Comic Book City

Hello and welcome to MythMakers, the podcast for fantasy fans and creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy. My name is Julia Golding, I'm a writer and director of the Centre and I'm joined again by Ed Saunders who is a fantasy enthusiast, but also he is here today because he is my go-to person whenever I have any questions at all about the Marvel Universe and that is going to be the topic of our conversation today. The point being that so many people around the world are actually getting most of their fantasy intake from going to see Marvel films, they have dominated the box office for the last decade or so. So Ed, you know a lot about the background to Marvel, where did Marvel begin? If we're looking at the origin of that fantasy, where did it start? Yeah, so Marvel films are very famous today and they're known as these billion dollar juggernauts of the box office. But Marvel has definitely not always been a success story. They've sort of gone through decades of cycles of constantly being very near going out of business, but they started as a company under a different name in the late 30s. What was that name? Oh, well, at one point they were timely comics, but I think they may have actually been something else just before I'd not sure I know that one. Perhaps they were, they might be called Atlas at one point, that might be DC though, but they were founded by a guy called Martin Goodman. And comics at that time, you know, very early years for comics, Superman's only been around for a little bit. And before that, comics were kind of the, I don't want to be too mean, but they were kind of the rubbish of the art world. Comics began like in terms of being their own printed things like a comic book as being the rejects from those kind of comics you'd see in newspapers. And there are a couple of characters that broke through his success stories, but the first big one was Superman and that's also started superheroes. And the guy who founded Marvel, Martin Goodman was a real trend chaser. And as superheroes are big, he commissioned his company to write superhero comics. And there's another figure who is very famous as well, only died a few years ago. Oh, not Stan Lee. Even I've heard of him. So his real name is actually Stanley Lieber. And he said that he was always going to save that name for when he wrote the next great American novel. Yes. But he went by the pen name Stan Lee. Stan Lee started out as a sort of office assistant, but he quickly began to write for Marvel. So did he write or did he draw? He was really a writer. There are some drawings that knock around which he used meant to have done and I'm sure he did do them. But he was very much the writer of Marvel Comics and it had lots of talented artists. However, his writing career is perhaps a bit controversial because he developed what is known as the Marvel method. And this is the formula for which they wrote most of their comics in their earlier decades. And what the Marvel method was was Stanley, who was quite important in the company, would have a meeting with his artist for that particular line of comics. And he would say, there's a hero. He's this guy. Some people try to rob a bank. He wins. Fill in the details. So then the artist would take that and they would go and they would do all of the illustrations, or at least the first draft of that, and come back to Stanley and hit Stanley would fill in the dialogue. So the artist had actually a lot of control over the story and there's a lot of people who've said, well, to what extent was Stanley writing these stories? He's writing the dialogue. But the plot in its details, perhaps not in its broad strokes, but in its details, is really being filled in by the artist. And all sorts of legal battles over the years because of that. So let's put push the pause button here on the Marvel method because it sounds to me a bit like a cross between a writer's room where you might have a showrunner giving a direction for a series, giving their team of writers instructions where to go with the plot. But also the interpretation sign of it sounds a bit like a director taking over a screenwriter's script and then giving its own coloring and casting and nuances. So in fact, it becomes the director's material. So do you think that that Marvel material is more of a, you know, more akin to something you see in screenwriting rather than in books? I think you could definitely say that. And how successful it was definitely depended on the artist. Some artists took that as this is great. I can draw whatever I want. And they ended up producing some really strong stuff, like if you will, a director who's been given a really good project to work on. But then, you know, in a lot of cases, it was early comics in my opinion have got some really good ideas in them. And they're not always, they're not always the best. There's a lot of people announcing their powers as they use them. And the process is very complicated. You mean it's the classic thing when you're teaching creative writing is the show don't tell. So they're saying, oh yes, but I'm this, I've got this person who tried in the world kind of thing. Yeah, where that comes from, I guess, is a bit to debate. I mean, is it because the hero was drawn sort of standing in a pose and when Stanley filled in the dialogue, he thought that, you know, this is probably what they're saying. Or did the artist intend for that to be the case? They also had limited colors, didn't they? So there was certain directions they had to go in because of the color contrast. The incredible Hulk was famously originally gray. Well, he was meant to be gray, but then they didn't have the technology to do those sort of tones of color, I think. So he ended up as green. So that's again, there's a parallel here with the sort of screen versions of fancy worlds that sometimes the technology is a limiting factor. Or in fact, these days, perhaps it often means it can go to places you didn't imagine it would go. But the technology is part of the creativity in a very obvious way in comics when it's, you know, how many prints can we afford this week? So there's a marvel method. How long did that last? Or is it still going till this day? I don't think it's really used so much anymore. It was definitely whilst Stanley was their principal writer. I don't know enough about the more modern comic writers at Marvel to know what they do, but I don't think it's like that so much anymore. I think they do tend to actually write a story and have the authors follow because, I mean, certainly from the comics I've read, I don't think you could build it that way because it does seem to restrain the stories to be a bit simpler. What about continuity? So when you're a writer in charge of your own universe, so let's take the classic example of Tolkien, he did do various versions and evolved his stories over time. But he had in his mind a sort of version which was the existing one to him at the point of writing. So an authoritative version, and he snipped off some of the places where he didn't want to go anymore, sort of pruned it into shape. And then, of course, after his death, Christopher Tolkien then tried to carry on that process and make sense of what his father had left. So there was a certain archiving work and curation of the world myth. In Marvel, and in my impression of certainly the number of reboots you get on characters, that continuity of one Spider-Man to another Spider-Man or one Superman or his DC, isn't he? One Captain America to another Captain America is less important. Well, continuity is certainly a messy issue for comics. Some people really care about it. Others just want a good story in the book that they're reading. They definitely get a really caught up on continuity. You get entire massive story arcs which exist for the sole purpose of cleaning up the continuity errors that they've been accumulating because these days these companies are huge and they have so many different writers. It's very difficult to actually have everything aligned. Now we're still talking about the comics. Yes, this is still the comics. I think that the films have been very well managed so far in that they may be facing those kind of issues in the future as they expand further and further. But it's certainly a tricky thing to manage and I kind of think it's not just the amount of publications out there. It's quite unusual for something like a character like Iron Man say to be written by so many different characters over such a long period of time when it's meant to all sort of be the same story. The issue to issue Iron Man in general is meant to be the following from the last. There is other characters that have lots of writers who work on them like a Sherlock Holmes say generally they're retelling an established story and they don't you know there is a Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes adaptation that is not meant to be linked in any way to the Benedict Cumberbatch version. Even though the sort of same time and that isn't meant to be linked to the LTV versions. So it doesn't matter that the writers write them differently whereas comics are kind of this weird medium where at least for some of these big companies it's meant to be this long running single project. Marvel is actually a bit different from DC in that they've had fewer reboots DC seem to reboot every 10 years also at this point they sometimes undo those reboots but. Well Batman is basically prone to rebooting isn't he? Well Batman has an endless list of young teenage wards who he somehow found the time to raise all of them. So even though Batman's always in his late 30s or early 40s at this point who has he get the time I don't know but Marvel has had a couple of exceptions but in general it's in theory the same story running throughout they just have this slightly shifting timeline to deal with. There's characters who have their origins very firmly rooted in real historical events and therefore it gets to be awkward when the stories are meant to be written in the modern day and that's usually the case comics are usually written as if they're setting is the modern day. So it starts the stretch disbelief a little bit when your character is meant to be like a of Vietnam War veteran yet he looks fairly young but they often sort of you know there's a soul super soldier serum or something that has not made them age yeah. I suppose that reminds me a bit of James Bond because James Bond has shifted since the inflemming version of it and after all James Bond is a fantasy character really even though he purports to be in the real world. You know there is a James Bond that comes out of the Cold War there's a James Bond that comes out of the 90s with the sort of so called end of history and there's a more recent James Bond there. So the character just gets started again in the contemporary era and then we play catch up. The films have certainly done that to an extent. So for example Iron Man he gets his origin in the films and what is quite clearly some sort of like Afghanistan or some modern war yeah. I can't remember if they're quite I think they probably do say that they might make up a country whereas. I think it is Afghanistan but the politics aren't important really I think as long as you understand that he's there he's captured by the enemy yeah I think that's enough to understand. And that's an update of his comic origin and with that kind of character I don't think it particularly matters whereas you get some characters like Captain America who's got a convenient mechanism built in sort of like the is he has got a super soldier serum but they have the he's put on ice and his amount of time thing so he can have yeah he can have his origin in World War II and it makes him a much more interesting character that he has had this big break. But isn't there a problem with Iron Man's father because isn't he hanging around with the generation who were doing the sort of post war cold war. Yeah they make him quite young and then I guess I mean I guess it depends on how old you say Iron Man is I think you can quite realistically say he's probably in his 50s at the end. Yeah I think they do give him a canonical age at some point and it's something hilarious but yeah never they do have these kind of issues but there's a slight sense of disbelief you can get away with. Okay so let's go back to you got the two things you've got the comics and then you've got the growing out of that you've got the films. And the comics have this vast job of curating their story which they attempt to do and they're very inventive of course they're you know can have many story lines running at the same time there's no sort of budget but you know it's not limited by what can afford to film. Let's think of now about the screenwriting and the actual films what is the official first Marvel film of this generation is it Iron Man. Well there's a bit of a weird distinguishing thing between they were Marvel films and then there is what we probably want to talk about more which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Okay because I suppose X-Men are they Marvel? They are. They came out before I remember the X-Men films way before Iron Man. So if you remember I said that Marvel have gone through a bit of a rollercoaster over time. Yeah. In one of their dips they basically sold off the film rights to all of their most profitable characters. Bad idea. So Spider-Man, the X-Men, a couple of others and with that they sort of saved their company for a time. But then films like X-Men started coming out and making a real killing. Not Spider-Man as well. Not made by them it's just that the license has been sold they didn't really see much of that money if at all. Maybe some uptick in their comics being bought but to be honest that's not a lot of money compared to the box office returns that those films were seeing. So they had this very weird agreement which very unusual and interesting in itself to start their own cinematic universe where they in themselves would become like the film studio. And a particular deal was struck where they licensed their remaining characters basically. Is this sort of in the 2000s? Yeah. So X-Men have been big. I think this is sort of 2006-ish. They made a deal with the Firm Merrill Lynch. Okay. This is all on public record as well. And they basically borrowed some money to make a few films to start their own cinematic universe. Which, well, a distinguishing thing we can get into later between what's the difference between a bunch of sequels and an actual shared universe. And this was of course hugely successful because the first film they made as part of this was Iron Man. And that was a huge hit. It didn't become like the most... It didn't make the most money of all the films that came out that year but that was a... It was around the same time as all the Harry Potter's were coming out. It was a bumper year for films. The Dark Knight came out. Okay. Which was another huge superhero film. That's a DC version of Batman, isn't it? I think... Is that when Titanic came out? No, no, no, that's earlier. It's another... If you look up 2008 box office things, there's a lot of big hits in there. And it was competing with them and still very well. And it made a lot of money. I don't think it cracked a billion dollars but it made enough that they were certainly able to pay off most of their debt. So looking at this from a creative point of view, I think that a lot of the success of those films that came out are down to very good casting. So I think the success of the X-Men films was because of super casting with people like Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen and so on. Patrick Stewart. Patrick Stewart. Patrick Stewart. How could we forget Patrick Stewart? You know, you went to... Some people went to say it just because the talent was so good. Though I think it might have been Hugh Jackman's breakout role. But certainly, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart were already known. And I think the same is true of Iron Man. I can imagine a really bad Iron Man with the wrong casting. Robert Downey Jr. They didn't even want him, I think, originally. They had offered it to a couple of other people. I think Tom Cruise was meant to be in the running at one point. Oh gosh. Robert Downey Jr. didn't get paid the most on that film. Who did? It was the guy called Terence Howard who played his best friend. He didn't come back for later movies. He got paid the most on that. And Robert Downey Jr. was friends with other people involved. And he was sort of lower down on the choices. But I guess that's a case of, you know, a constraint. Or something you didn't intend to happen. Really giving the project a lot of strength. It also had a bit of a rocky time, aren't he? He has queues quite well. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if he... Controversial before that. I don't think he would like these parallels. I don't know if he's embraced them. But there are similarities in his character and him in real life. But an interesting to notice that the personality of the character of Tony Stark, Iron Man, wasn't like what Robert Downey Jr. did before the film. And this happens quite a lot in comic books, where a really successful adaptation, usually a movie, becomes really popular. And then the comic medium then reflects that personality back going forward. So if you read Iron Man comic now, he's basically Robert Downey Jr. But in terms of like the playfulness, the quips, that wasn't really there. He was sort of a bit more of a stoic serious guy. That is interesting because when you get something like a fantasy series that's being written whilst it's also being filmed, you do wonder how the writers cope with the presence of the actor in their imagination, alongside what they might have thought of as originally as a character. I mean, Harry Potter is a case about that really, because after a certain point, the Harry Ron and Hermione were cast. And it's very hard to imagine JK Rowling being able to sit down without having those actors in our head, even though she started the series probably before they were born or something anyway, way before. So you get a sense where the film medium is writing the script, because it's too much in the mind. Which, you know, it's a good thing in some cases. Yeah, I think, I mean, there had been some character, you know, a lot of character work done before Iron Man came out and was sort of personalized a bit more by Robert Downey Jr. But I do think that this has helped give characters some depth. I'm sure that, you know, it goes both ways, of course. I mean, the actors' performance can be informed by the material that, you know, they're giving, he wasn't completely going off of nothing. But I think there was a fair amount of improv and often is with these films with, like, their character interactions, which is what I think brings the audience back. It's not really so much that they have these, you know, amazing powers and so on. Then it's not because they're the most powerful characters. It's because of the, you know, the friendships and the family interactions that they show. And that kind of reflects back in the comic history as well. Marvel were the first people, arguably at least, to do a shared universe for comics. But their first team that they made and then, you know, team up films or the rage is the fantastic four. And... That's always struggled to be a success, isn't it? It is a film. As a film, yes. Although I think they've made quite a lot of money still, but their early publishing success was huge and I think far more significant. I think that there had been a DC superhero team which would have had, you know, Superman on it or something. I'm not sure exactly what the roster was originally. But they were a group of independent heroes who had come together to fight evil. Whereas the fantastic four were a family and, you know, the thing, the big rock monster. He doesn't like being the thing. He really doesn't like it. And they have the human torch, you know, a guy who can set himself on fire. Doesn't sound fun. Not in a painful way for him. But he, you know, isn't exactly a perfect human himself. And the, I mean, also what kind of guy names himself, Mr. Fantastic. I'm not sure if that was really intended to be part of the character then, but that guy has been shown since in stories to be really flawed. And like, you know, a bad husband. And, and I think that the invisible woman probably wasn't particularly well handled character back in the 60s. But, you know, those remind me of the fun that the Incredibles had. Well, the Incredibles is definitely the best fantastic film that has been made. Well, that's because the names they chose are all kind of images of what life is like for them. We didn't mean to go in there because we could have a whole sidebar on the Incredibles. Perhaps we'll leave that for another conversation. Okay, we're only on Iron Man. Yes. We've got a branch out universe. So let's just go. So Iron Man worked. Yeah. So Iron Man worked. But the foundations had been laid for that to be shared, like as in a shared universe. Lots of films try replicate the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by jumping right into, you know, in the final five minutes of their film show a bunch of other characters who might be coming up soon. And oh, you can see them all. But Iron Man was a bit restrained. They had, you know, an agency that would become important. They introduced some secret agent characters who would become important for widening it out. Is that the Samuel Old Jackson character? Yeah, well, he spent several films waltzing in and post credits scenes going, well, well, well. I've got something to talk to you about. Except in an American accent. But the very first sort of proper shed thing was there was actually an incredible Hulk film with Edward Morton. Oh, yeah, that didn't do so well. That's technically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe because at the end, Robert Downey Jr. walks into a bar where one of the antagonists of the film is sitting and talks to him. And that was meant to be all the same. They had a slight wrinkle where they recast the incredible Hulk. And he said that to be a great character, but I don't know. The Hulk carrying a whole film that isn't an origin story is hard to imagine. Well, there are some interesting storylines, I think. There's a very good run that's quite recent, which is called the Immortal Hulk, which is kind of like a horror thing. This is in the comics. This is a modern, modern comic. In terms of films, he's had varying success. I don't know if that's entirely down to the people who've been given the projects. I think there's definitely been a shift. Oh, he was great in Ragnarok. Oh, he's just brilliant. I think there's been a big shift, though, when it comes to superhero films of who's in charge. There's sort of an embarrassment. If you look at the X-Men films, they're all wearing like what are meant to be like these cool leather outfits. Whereas I don't think that's really embracing these of garish yellow outfits that the comic counterparts had. Whereas I think part of the success of this more recent MCU is that they really do embrace a lot of the weirdness, especially now. They've gone weird doing weird at over time, and people seem to respond very well to that. We end up talking about Loki, which is like the last thing. Well, we won't give spoilers for these movies. But they do have some very strange, but honoring the comic costumes in that. Anyway, so let's go back. We've got Iron Man, and then what happened next? So Iron Man was a big success. So the instantly commissioned Iron Man 2, which is the sort of conventional thing. And then they had planned out a bit. I think that they knew that they were building towards a team-up movie. And the thing you've kind of got to understand is at the time, it's hard to think of this now considering what big names these characters are. But the Avengers, which is their big team-up film, which was sort of the culmination of their little project, they were really like the B-Team. They weren't the good characters. They'd sold off the rights to the most popular ones. The Spider-Man and so on. So they had to build up these other characters before doing a big crossover. So that's when we had Kenneth Branagh using his Shakespearean roots to direct the first Thor movie. And we had a Captain America film as well. Before then, and then there was also an Iron Man 2. And then they did an Avengers crossover. And that was of course a huge hit. And from there, it's pretty much just been an endless money pinter for them. But what, yes, it's made a lot of money. But what's been quite really admirable to see is they've also played around, particularly in the last five years also, with different genres. And pushing the boundaries a bit with Black Panther and... Yeah. If you were to sort of plot creativity, at least in my opinion, I think there's sort of an initial spike with those earlier films and Avengers. But then to be honest, I think it kind of dipped a little bit. There were some sort of more middling entries, which... Yeah, which I think weren't quite getting what to do now. There were some, you know, there's by-fans that considered some of the weaker entries, I think it's like the second Thor film, or indeed the third Iron Man film. And I think these have got good work in them. But I think that then they released Guardians of the Galaxy. And that was a weird space opera. And that did really well. And people responded very strongly. Well, people wanted something different, didn't they? Yeah. Because the problem about those other films is though they've got great actors in and strong storylines, which are fine. Yeah. It's fine, you know, nothing wrong with you going to enjoy the one that's your summer movie. But Guardians of the Galaxy did that thing where they used soundtrack really interestingly. Yeah. And they had some really edgy characters. So that really couldn't... Might not have worked, like Groot. Yeah, well it's sort of compared to Star Wars a lot. Yeah. Well, I mean, they've... They've definitely taken a lot of what's popular and make Star Wars work and applied it there. But I think... The other thing, of course, to mention about Guardians of the Galaxy is that it's not an Earth-based story. No, which does let you get away a lot. But it's also a risk because the superhero thing tends to hang around. Yeah, I think that it was... I think that the reason it paid off is because it was a big risk. They gave the director a lot of... Who was the director of that one? It was James Gunn, who's fairly popular now for more Guardians of the Galaxy films and other comedies. Actually, the earliest work I know of him is he wrote the live-action Scooby-Doo films. Well, they went bad. Yeah. Anyway, he was sort of... I think his roots are sort of a bit similar to like a Peter Jackson, and they're sort of a... Not very tasteful comedy. And then he's sort of been given the reins to some... Some big, tick-it-it budget. Yeah. But I think that it was a risk and it's paid off a lot. And I think that... I do think they're strongest projects when they do give a particular creative person a lot of control over it. I think they certainly have directors they trust and give those kind of control too. And then they have other projects where I think there's a lot of studio interference and tweaking. So do you think the ones with the studio interference are less strong than the ones where they give the creative free rate? I do, I do. I think that it can do several things. It can make your characters less interesting because there's a certain brand to maintain. You know, maybe a character was going to go to a darker place. The example I can think of with this is Ant-Man. Yeah. Ant-Man did okay. And by my opinion, it's a quite enjoyable film. I think everything is forgiven in Ant-Man just because they featured Thomas the Tank Engine. But it was originally... It's a project that started off with a guy called Edgar Wright. And his film is really, really creative and amazing. He did the Cornetto trilogy, which is like Hot Fuzz and Sean of the Dead and things like that. He did more recently Baby Driver. Oh yeah. And very... as a storyteller, he packs a lot into each frame. He's a real expert at his craft and he sort of changes genres a lot and learns about how to make different types of films. So I think he was going to go, I'm going to make a superhero film. And he was one of the earlier directors they hired and it was in the works for a while, like before they had an Avengers film. And eventually he left that project, Ant-Man. To see his work still there, I think certain gags were probably him. Like I think that Thomas the Tank Engine, that's got to come from a British guy, right? Yeah, maybe. I know that Thomas is known in the States, but he's probably not as famous. Yeah. But he left over creative differences. And I think that they were trying to restrain a bit what he wanted to do. I know that the character started off as not so much of a good guy. Like he, the character in the film starts off in prison. Yeah. But they sort of give him a sort of a Robin Hood backstory where... Oh, I hacked some company that was doing some bad things, they got punished for it. Yeah, he's supposed to be the not that good dad, but he also... He seems pretty good. Yeah. Whereas I think that originally he was going to actually just be like a criminal, basically, he gets given another chance. Well, this is where you've got the family audience aspect, curtailing... Yeah, and I do think it... I understand why it's there, but I do think it's a bit of a shame and it could have probably been even better. But this is a common problem for films to have creative directors or other stuff be restricted by what the studio says. I think that we're definitely in an era at the moment with these big franchise films, where producers have a lot more creative control or take a lot more creative control than they have in more recent decades. I suppose the free-range thing is sounds good for creative, the creative side of it, but you probably end up with a lot more really good films and real stinkers. And what the studios do is kind of find a safe middle ground, which nobody's too excited about, but it pays back the investment. I mean, that's what's happening there, it's playing safe. I mean, clearly, you know, what they've done has worked out. Yeah, okay, so we don't need to worry about how much, you know, their pay packet, they'll get there. There's another person we should talk about, though, as we're talking about producers and things, which is a guy who's becoming very famous in his own right, which is Kevin Feige. Of course. And he's actually, he's sort of a producer type guy. I think he probably has reached into projects and changed them a bit, but it seems that in general, he likes to trust directors, at least certain directors, but he's very much the architect of this thing. He was there when they were planning out the first Iron Man, and he's still there now, you know, he's driving the ship. And he seems to be like somebody who's very knowledgeable about the comics that they are adapting. He has basically planned out the whole thing. If there was an author to this Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's him. Yeah. And that's an interesting thing itself, considering that he's not a director or somebody who's from a profession that you might necessarily think of as being that creative. But I think it, you know, it clearly takes a lot of creativity doing what he is doing. Okay, so we can carry on talking, because there are many films now, but I want to pick on two areas, which I think are more difficult about the Marvel Universe. And one is, as we've been talking about it, it has sounded very much like a boys' club. So we've got Stan Lee and Kevin Feige, and the directors we've mentioned have been men. What do you think about Marvel Universe and their treatment of the female characters? We're talking at a time when Scarlett Johansson is just taking them to court because of the way the Black Widow film was released, not giving her a fourth theatrical exposure. And one can't help but feel that in terms of her relative weight, even though she's a very respected actress, they just don't value their female characters as much. If they can have a go at experimenting with something, they'll think, oh, we're the Black Widow film. Let's try that. We'll see what happens if we give it a streaming service release pretty much at the same time. And the Universe itself hasn't really Black Widow herself in the earlier films. They did build up to the team ups with three films starring men. I say all of this as a man, so I say with a pinch of salt, and this is my interpretation, but I do think that they didn't handle their female characters well in the earlier parts. I think it's something that's getting a lot better. They've got, was it Captain Marvel now, where they're trying to, you know, say he's as strong if not the strongest character is female. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's really where they've had this success. No, was I film directed by a woman? I think it was. Yeah. So they have sort of begun to diversify their directors a bit. Yeah, I think that they have, I think this Black Widow character is somebody who was sort of very mishandled. I mean, her initial appearances are, hey boys, look at this. Yeah, it's kind of like the other thing. It's not a particularly fantastic character, but to be honest towards the end, I thought that they were starting to turn out like a fairly well-rounded character. And in the film she's got quite late, if you ask me, it seems like a bit of an apology. They have got wonder in one division, which was one of their more exciting innovative projects with female directors. And I think that they do definitely look at some issues with that, which are sort of more considered feminine. But we must admit that actually if you're going to say who is the female superhero, you don't go for Captain Marvel or Black Widow, you say of course Wonder Woman. Yeah, well she's the famous one. And she's one of the older ones. So what's the DC that are not on this one? Yeah, I do think it's something that they're getting better at though. I do think that there was a moment which was a bit controversial in the biggest film they've had, which was Avengers Endgame, that's sort of the capstone to their project so far. And they have a big battle scene, and there is a moment which was like a girl power moment. Yeah, I remember. And I think I get the intention, I don't think it quite worked. Yeah. And also I noticed that they killed off, this is a plot spoiler here, they killed off two of the key female characters. Yeah. Earlier on in the journey to be able to fight that last battle. Yeah, how they weigh up the value of their characters is questionable perhaps. And it's something, I guess if you're writing as a man, it's something to consider. If you've killed off two of your lead characters, spoilers, I guess, for the biggest film in the world. But they've killed off both these characters. And one character gets sort of a conversation between friends about how upset they are. And one character, you know, kicks over a table or something. And then when the other character dies, who's a man? Yes, a funeral. He got a full funeral and everyone's turned up, even the people who didn't know him. And that's partly where it is placed in the movie. And I think it was to do with the fact that this character was going to return for their own film. But it doesn't look good. And I think that the handling of these female characters is something that they have started improving on. But have a way to go. I think the next raft of films are trying to reverse that. But we'll see. And certainly as I mentioned, the One Division TV series and the Loki TV series in their own ways are trying to address this problem. What about another kind of diversity? I understand that Black Panther was not expected to do as well as it did. Well, I'm not sure at what point they thought it was going to. I don't mean to be speaking ill of people involved in the process again. But there was a particular head of Marvel who was received controversy for saying some questionable things about film. Films and toys with women or people with minorities about. Not necessarily a minority, but people who aren't white, I think you're talking about. But he sort of was part of the reason it seems why some of these projects were held back a bit. So when they got, when they did make Black Panther, which I think was, it was one of the characters they still had. So it was sort of in the works for a while. I don't think they were expecting it to be quite as big as it was. Yeah. I suppose the thing about Black Panther is that I think it's a really important film just for what it did. And the aesthetic it had about the sort of Africa Wakanda sort of. Well, that's the tap for a Futurism thing. Yeah, no, it's really, really good. The story wasn't my favourite entry into the story, looking at it strictly as story, because it felt like watching the Lion King. Yeah, it was quite Shakespearean. Well, that's why it feels like that. So I was a bit disappointed when I remember watching it in the cinema. But what I wasn't disappointed by was the women in that, going back to the thing about the gender balance. Because I thought his sister, his mother, the warriors, that, I thought that was great fun. And I hadn't seen that before and yeah, you know, that was good. Okay, so they clearly got this on their mind that they need to move away from the white guy Superhero. I think they have from these, you know, the financial things have pointed them towards. Yeah, this is actually a good idea. Who knew that, you know? Who knew the rest of the world was, you know, looking for it once a film. But yeah, they've taken that to heart, I think. And next few projects are all sort of quite different to the initial roster. I think the next one coming out is a, that's film called Chong Chi. Which was again, actually one of these characters where they, they, it had, it was quite popular, you know, when it first came out because at the time martial arts things were popular as a comic. And then obviously that popularity waned. We don't tend to see so many, you know, Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris, you know, films or indeed comics. But that's definitely, I think, at least tried to aim to, I'm going to say panda to the Chinese market, which is huge. But that doesn't seem to have worked, it seems to have been rejected. But partly I think because they have lots of Chinese American people involved. And China have said, actually, we don't like this. This isn't, we don't like it when you try to be China. And isn't there going to be another Thor where, yeah, Thor's, what's the name of the girlfriend in that? There's something to be said about where the films get their ideas from. So in the Thor films, Natalie Portman played his girlfriend, Jane Foster. And she didn't have the most exciting stuff to work with. And clearly left because it wasn't, you know, the most exciting bunch of project doesn't want to be involved. But there is a, there was a more recent comic run where Thor loses his hammer, which gives him a power. That's a metaphor, is it? No, no. And it is picked up by Jane Foster, who is his ex-girlfriend in the comics as well. And she becomes Thor. And she takes that role in his powers. And they appear to be doing some sort of adaptation of that, which is quite a recent story in this next film. And she's come back because it's a much more interesting thing to do. And I think also she wants to work with Tyker with GT, who's a very talented director. Yeah, and he does seem to direct women well because I remember the Kate Blanchett sister, Thor's sister, the bad guy. She was one of the best baddies they've had. Oh, she's having a lot of fun. Oh, completely just so powerful and not at all patronised by him. We wouldn't feel anyway. I hope that's true. So let's just surround up this conversation because there's obviously so much you can talk about when it comes to Marvel. We're interested on this podcast on the sort of creative side of the fantasy. And it seems as though the big story in Marvel is the tension between the big money juggernaut and the creativity of the individual storyline writers in the comic books and the screenwriters alongside the directors wanting to innovate and express themselves, do something different with the formula. Where do you think sitting here in 2021 Marvel is at the moment? Are they happy to experiment because they've had some big successes when they actually did do that? Or are they do you think going to spend this decade playing it safe? I think they're definitely in the next stage of a cycle where they had some initially creative films, had a big team up, posted on that, had another burst of creativity, had a big team up. And I think they've sort of learnt the lessons a bit quite wisely and gone if we just do another sequel and don't inject some new different things, explore some new genres then we won't continue to have the success that we've enjoyed. So I think this is quite a good time actually where they're willing to do a lot. Back to the Marvel Comics to connect up with there. There were some periods of time where Marvel Comics was so successful that Stan Lee said I bet I can make anything popular and he made a bet with a friend that he could make a book called Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos, which is very much a war book, really popular at a time when those kind of stories weren't particularly wanted. And it was a huge success and I think they're in that part where they can take these big risks and be really creative. I do think that tension still exists where Studio will go, well we don't really like that you're doing this particular thing and there are bounds to work within for creative people involved. But I do think in general it's a good time for really creative, more fantastical stories to be told because there's a confidence they have a big audience built in which are willing to go with whatever now. These films are all quite different but there is a formula to them and that familiarity drives audiences in. Thank you Ed. So we always have at the end of our podcast a best place in the universe to go and I mean any fantasy universe. And as we've been talking about superheroes who are very often associated with some kind of city, I mean obviously ever in the DC universe we got Gotham City and the Avengers who got New York is often a location of all of those comic book style cities which is the one that you would actually like to go to and visit. Where's the best one? Well if we're, let's stay talking about Marvel and most of their locations are real world places but I would really not move to New York if I... No. Because they're all there all the time. You can't go shopping without getting like probably kidnapped by the Green Goblin or someone. So I wouldn't go and I probably wouldn't go anywhere in America to be honest. I don't think it's safe. Not with the superheroes around. Yeah so maybe I don't know how safe Maconda is over there. They certainly seem to be enjoying their high life. They probably get the odd alien invasion or something. They do get tickets. Yeah they do get that but otherwise. For me it's definitely I'm considering safety. Because it is basically our world with the exception of a couple of these mythical cities. But yeah I would probably want to be somewhere where I can enjoy it on the news and not have to worry about my insurance premiums. Yeah. So you're taking Maconda, okay. I think they've got the technology to keep me safe from the worst of it. If I'm allowed to involve can I do a bit of DC? Sure, yeah. So I think that where Wonder Woman comes from is a bit... They're mascara. I wouldn't get on there because it ride horses and I terribly fit. You have to work on your abs if you live on the coast. It's all women as well. That would be a shame. But I wouldn't mind trying to visit Aquaman City under the sea. Because I'm actually pretty rubbish from me and particularly from me underwater. But they seem to have sorted it there that you can be underwater. So if I was given that power to be able to be underwater, I would love to spend some time in Aquaman City. Is it Atlantis? It's Atlantis, yeah. I thought it might be. So that's where I'd like to go just to explore. That's a good one. Though I wouldn't go to that one where Julie Andrews is the big monster. I'm not sure that people listened to his podcast, clopped that. But there was quite a funny coincidence that in the year that Mary Poppins, the modern version came out, you might have expected a little cameo by Julie Andrews. But in fact, she was appearing at that time in another film as the voice behind the super seamonster that's the big destructive force in Aquaman. Turn right to go and see Mary Poppins turn left to go and see Julie Andrews as a seamonster. That was quite fun. I think it's probably the role she's always wanted. Oh, completely, completely. So thank you, Ed. And that was fascinating stuff about the Marvel Universe. Thanks for having me on. And next time we will move on and find other topics suited for fantasy fans. Thank you for listening. Bye.