What are they going to do about it? It's a fair question to ask. 100% and thinking of moving on, I always think about this in terms of the actual human beings who have given us so much joy in this. And I think about it when I was watching Oppenheimer and you're looking at a tour de force performance by Robert Downey Jr., and you're thinking, maybe you

don't need the Iron Man costume anymore. And because this is a terrific performance. And there's still actors. And you know that obviously from a business standpoint, it was very difficult to not how do you not take the check for what he's done. I mean his that is his Tony Stark is the signature performance of his career. And he's a great actor. He's a great individual actor. And yet when you look at Oppenheimer the same way if you watch Spotlighter, if you watch marriage story. There's a lot of great actors who have something else to offer. At the same time, I'm not going to the movies to watch eternal. The MCU doesn't hit me the same way because as a as a comic collector,

as a kid, as what you know, the the mighty Marvel society that brought me in here, these smaller secondary characters, where Wolf by night and Moon night and the rest of it, not driving me to the theater. But at the same time, it's like Chris Evans drove me to the theater and Robert Honey Jr. and Chris Helmsworth and those guys drove me to the theater. So it's going to be really, really interesting to see what that next spark is going to be. Like what is the spark going to be? And I agreed you guys and I haven't said anything about this. I really enjoyed Guardians. I really liked it.

And the reason why I liked Guardians so much was because Guardians understood the assignment. Guardians understood that this is a closure movie, that there was a, it was an allergic film, it felt it, it felt like it was a goodbye in a lot of ways. And also a next chapter for the individual characters, it was a life goes on type of thing, but we need to wrap this up and it did it in such a beautiful and sad, but also really good way.

It really nailed what it was trying to do. I think emotionally, it is one of the most satisfying MCU films I've ever watched, like it's up there with Endgame, just in terms of how you felt walking out of that because of the way that the way that James Gunn, the character service, I just was incredibly impressed with how that story was handled, building this movie around Rocket Raccoon and finding a way to make you, I mean, we like Rocket Raccoon over here, always, we've always felt that way, but to make us care about him in this way

and see what was done to him and why he is, the way that he is, was just incredible to watch. And I also got to give credit to Gunn for doing this. He did not do the Peter Gamora story where they all automatically find a way to get back together. There is a healthy look at what happened and the realization that sometimes life happens and you have to move on.

And I thought that was wonderful. I think that so much of what Kazmi nervous about the next few years of the MCU is that if I were them after N-Yam, the move I would do, what I would have done is say, okay, let's just try a bunch of different things that people in-house and our actors are passionate about, what kind of projects were we passionate about ourselves? Because I think that, like, the reason why I turned those didn't drive people to theater so much, didn't drive you to theaters is that it felt like they were making it

because it was another thing to make, as opposed to like, even if it's a character you haven't heard of that much, like, Garry's the galaxy, I think the reason the original made so much money is because there's just passion oozing off the screen. It feels like it was made by a person who cares about it. And it's different.

To see, you know, Kevin Feig stand up like Comic-Con or D23 and outline the next seven years of projects, I'm like, but what if the project that leads to that project, the Leafflip project, doesn't have a lot of juice? Or are you just gonna sleepwalk for free, free projects? Like what I would be doing right now is, oh, a Mon Vellani is incredible spark in Miss Marvel.

We're having the Marvels. Let's immediately ask her what she wants to do for Miss Marvel season two. Let's ride that hot hand. We think that Chris Pratt is once another in Miss Marvel. We're having the Marvels. Let's immediately ask her what she wants to do for Miss Marvel season two. Let's ride that hot hand. We think that Chris Pratt is once another star of the movie. Let's have Chris Pratt get a story by credit on a movie he wants to make with one of his hooks and wrecked friends.

I would just be finding the stories that people are passionate about and then reverse engineering the way it works because I think that people overestimate how hard it is to interconnect this stuff. Like you really don't, you can kind of, people don't only mind if these movies are held together by duct tape could between them.

It's only a problem if the movies themselves are held together by duct tape. And so I just don't know why they're so hell bent on like recreating the next Infinity Saga, when like the Infinity, I guarantee you if the Infinity stuff was not working in the first few attempts. Like if Age of Ultron made like no money and everyone hated the idea

of doing do the infinity saga, I honestly believe, you know, Disney and Kevin Feige would have been like, okay, that's trying something else. But it feels like they're hell bent on making this multiverse saga work. Even though it's very clear to me honestly that we were at the tail end of multiverse stories being a vogue. And so what is it going to be like in 2027 when we're still doing this? And so I was really worried about like, people really non creative people really overestimate how much of linear storytelling is planned out. Most TV shows you like, they did not have the end when they started writing it. That's just the way that creativity works. Because you have to see what works, you have

to see what actors work. Jesse Pinkham was supposed to die at the NFC's more of a brick and bat. So I think that like, it's very frustrating to see them like going full speed ahead when it's like some of the stuff that you really are relying on working isn't working. I can tell you this much, Howard. The other day, I went back and watched the She Hulk episode where Daredevil shows up.

And I can tell you in that episode, the amount of chemistry between Charlie Cox and Tatiana Maslani was just so incredible that I could just be stuck there watching those two share gays as at each other. And obviously in Matt Murdoch's case, it can't really gays. But nonetheless, their emotions towards each other, the chemistry from that. That's the type of stuff that you should invest in. That's the type of stuff that matters. That's the type of stuff that when we talk about being MCU fans, this is why we love the

MCU, those characters. When that happens on screen, if I'm Kevin Feige, I'm calling the Daredevil writers room and saying, hey, I know you're early on, we are having a three episode arc where she all comes to New York because even if it doesn't, like, we'll make it work or like at least one episode because these characters work so well together. And it feels like the fact that they're, like, if the whole Daredevil thing goes on

and she doesn't show up once, I'll be like, that's crazy that they introduced a character that this character has perfect chemistry with. And even though, yeah, maybe Kenanquish, they're not together a lot, but like, these actors have so much going on, you know? Well, and if you're telling the born-again story, she don't fit.

Exactly. You're gonna have to figure out a way to make that fit. It's a different story. It's a different story. And it's such a great story to tell. I would, you know, you know how I feel about that story. Of course. And so I am of the mind right now

that I think we're at in terms of the connection to these characters is really all about that chemistry because it was that chemistry that created this in the first place. Who knew that Chris Evans and Robert Jenny Jr. were gonna have that kind of chemistry? Who knew that Chris Evans was gonna be as funny as he was? Who knew that those guys were all going to find their way the way that they did?

Nobody really knew that and then they adjusted. And that lack of adjustment is, is, is, is hurting them. Now for me, one of the areas that, that I found kind of interesting as well is the creative piece of it all, like I watched across the multiverse and the brilliance of that story. It's still a great, I mean, it's a great follow-up. I don't love the fact that it's a sea, that it's a cliffhanger. I thought there was something a little amiss there in terms of the storytelling,

but I also felt like the biggest problem I had with that was character investment. I mean, I thought that it's brilliant. I thought the colors I thought, what they can do with the animation, I think they did for you, what a lot of great movies can do is to show me the power of what's available Show me what the technology can do

But my goodness. I have no connection to Miles Morales at all and maybe just because I'm old, right? I'm like looking at this and I'm and I'm going okay I know this is the anxiety generation. I know this is the tell your kid you love them generation and all of that stuff But you're a superhero. How many hugs do you need for goodness sakes? How many hugs do you need? Unbelievable. I can't believe I'm gonna say this,

but this is the one time where hashtag watched agenda does not work for me here. I was gonna say how do you tell me to a man who's named his son, Miles, so I don't know how much Miles you're gonna get. But that's for Miles Davis, isn't it? The From Miles Morales, isn't it? Did you name your child after a comic book character?

I sure absolutely did without a doubt as a person of, as an Afro Latino, as I am. There was a kinship when you see, when you see into the spider version, of course, reading the books and seeing miles for the first time. And it's just a powerful, I think, powerful emotional story. And I think into the spider version itself,

I remember seeing it and it's just, you, the words take a leap of faith, all of those things. And then him in this movie, I'm gonna do my own thing. And that's really just like stuff like that. And you know, especially for somebody like me who sees that, you want to give that hope to the kids, you want to give that hope to the younger that they would be God. I got everything. So that's that's where that kind of is. So man, I'm normally with you. Don't get me wrong. I'm normally with you on this. This is one of the few times Or I'll be like, yes, I'm also I'm like I said I'm with that and and look I

Just I guess for me in watching this I mean I'm just like Step into your greatness man really I mean it was just it was a little cloying for me. Well, in his own way, he was stepping into that because of the fact that this Miguelo Hara, who had this idea that, well, you know, Spider-Man, Ken and events, you know, people have to die.

People have to die. And Miles is like looking at the whole situation like, wait a minute, that doesn't make no damn sense. You want to let me, I got to let my dad die. I got to people have to die. And Miles is like looking at the whole situation like, wait a minute, that doesn't make no damn sense. I gotta let my dad die. I think that's a fair question. That would be a bad storyline. Well, that's when it seems like that's what they're setting up for the third one. I don't need anymore hugs, man. I don't need any more hugs. All right, Jake, you play time breaker here.

I mean, I love that movie and so I don't I'm definitely on AC side here. I don't think he's a little annoying, but I also like a lot of knowing I'm close enough to his a dry understanding, but also I I also can't I mean, I come from like the most suburban white suburban family, so like I can't even then like I don't really had to ask for more hugs because it wasn't like there was a very depletion of them at all. So it doesn't ever pop my hat. So I can't really speak to that. But I think what works for that, for me personally,

the thing that works in that movie the best for me is the Miles Gwen stuff. I feel like that relationship is really sweet. And I think that you know, that's the strongest part of it for me. And I think that there's just a lot of... I think what I talk about with passion, there's just so much passion in that movie, that like every frame feels like someone, you know, I mean, if you believe some of the high-pixing stuff, people are putting their heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears in every frame.

And so like, I think that that is the thing that makes that movie like undeniable, where it's not just that it's a technical marvel, it's not just like that there's a new technology that they press a button on. It's like, it's a technical marvel and a marvel of like human achievement of like, we're going to draw all of these frames differently. Like the stuff with a hobby is like, yeah, we're going to draw all of these frames differently like the stuff with Hobie is like yeah, we're gonna Yeah, I'm gonna draw every single frame of him looking different like don't care what to know you have that takes a lot of time

You know no indeed and that stuff and that stuff was terrific But got me it was the the once again. I think it's just because as a parent at this stage. I'm like Jesus Christ enough Enough, I have a few years before I get there. I do let's have this conversation again And I'm like, you know what? I would like you To grow the Also this the beginning I was definitely not on his side I was definitely not on the side at the beginning. Like I'm someone who is like very much,

whenever anyone in like movies, where it rails against their parents, I used to be very uncomfortable because it's like, come on, I'm like that, because I very much have the, I was an old soul, I was a kid in that,

like I was one telling my friends when like they would disobey their parents, like, but don't you know that they love you and they don't want you to do that? and so like I'm kind of way past that so I'm not a small sea corn ball. I'm a small sea corn ball who like I can't I was never when I was 15 I would never identify with their belly's kids in movies so like I can't speak on the I said to my son when we were watching this movie I said one more rooftop scene where somebody puts their arm around somebody else and I'm walking out of the s***. One more. And he's like laughing at me and I'm like,

dude, I'm for real, man. I am for real, Balaque. I'm out, right? I'm done. But I will say this for this conversation, what we're having between guardians and the spider versus movies. There have been successes. There have been some places. What I, to Jake's point, what I do agree with very seriously on this is that if you really, really, really try to interconnect everything, you're going to lose both ways. You're going to lose one because you're asking people to watch a lot of content. And the one thing about the MCU that people would say

to me when I was in before we hit the end game point was, do I have to watch this to know what's going to happen in the next movie? Right? That's the first thing. The second thing that you're going to run into is you're going to miss way more than you hit because the hits themselves in a lot of ways, in my opinion, were accidental. There was a lot of accidental miracles in that 20 movie stretch leading up to end game. I mean, I still feel... I mean, Quantamania was a disaster. I still feel like disaster. I still feel like one division was a Marvel. I really enjoyed, I didn't like the rock and sock I'm ending, but just in terms of the creativity of it when you started out and the journey that it took you on, I liked that. I like talk guy. I enjoyed Hawkeye. I enjoyed Hawkeye. I enjoyed Hawkeye. I know.

Okay. You know, Florence Pugh made that series, turned it into something. And I thought that, so it's not as though all is lost, but I do feel like at the end of the day when you're watching these programs, what made them what they were was you had showstoppers. And right now I'm still looking for some showstoppers. You couldn't be more correct about that. And Jonathan and Adrian was supposed to be your showstopper. So where do you go from here? That's a little tough. That's a little tough. But Jake, Jake did mention a mom, Valani. I do think in terms of young people, this is the person that you want to build around.

Her, I enjoyed the Marvel's trailer. My son and I watched him and I were like, well, we'll be here with this. Her on-screen gravitas is something. I thought Miss Marvel not only tried some things that were interesting and surprising, I mean, doing an episode on the partition was, was's definitely a swing that you wouldn't have expected in, invest your time in as a viewer. So I want to see what they do with her. And I mean, this is the other, I mean, me and Jake joke about about a secret invasion where it was Captain Marvel and all of this.

Brie Larson is a very talented actress. Like, I mean, that goes without saying, I would like to see them actually give her something. So I hope in the Marvels, we see more of Carol Danvers and kind of understand her whole deal. Because I think from the time the Captain Marvel came out, I feel like we don't know much about her. And I feel like they haven't done her the justice that she could probably get done on

screen. So I'm curious to see what the models looks like from that vantage point too. Yeah, and I would also throw one more thing out here, Jake, and jump in on this is that I enjoyed what you were saying about the shelf life of the multiverse as a storyline. If you watch, I just saw a wonderful indie film a couple of weeks ago, Past Lives, then you watch everything everywhere all at once. And you look at the, you know,

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. And for the first time, when you start thinking about the idea of multiverse and the old past lives, it's not a multiverse story, but it was a regret story of like, what if had we gone in this direction? Everything everywhere all at once was the first time where I looked at it and said that that even

MCU themes and that doesn't even include the flash as well You're not even doing multiverse stories the best. Yep. Yep. Yep. I remember I actually came on because I'd do it that movie I I saw it super early and I remember I came on the pod right after seeing it and said that I don't care how good doctor strangers doctor Strange is not going to be the best multi-past. Yeah, I saw that before I saw a doctor straight. Yes, so yeah, exactly so did I and but and I think that The probably run into is that there are really only two multiple stories you can tell which are you can tell a story about meeting different versions of yourself which Which spider across the spider versus spider versus did really really well or you can tell a story about

The different possibilities your life could have gone on which everything ever well wants to could have gone on, which everything everyone wants, different version of. And so, like, I think the lane of the MCU wants to occupy is like, use the multiverse to, like, incorporate a bunch of different characters, which is like a fun gimmick, I guess, which is what the Flash kind of tried to do. But, like, once again, if their big multiverse culmination,

Secret Wars, was coming out at the end of this year, I'd be like, okay, fine, we're still on time, but that movie is like seven movies away. So it's, and so I think that like, I think that the missing opportunities in that, I know that they've been very, very KG about whether we're gonna do young Avengers. And I think that that is a crazy mistake,

that like I shouldn't know that a blade movie might be coming out at some point in 2028. Why don't they, like, I understand it on a spoil at the end of the Marvel's Forever, but it's like, just tell me that at least a monvelonnie and Hayley Steinfeld are gonna be in the Young Avengers movie. Get me excited for that.

I just, it feels so dumb that the stuff that they're announcing is stuff that has like no one cast of it, like the Fantastic Four movies that are on the calendar forever, and we don't know anyone who's in it. Like, just, there's just such a lack of concreteness about the stuff that we already know. And then a lot of like, yeah about the stuff that we already know.

And then a lot of like, yeah, we'll do a big Fantastic Four movie. We'll do a big Multiverse movie. But like, I get me excited about what's happening now, because it feels like the Fantastic Four stuff and the Multiverse stuff is subsuming the Marvels, which is their big phone. Which is their big hit, exactly right? Yeah, I think the interesting part about that is I do feel that they're about to hit that point. I'm very curious to see what Captain America brave new world looks like with Sam in this

new position as Cap and them introducing some, obviously Harrison Ford as the next president president Ross and what happens with that story. And this is though you're more grounded story to a degree and also introducing certain aspects of Marvel Comics lore, which I will not spoil here, but comics lore that does intrigue me. Now you have a story like that, but then on the other side, you're doing Deadpool 3, when you're bringing Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine,

and you have a kind of crazy, multiverse story going on there with allegedly Fox X men and stuff like that. So this is where it seems like when you talk about the accumulation of content, this is where the difficulty does lie because you do have to ask yourself, if you are a casual man, this Captain American movie looks interesting. But does it mean anything for Deadpool 3? Does it mean anything for Loki? Does it mean anything for Loki? Does it mean anything for his secret wars or Doctor Strange 3 or Spider-Man 4? And if all of these movies didn't

need to make $800 million that would not be a problem for Disney, but the problem is they need everyone to see both of them. And the reality is the type of person who wants to see the new Captain American movie, which is probably really grounded, and the person who wants to see the crazy, multi-verse, joky Deadpool movie, that might be two very different people. But the interconnected thing requires them to convince you that you need to see both. And what happens for a lot of people

is that they throw up their hands and they say, I don't need to see, I can't do all this. And also, I'm not a Deadpool guy. I've never seen a Deadpool movie. Yeah. I mean, they're just too violent for me. I was just like, I mean, it's just not my thing, right? I mean, it was like the entire let's joke

and blast people left it, right? Just wasn't funny to me. Just like the, you know, the Harley Quinn type characters as well, like just don't, that doesn't hit me. Final thoughts, we gotta go, but let's go, you know, AC, why don't you plug the pod? Where can we find you? Well, of course, you can find us. You can find us obviously on Apple Spotify, all platforms at Marvel Cinematic University.

We do have a YouTube channel at MC University pod. We're on Instagram too. MC University podcast, all those things. Tick tock now. We're doing a couple videos there. I like that. We're trying to get more involved in the video game as well. But yeah, we still call it Twitter. I don't care what it was. No, it's true.

Absolutely not. No way. No house. So I'm seeing University pod there if you want to find us there. So yeah, basically until Loki, we're going to just be doing different content throughout each week, talking about different things, finding wonderful people to talk be doing different content throughout each week, talking about different things, finding wonderful people to talk to about different things inside the MCU and outside the MCU, because there's a vast array of things to talk about, and me and Jake are pretty good at it. Exactly. You guys are great at it.

Jake, I would throw one question to you, which is putting your future as hat on, what's the next hit going to be? What are you excited about? I think the next hit is, I'll give this caveat because if it's horrible, then no. But I think that if Deadpool 3 is like generally while regarded, I think it will be a pretty big hit just because I think the it is kind of taking the no way home cameo thing to a comic extreme and I think that that is a thing that a lot of people myself included to be honest, even though it's gimmicky obviously. I will inch if they spend a bunch of time like making fun of like the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie, I'm not gonna like say it's great cinema, but I'll enjoy it.

So I think that that has a possibility of becoming meme-ified enough to be a really big hit. That is my guess. Now like that, well, there's hope on the horizon. And I love that the enthusiasm is still there. And I'm actually gonna try, I didn't love Loki season one, but I did love how it ended.

Yes. And it brought me into season two. I am looking forward to that. Obviously, anyone who knows me knows I am waiting for Daredevil. Yes. I'm waiting for Daredevil born again. I will hang up now and go back and read to 27 to 233. Like I always do at some point in every.

And so that should be a lesson to the AMPTP. And there's go back to the table. So Howard can get his daredevil born. Exactly. Exactly. And the straights now. And the straights now. And the straights now.

And the straights now. Give the man his do. He's wearing the tights. He's daredevil. Also Howard last thing. Check out where Wolf by night. I think you'd be so. You enjoy it.

All right. I'm in on shehulk and where Wolf by night for Howard Bryant. For Howard Bryant. For me. I am me. For Kate Fagan who's not here, for Amine who's not here, for Jake who is here, for AC who is here. I am Howard Bryant. We are signing off on Metal Lockers 86 and maybe next time we'll talk a little bit about sports, but maybe not. See you later. Maybe not. See you later.