Guardians Of The Galaxy Archives - The Wide Screen

April 19, 2022

“Thor: Love And Thunder” Drops An Electrifying 1st Teaser Trailer

I’m truly sorry to all the straight guys out there who missed the memo, but Thor belongs to the gays and the girls now. And before you come at me like “what memo? I didn’t get a memo!”, well, you did, you just didn’t realize at the time that Cate Blanchett strutting around in a black bodysuit and antlers throughout the entirety of Thor: Ragnarok meant that the straights had officially lost custody of the franchise. It’s okay though, you had your shot, you gave us those two depressingly heteronormative Thor movies that nobody liked or watched, now it’s time for you to move over and let Taika Waititi show you how it’s done, AGAIN.

Waititi has been on a roll recently, and it’s in no small part thanks to the loyal queer fanbase he’s amassed. A fourth season of his extremely pansexual paranormal comedy series What We Do In The Shadows has already been shot, and will likely release later this year. The first season of HBO Max’s Our Flag Means Death, a show about queer pirates in the 18th century which Waititi produced and stars in, has been dominating the streaming charts. And Thor: Love And Thunder is only a hundred days from release, and looks to be another surefire hit for Waititi and Marvel with its colorful 80’s aesthetics, zany new characters, and heavy focus on romances – including some queer ones.

There are at least three canonically queer characters in this film, and of those three, King Valkyrie is the one whom we know for a fact will be confirmed as queer onscreen. Technically, actress Tessa Thompson has been playing her as bisexual since her debut in Thor: Ragnarok, but explicit evidence of her bisexuality was left on the cutting-room floor because apparently it distracted from vital exposition…which sounds an awful lot like an excuse to me, but thankfully, King Valkyrie will return in a much larger role in Thor: Love And Thunder, and Thompson has stated as far back as 2018 that her character “needs to find her queen”.

Unsurprisingly, there have been several willing volunteers for that position already, including Jaimie Alexander (the MCU’s Lady Sif) and Brie Larson (whose Captain Marvel is heavily implied to be queer as it is). But in the brief glimpse we catch of King Valkyrie in the first teaser trailer for Love And Thunder, she appears to be merely daydreaming of her many suitors. Dressed in a fashionable black pinstripe suit, she leans back in the throne of New Asgard and zones out while being heckled by ambassadors from other nations. I confess, I’m actually interested to learn more about how New Asgard interacts with the world (i.e. do they participate in Eurovision?), but I would have liked to see her in a less formal setting for this trailer, perhaps even on a date.

Then there’s Korg and Peter Quill, and in both cases the comic versions of these characters are canonically queer while the MCU versions are not…or at least, not yet. To be fair, Quill was only finally confirmed as bisexual in the comics within the last two years, so it’s not like the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies released in 2014 and 2017 had any precedent for making the character bi (not that that should have stopped them, obviously). But now that such a precedent exists, it’s impossible for me to watch this teaser and simply ignore or overlook the implications behind Peter Quill’s subtly flirtatious interactions with Thor.

If only it weren’t equally impossible to be optimistic, given Disney and Marvel’s track-record when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation. Trust me, I desperately want to read way too much into Quill and Thor’s dialogue in this teaser, and the recent reports that Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 filmed scenes in a gay bar, and the tweets about Quill being bi that Guardians director James Gunn liked last year, but I can’t, or at least I don’t want to, because at the end of the day Quill is a male action hero in a franchise where male action heroes are designed to be salivated over by straight men specifically.

Also, with Chris Pratt continuing to attend and defend an evangelical church that supported the torture of LGBTQ+ people under the guise of “conversion therapy”, I’m not sure if I actually trust him to portray Peter Quill’s bisexuality well, nor do I think it would be received well by the bisexual community regardless. Yeah, it would be cool to have a lead male character in a Marvel movie be revealed as bi, but is it worth it if we have to put up with Chris Pratt either complaining bitterly about it, or worse, using it as a flimsy shield against criticisms of him and his homophobic church? I think I might rather just keep the two queer male action heroes we currently have in the MCU proper.

As for Korg, the friendly rock-giant has previously appeared in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame, but what’s never been mentioned – even in passing – is the fact that he’s a gay character in the comics. I believe there’s a slim chance that this will be remedied in Thor: Love And Thunder through some off-hand line of dialogue, although Waititi has already confirmed that Korg will not have a love interest in the new movie.

I mentioned that there at least three canonically queer characters in Love And Thunder, and we’ve now gone through all of those – but there’s a few more that I want to talk about, because we know from the teaser trailer that Thor will visit Mount Olympus, the domain of the Greek gods, and…well, if you know anything about Greek mythology, you know where I’m going with this. For those who don’t know, the Greek gods were unapologetically pansexual, long before the word even existed. That includes Zeus, who is set to make his MCU debut in Love And Thunder, portrayed by Russell Crowe. There’s a quick shot of him in the teaser trailer, dressed all in gold and holding aloft a lightning-bolt while addressing the gods of Mount Olympus.

Unfortunately for Zeus and probably 99.9% of everyone assembled in that crowd shot, the antagonist of Love And Thunder is none other than Gorr the God-Butcher, who has made it his mission to slaughter every deity from every pantheon, no matter how minor. But even if Zeus doesn’t make it out of this movie alive (and let’s be honest, he probably won’t), there are theories and credible rumors that his son, Hercules, will live to fight another day. Granted, there were also rumors he was the lead character of Eternals, which turned out to be…not true, but he’s the type of character I could easily envision first appearing in a Love And Thunder post-credits scene, clambering out of the rubble of Olympus and turning dramatically towards the camera.

He’s also bisexual in the Marvel Comics – and no, before you ask, I’m not referring to the parallel universe version of Hercules who dated a parallel universe version of Wolverine back in the mid-2010’s, I’m actually referring to the Earth 616 version of Hercules (i.e. the main version of the character) who recently started dating Noh-Varr and was implied to have slept with Northstar as far back as 2010. That Hercules.

So we’ve established that most of the supporting cast in Love And Thunder is, if not canonically queer, then at the very least potentially queer. But what about Thor himself? What about Jane Foster? Do they both just give off intense amounts of bisexual energy, or is there more to it than that?

To the best of my knowledge, neither character is queer in the comics, and while this should probably go without saying, the MCU versions of the characters have never been depicted as queer either. They were written to be star-crossed lovers in the first two Thor films, although it was never entirely clear why – Natalie Portman appeared to be bored out of her mind every time she had to act alongside Chris Hemsworth, and Hemsworth just looked uncomfortable and indifferent. But at the time, every other male action hero in the MCU had an intelligent girlfriend to counterbalance “his brawn with her brains”, and Thor apparently needed one too.

Natalie Portman wisely got out of the franchise before a male director could kill off her character for shock value, and the in-universe excuse for her absence in Thor: Ragnarok was that Jane broke up with Thor somewhere along the line, and it was messy, and they don’t talk to each other anymore. I don’t think they’ll get back together in Love And Thunder, either. There will probably be some romantic and sexual tension between them still (although Portman and Hemsworth need to put some effort into delivering on that front), but I feel pretty certain that by the end of this film the two characters will part amicably, as friends or frenemies, after finally acknowledging and owning up to their mistakes.

There’s a distinct possibility that Jane will also become Valkyrie’s queen, which could be interesting; we know next to nothing about her, so who’s to say she’s not bisexual? That could be something she discovered after breaking up with Thor, or it could be part of why she chose to break up with him in the first place. Thor has been on a journey of self-discovery these past few years, so he can certainly relate.

In fact, Thor might be able to relate on multiple levels. In that aforementioned flirty moment with Peter Quill, it’s Thor who repeatedly tries to lock eyes with Quill while he’s talking about…looking people you love in the eyes. Quill breaks eye-contact and clarifies that he wasn’t talking about himself, leading to an awkward and very intriguing moment in which Thor bites his lip, looks off to the side, and mumbles “What? Just listening”. It might just be a joke that uses homoeroticism as a punchline, which would be disappointing, but fans got very excited about the idea of Thor having a crush on Quill.

(That being said, the claim that was going around social media yesterday that “Thor is canonically pansexual in the comics” is totally false, and I don’t know where that originated but I couldn’t find any source for it. You want to headcanon him as pansexual, be my guest, but don’t go around saying that he is and praising Marvel for it or attacking other people for saying he’s bisexual).

So is Thor: Love And Thunder about to be the gayest movie that Marvel has ever made? You’d better believe it. Is the bar for mainstream LGBTQ+ representation depressingly low? Absolutely. Is this a textbook example of fans (like myself) creating the representation we seek, and doing Marvel’s job for them? Possibly. I have a limited but not insubstantial amount of faith in Taika Waititi to give us representation onscreen, or at the very least to tell us what he wasn’t allowed to show us, and I hope Marvel’s promises regarding better LGBTQ+ representation aren’t entirely empty, but it’s difficult not to be cynical, and I understand the benefits of being cynical.

I won’t say “wait to see the movie”, because I hate that studios are able to lure fans into the theater on the promise of representation alone, but for now I guess let’s just hope for the best.

Trailer Rating: 9.5/10

August 18, 2021

“What If…?” Episode 2 Is The Best Kind Of Marvel Storytelling

**SPOILERS FOR WHAT IF…? AHEAD!**

Come August 28th, it will have been a year since we mourned the sudden and shocking loss of Chadwick Boseman, the man behind the instantly-iconic character of Black Panther – and for many of us, the pain of that parting still feels raw and vulnerable. Boseman was so much more than an actor in some of our favorite movies: he made the most of every moment he had on this planet to inspire people around the world through his work and especially through Black Panther, and his full impact – particularly on the Black community – can’t be put into words by me.

But while today’s episode of What If…? obviously can’t fully accomplish that gargantuan task either in just thirty minutes, it does a beautiful job of bringing Boseman’s legacy of kindness to life onscreen, assisted by luscious animation and a brilliant performance from Boseman himself, who recorded all his lines for What If…? before his death. Focusing on the repercussions of a change to the Marvel timeline that turns his T’Challa into the character known as Star-Lord, this episode is just as much a microcosm of Boseman’s own impact on the real world as it is of T’Challa’s impact within the confines of the Marvel Multiverse – a glimpse into those areas where the actor and the character overlapped on some level.

And where the two overlap is where the magic happens, and Boseman slips into the character of T’Challa so effortlessly that it doesn’t matter if he’s wearing the mantle of a Star-Lord rather than the solemn duties of Wakanda’s king: it’s T’Challa, the man underneath all the trappings, that we love. And that’s why this episode is a perfect encapsulation of what can make What If…? so rewarding to fans, because these stand-alone stories are supposed to shine a spotlight on the characters themselves, removed of their iconic gear and cool nicknames, placed in a wholly different scenario, but still themselves at their core; still making the decisions we know that character would make.

That’s exactly what the first episode of What If…? got so terribly wrong, using Peggy Carter to tiredly hit all the same plot beats as Steve Rogers did in The First Avenger. That episode could have been about almost any character in the MCU being injected with the Super-Soldier Serum, and it really wouldn’t have mattered because the writing was entirely plot-driven, leaving no room for the bold character choices we need from a What If…? scenario. It ceased to be a story about how Peggy Carter wears the mantle of Captain Carter and what she brings to the job, and became a recap of Steve Rogers’ movie, starring interchangeable action figures whose individual personalities matter less than a shield.

That’s always been a criticism of MCU movies, and I hated that the studio – which is, in fact, moving away from that mentality overall – gave its own detractors ammunition like that. This episode of What If…?, on the other hand, takes the cornerstones that make up T’Challa’s character – such as his dignity, generosity, open-mindedness, and his desire to do good even when it requires him to upend the status quo – and uses those as the rock-solid basis for an original story that has similar vibes to Guardians Of The Galaxy, sure, but veers off in a completely different direction.

T’Challa being abducted from earth in place of Peter Quill (voiced by Brian T. Delaney) because the Ravagers were misled by Wakanda’s energy signature, him accidentally becoming the Star-Lord, and having a chance to share his kindness and pure spirit with the rest of the galaxy: that quite literally changes everything in the MCU – like, to the point where he doesn’t even form the Guardians Of The Galaxy in this timeline because he’s already averted most of the tragic events in each member’s backstories.

And the episode takes its time to reveal this, peeling back the layers so precisely that when the episode starts with T’Challa going about the exact same Power Stone heist that Peter Quill pulled off in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, you might be wary that it’s a repeat of what happened with episode one. But the catch is that, while Peter Quill kicked off the events of Guardians Of The Galaxy by trying to sell the Power Stone on the black market, T’Challa plans to use it to solve an energy crisis in the Krylorian star-system.

We get to see the impacts of T’Challa’s actions everywhere he goes. For one thing, he and the Ravagers’ captain Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker) are actually close – and while their father-son dynamic still comes with conflict, T’Challa’s maturity and wisdom helps him navigate those rough patches, and facilitates an earlier redemption for Yondu. In this timeline, Thanos (Josh Brolin) runs a bar and gardens in his spare time – having been convinced by T’Challa that his plan for randomized genocide on a universal scale as a means of resource reallocation isn’t efficient or ethical (although there’s something eerie to Thanos constantly repeating that his plan would have worked).

As for Thanos’ adopted children, we only meet this timeline’s version of Nebula (Karen Gillan) – who is still mostly humanoid, having never been hardened into a sentient killing machine for her father. Side-note: It’s very weird seeing Nebula with any hair, much less a full head of wavy platinum blonde locks like a 1940’s movie-star. She’s still not on good terms with Thanos, which I appreciate because she has legitimate reasons to be upset with him besides turning her into an android, but she’s also funny, fashionable, and even a bit flirty around T’Challa (whom she calls “Cha-Cha”), and Karen Gillan does a great job selling the whole performance.

Later it’s revealed that Drax (voiced by Fred Tatasciore, due to some kind of “miscommunication” behind the scenes) never experienced the crushing loss of his wife and daughter – which would have sent him down the dark path to vengeance – in this timeline. In a bizarre twist of fate, he’s now working at Thanos’ bar. Even Korath (Djimon Hounsou), a minor villain in Guardians Of The Galaxy, ends up joining the Ravagers team and abandoning the Kree zealot Ronan. And while some of these changes might seem over-the-top divorced from context, Boseman’s charisma makes it believable.

Now…that’s not to say everything in the universe is magically fixed by T’Challa’s presence. Thanos retires from his life of evil, but the power vacuum he leaves behind is quickly filled by another tyrant – Benicio Del Toro’s Collector. This twist makes a lot of sense, and retroactively helps to elevate this bizarre character as a legitimate threat, something he never got to be in the movies before getting killed off. In What If…?, with the help of the Black Order, the Collector has already done pretty well for himself – nabbing a whole bunch of new trinkets to add to his collection, including Mjolnir, Captain America’s shield, and – most horrifyingly, to me – Hela’s telekinetic helmet.

Along with the fancy weaponry comes an element of action that was completely missing from the character’s previous appearances, and perhaps feels a bit jarring here because of that. He’s still drowning under several pounds of snazzy bling when we meet him, but he quickly sheds his outer layers to reveal an impressive six-pack, and show off some martial arts moves. Del Toro seems to be having a great time voicing the character and doing weird stuff with his line-readings, which totally works for the Collector.

Oh, and can we just talk about Carina (Ophelia Lovibond) for a moment? One thing I love about the Multiverse is that even the most obscure characters can return and get payback for how the films did them dirty. And Carina, the Collector’s abused servant, has deserved a second chance ever since James Gunn used her to demonstrate the destructive abilities of the Power Stone in Guardians Of The Galaxy by having her get blown to smithereens. Just as Gunn has gotten better at writing women, so too has the MCU slowly improved.

In What If…?, Carina finally gets revenge on the Collector for all the evil things he did to her, smirking as she slips on the bracelet that allows her to control his minions and turn them against him. I love how there’s no attempt to moralize about her actions, and we don’t even get to see what happens – we just hear the Collector squealing the word “Karma!” before he’s buried under the weight of his own monstrous creations. It’s so dark, it’s so powerful, and I don’t think enough people are as obsessed with this scene as I am.

Contrast that scene with Peter Quill’s non-reaction to Carina’s death in Guardians Of The Galaxy, however, and you’ll notice that this whole episode is pretty damning for Quill – whose time as Star-Lord has resulted in a lot less peace and harmony, and a lot more apocalyptic catastrophe. His swagger, braggadocio, and self-absorbed attitude have always teetered between endearing and irritating (no thanks to Chris Pratt being the absolute worst), and his casual sexism in the Guardians franchise was never cute. It’s a real shame, because we absolutely deserve the messy, dramatic, canonically bisexual disaster that is Marvel Comics Quill, and we’re probably never gonna get it from Pratt.

And that’s why I’m so intrigued by the new version of Quill we met today in What If…?, who never got off-world – and is not voiced by Chris Pratt – but instead ended up working at a Dairy Queen in Missouri while T’Challa took his place among the stars. The episode concludes with Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) donning human form and reuniting with Peter, juxtaposed with scenes of T’Challa returning to Wakanda and introducing his biological family to his found family from outer space. I really hope we reconnect with Quill and Ego at some point, because that’s too big a cliffhanger to leave like that.

Across the board, this is a massive improvement on the premiere episode. The writing is more sophisticated, the action is even cleaner, the voice-acting is stellar, and even Jeffrey Wright’s The Watcher – while still a background character – gets to engage with the material a bit more, just as I’d hoped he would. Most importantly, What If…? knows, or at least I hope it knows, that at its core it has to be character-driven to work…at the very least in episodes where the central conceit is a role-swap.

And that’s especially important with regards to characters like T’Challa, who mean so much to people because of the qualities that make them different from a lot of other superheroes, that can’t be treated as interchangeable or secondary to the plot. Hopefully, What If…? continues to keep that in mind going forward.

Rating: 10/10

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has (in)famously had a hard time establishing romantic relationships between its characters: even the few love stories that have helped to define the overarching story have sometimes gone through ups and downs, or simply collided headfirst with a brick wall and died (looking at you, Thor & Jane). And yet they keep trying to master the same old boy-meets-girl (or Norse-god-meets-girl, or boy-meets-alien, or computer-program-meets-girl) formula. That’s why, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, I’ve set myself a challenge: trying to find the ten most romantic, endearing, adorable couples in the MCU and ranking them.

Disclaimer: “ships” or non-canon pairings aren’t being considered on this list because that would be cheating – most MCU “ships” are at least ten times better than the majority of actual onscreen pairings. It’s simply not fair to compare.

10: Thor & Jane Foster.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 1 — hollywoodreporter.com

These two had something that looked like potential – I mean, if you squinted really hard. From the moment that Thor, the Norse God of Thunder and rightful heir to the throne of Asgard, crash-landed in the American Southwest, upsetting one of Jane Foster’s pseudo-scientific experiments, Marvel tried to convince audiences that a grand and glorious epic love-story for the ages was brewing – but all the magic (or “what your ancestors call magic”) words in the Marvel mythos couldn’t force Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman to look more than remotely disinterested in each other. And after Thor: The Dark World failed to turn up the heat, or really do anything at all, Portman had finally had enough: she quit the MCU, and Jane Foster was subsequently written out of the story. In Thor: Ragnarok, it was briefly mentioned that she broke up with the Thunder God offscreen – an uncomfortably awkward conclusion to what was supposed to be a cornerstone of Thor’s entire arc.

9: Stephen Strange & Christine Palmer.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 2 — marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com

I’m actually tempted to move this couple ever so slightly further up the list, because while they’re not exactly memorable, they’re also probably not as bad and/or boring as you remembered. Dr. Stephen Strange, a snobbish, arrogant surgeon, wasn’t just the on-and-off boyfriend of Dr. Christine Palmer – he was also her work-partner, and it was mentioned (though never really elaborated on) that the two had even pioneered an important new surgical technique, making the couple basically equal. And after Strange’s run-in with karma, it was Palmer who tried to help him recover his strength and rebuild his life: their heated argument about Strange’s future is the most powerful scene in the Doctor Strange movie, and carries a lot of emotional weight. Unfortunately, Rachel McAdams’ character basically fades into the background after that, and apart from being privy to a battle on the astral plane and trying (unsuccessfully) to save the Ancient One’s life, she really has nothing more to do in the story. And she’s not returning for the sequel, so I guess that’s the end of that.

8: Peter Quill & Gamora.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 3 — screencrush.com

I don’t really like either Peter Quill (a.k.a. Star-Lord, an interstellar pirate armed with braggadocio, semi-Celestial powers that have proved to be entirely inconsequential outside of his own movies, and an impressive playlist of golden oldies), or Gamora (a.k.a. The Most Dangerous Woman In The Galaxy, who never actually lived up to that title before her untimely death at the hands of ~~male screenwriters who didn’t know what else to do with her~~ her own father, Thanos): nonetheless, I have to admit they had a spark of chemistry in both Guardians Of The Galaxy movies – and their interactions in Avengers: Infinity War, during which Gamora nearly convinced Quill to kill her (long story), are pretty emotional. There was something there! It wasn’t much, maybe, but it also wasn’t not there – much to the dismay of Thor & Peter Quill shippers everywhere. But in the end, Quill failed (because doesn’t he always?), Gamora got tossed off a cliff, and here we are with nothing left of their relationship but a sad trail of bubbles.

7: Natasha Romanoff & Bruce Banner.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 4 — thedigitalwise.com

I like Avengers: Age Of Ultron. I know it’s unpopular to say this, but it’s honestly the best Avengers movie – not only because it references the events of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., but also because it successfully balances almost all of the main characters while still being able to add a couple new ones to the mix. There’s a cohesive plot, the stakes are raised, and the Avengers get to interact with each other on a more personal, intimate level than ever before. And then there’s Natasha Romanoff’s random relationship with Bruce Banner – while it’s not a bad idea, and they make a cute couple, the basis for their coupling up is based on the problematic idea that they’re both “monsters”: Bruce, because he transforms into a giant green killing machine; Natasha, because she’s…infertile? The messaging is weird and kind of sexist, especially since it would have been way easier to make Natasha’s murderous past with the KGB the reason for her guilt and self-loathing. It’s a shame, because Natasha actually did have better interactions with Bruce than she ever had with her former love interest, Clint Barton, but for better or worse their story arc was completely abandoned in Avengers: Infinity War.

6: T’Challa & Nakia.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 5 — popsugar.au

While there’s certainly an argument to be made that T’Challa, the catsuit-wearing guardian of the African nation of Wakanda, is slightly more low-key and subdued than many of his co-stars in Black Panther (let’s face it, he doesn’t have Okoye’s fiery energy, Killmonger’s smoldering charisma, or M’Baku’s macabre humor), there can be no denying that his relationship with Wakandan secret agent/humanitarian Nakia is super cute. The two are a power couple, with both characters having genuine hero moments – Nakia even briefly diverts the main focus of the film away from T’Challa, and considers becoming the Black Panther herself. By the end of the film, she’s also working around the world to help extend Wakandan aid to those in need. And when they’re onscreen together, they’re presented as a healthy, sturdy relationship that doesn’t have to rely on drama, troubling gender dynamics, or sarcastic banter to be interesting. They’re basically #CoupleGoals, and I love them.

5: Wanda Maximoff & The Vision.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 6 — polygon.com

Ah, the tragic story of the computer program who became a man…once, for no apparent reason, and never did so again. The Vision, a sentient computer program outfitted with a cool new body (that, unfortunately for him, came along with the Mind Stone, one of the most coveted objects in the galaxy), didn’t really show any signs of attraction to the troubled witch, Wanda Maximoff, until Captain America: Civil War, but when their romance finally kicked into gear, and the two began to bond over spicy food, things got good – and then immediately got weird again, when Wanda blasted Vision through a floor, before suddenly…ending up on the run with him in Scotland? Where Vision was suddenly able to turn into a human man, but only did so once, for reasons that were never explained? Yeah, so there’s some serious gaps in what we actually know about their relationship, but at least it ended on a strong note, with Wanda having to brutally murder her lover in an attempt to destroy the Mind Stone before Thanos could get to it, only to watch Thanos use the Time Stone to reverse all her hard work, murder Vision again, and use the Stones to wipe out half the galaxy, including Wanda herself. If it’s any consolation, the upcoming WandaVision series on Disney+ will feature Wanda resurrecting her dead partner, only to have him presumably die once again when her entire reality inevitably comes crashing down around her. Cheerful, am I right?

4: Scott Lang & Hope Van Dyne.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 7 — hollywoodreporter.com

Technically, there have been two canon MCU power couples that call themselves Ant-Man and The Wasp: Hope Van Dyne’s parents, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, and then Hope herself and her partner, reformed burglar/single father/world’s best grandma, Scott Lang. But the latter couple has the edge on its predecessor, mostly because Janet doesn’t actually show up until the end of the second Ant-Man film, and most of her flashbacks with Hank were cut out of the movie anyway. Scott and Hope share the spotlight (and the title-card) in Ant-Man And The Wasp, which focuses almost entirely on their relationship – and their exchanges of playful, witty banter, coupled with their fidelity and focus on family, make them one of the most endearing couples in the MCU.

3: Steve Rogers & Peggy Carter.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 8 — themarysue.com

Specifically, their relationship in the first three Captain America films, before Avengers: Endgame happened. In the beginning, scrawny new recruit Steve Rogers and fast-talking, no-nonsense commanding officer Peggy Carter were actually quite a sweet pairing: they both had character arcs, and agency in their own stories. There was a quaint little 1940’s love story between them, but Peggy, by virtue of being in the military, wasn’t forced to play the damsel-in-distress or grieving-girlfriend-on-the-home-front roles: and in the post-war era, after Steve went down in the frigid Antarctic Ocean and was lost, she picked up her life and moved on, founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and starting a family. Her relationship with Steve after his resurrection from the ice was deeply emotional and interesting, and it was tragic when she passed away. But then to essentially reverse all the complexities of their post-The First Avenger relationship by having Steve go back in time and start all over with her, making her essentially a consolation prize for Steve after he failed to move on with his life, thus preventing her from moving on with hers? No, just no.

2: Tony Stark & Virginia “Pepper” Potts.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 9 — appocalypse.co

They’re the MCU’s original duo: how could they not come in near the top of the list? Tony was a sarcastic, cynical mess of a human being; a war-profiteer who didn’t care one iota about the countless people killed daily by his weapons of mass destruction; Pepper was the very opposite, a cool, collected woman with savvy business skills and a friendly disposition. It’s a trope, and a tired one at that. But their relationship evolved into so much more than that – Tony became Iron Man, and Pepper took over as CEO of Stark Industries. They constructed the Avengers Tower in New York City. In the five years after Avengers: Infinity War, they got married and had a daughter. In Avengers: Endgame, where they even got to fight in battle alongside each other, their decade-long relationship came to an end with Tony Stark’s tragic death. In that final moment, as the former “Merchant of Death” gave up his life to save the world, Pepper stayed beside him and her face was the last thing he ever saw. I’m not crying: you’re crying.

1: Leopold Fitz & Jemma Simmons.

The Ten Most Romantic Couples In The MCU: Ranked! 10 — cinemablend.com

Yes, I cheated! Fitz and Simmons, or “Fitzsimmons” as they’re more commonly known among the fandom, are not technically members of the MCU: they come from the Marvel TV division, where they made their debut on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and have endured through six grueling, torturous seasons of hardship, personal loss, tragedy and pure, wholesome romance. While they started out as the team’s two bumbling, socially-awkward scientists, it didn’t take long before the universe’s vendetta against them resulted in them standing up for S.H.I.E.L.D., and for each other, in incredible ways. Their tense, frantic struggle to figure their way out of an airtight box at the bottom of the ocean (long story) was one of the highlights of Season 1, as it showed just how powerful the two are as a team – so of course they were then split up. Jemma became an undercover spy, got eaten by a space monolith, was transported to another planet and had to survive on her own, fell in love with an astronaut who turned into an evil alien god, was possessed by the Kree, was possibly hinted to be bisexual (come on, we all know she had a thing for Daisy), and even met and defeated the demonic personification of her self-doubt: Leo lost his ability to communicate for a long period of time and became delusional, was possibly hinted to be bisexual (come on, we all know he had a thing for Mac), became a dashing secret agent, met his evil HYDRA doppelganger, fell in love with HYDRA’s cyborg overlord, and then got stuck in two different time-periods at once, which resulted in him dying but still being alive and yet somehow a space pirate in both timelines…it’s a wacky and confusing series, but their love for each other, which persists even against all odds, has always been at the heart of the story, and I would be lying if I didn’t say they’re the most romantic couple in what used to technically be part of (or at least adjacent to) the MCU.

So what do you think of my top ten, and would you have chosen differently? Did I leave your favorite couple off my list? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

January 21, 2020

Michelle Yeoh May Have Just Joined “Shang-Chi” Cast!

It looks like Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has just picked up a star whose addition to the cast should make all martial-arts or wuxia fans take notice – legendary Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh is supposedly circling a role in the superhero film.

Yeoh, the star of classic action films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (and its much-maligned but honestly fantastic sequel) and Tomorrow Never Dies, as well as the recent hit comedy Crazy Rich Asians, the TV series Star Trek: Discovery, and all four upcoming Avatar sequels, is regarded by many as one of the Asian film scene’s most respected and acclaimed onscreen talents, so it’s no surprise that she would want a role in Shang-Chi, which is hoping to become a huge hit with both Chinese and American audiences – the fact that the film is also going to include a number of intense, epic action sequences (which Yeoh excels at doing) probably doesn’t hurt either. This will not be Yeoh’s first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as she portrayed intergalactic pirate Aleta Ogord in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 for roughly 0.1 seconds, but it seems unlikely she’s reprising that role here, as the character of Ogord probably wouldn’t have a very good reason to come to earth and interact with Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu – though it would be interesting if she did. That will make Yeoh one of a steadily growing number of actors who now play two different characters in the MCU – we can expect that number to keep growing, as Marvel continues to make up for its regrettable early trend of taking great actors, sticking them in a movie for a momentary, meaningless cameo, and then never using them again.

As for who Yeoh will be playing in this film, that’s being kept secret: with Hong Kong film star Tony Leung playing long-awaited villainous mastermind The Mandarin, and Asian-American comedian Awkwafina possibly playing his daughter Fah Lo Suee, it makes sense that Yeoh could be playing another member of this scarily efficient crime family – or she might be playing Shang-Chi’s mother (who, in the extremely antiquated and, let’s be honest, downright racist comics, is a white American woman genetically selected to be the partner of the supervillain Fu Manchu). Or she might be both: after all, it’s still somewhat unclear whether Shang-Chi will actually be part of The Mandarin’s family, or adopted, or someone else entirely. They’ve clearly got a connection, but it’s too early to determine if or how Michelle Yeoh’s character ties into that equation.

Whoever she’s playing, let’s just keep our fingers crossed that she gets to do some high-flying sword fighting and fancy footwork in this film.

How do you feel about Yeoh’s casting? Are you excited for her new role in Shang-Chi, or upset that she’s breaking MCU continuity to get there? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!