battlewraith

Right, that's the difference: I'm not bothered by female characters in leadership positions. I didn't stop reading X-men when Storm took over leadership back in the 80s. I don't equate female leaders with emotionally fragile men getting bullied (or whatever the problem is here). You would rather have a Sue that berates Ben over legitimate concerns and pushes him into a situation that ruins his life in a rush to beat the commies, than one who can lead. What more do I need to add? And honestly this whole discussion is dumb because Sue has lead the team at times in the actual comics. If a significant subset of people are able to get something more cheaply or conveniently--they will. It's not an issue about what an industry is producing. File sharing did a lot of damage to the music industry--not because people stopped liking the bands. Streaming did a lot of damage to the porn industry--not because reptiles lost interest in their favorite performers. AI is damaging the financial situations of a lot of artists--not because people like their art less. Also, Hollywood is producing product that people are willing to go see. Sinners and The Minecraft movie are Killing it--after Warner Bros. had three flops including the disastrous Joker sequel. A couple successful movies and Disney can turn things around and just wave away this doom and gloom.

On the point of the source material and reinterpretation, I went back and read the first issue of Fantastic Four which was hilarious. The origin story begins with Ben telling Reed that he refuses to fly the spaceship because he is afraid of exposure to cosmic rays. Sue then insists that they have to do it or else the commies will get there first. She calls Ben a coward for not wanting to go, making him relent. In space, they start suffering the effects of the radiation and Reed says basically "Ben was right. I didn't put enough shielding in the ship." Once back on Earth, Ben turns into the Thing and swings a tree at Reed, telling him that he's a weakling and that Sue is marrying the wrong guy. By all means, let's insist that Disney put that source material on the screen. The fact of the matter is that all of these old comic characters have gone through waves of revision in their comics history and then further revisions when translated to the screen. I think there are a number of reasons why superhero flicks are not doing as well. I think crap writing is a flimsy explanation because there has been crap writing throughout. A lot of the Marvel films throughout the earlier phases were pretty crap. They were just new and they were propped up by proximity to the movies that were actually good. Captain Marvel performed very well. The Marvels was a bomb. Having seen both, there was not some huge gap in the quality of the writing. If they hadn't waited 10 years to make The Marvels, it probably would've done a lot better simply through momentum from the first film. Likewise, the fact that streaming is destroying the film industry doesn't mean that people don't want Hollywood's product. It means they don't want to go sit in the theater for it--they'll watch it home. It's about expense and convenience, not quality. Nothing makes a mother weak. I never said that. What I was talking about was cliche, weak storytelling. The notion that Sue as a character is defined as the mom of the team. This is something that John Byrne pushed back on when I was reading FF in the 80s. And in the context of this discussion, people are arguing that "being a mom is a powerful thing" as a way of justifying her not having more of a leadership position. She has status in her professional role as a cosmically powered superhero, not because of her insights, training, or actual superpowers, but because she is the mom of the group. Absolute cack. I brought this up before, I'll do it again. Simply apply the same reasoning to Reed. He's the father of the group. He's the father to his wife. He's the father to his best friend. And he's the father to his brother in law. And he wants to save the Earth from Galactus because the patriarchal instinct is so strong. It's cringe. It adds nothing of interest to the character and I feel the same way about Sue in 2025 when people have been juggling family and careers for decades.

1. Most streaming content from what I've seen is garbage. The market is probably moving towards streaming largely because it's cheaper to stream and people don't want to drag themselves to the theater. 2. MCU is probably getting less popular and that probably has to do with people getting tired of cape flicks. Moreover, superhero comics are far less popular than when I was a kid reading them. There are a lot of reasons for these declines but the biggest is probably far more access to entertainment options. Not middle-aged fans being pissed that things were not the same as in their childhood. 3. It's inferred constantly. You're like the Lorax for aggrieved dogmatic comics nerds. 4. Ripley had no child or reference to being a mother in Alien. It was in no way a relevant aspect of her character in the first movie (The theatrical release of Aliens also did not include any reference). Ripley's character did not need any reference to motherhood in order to be a compelling protagonist. Cameron tacked that aspect on to the character in the sequel. If people are whining about Sue's character in the team being potentially changed--then they should be against Cameron's addition to Ripley's character. But there's no logical consistency here. 5. LMFAO you're trying to make the case for Sue being a matriarch by directing me to material about the fucking queen of England? 6. Yes I'm apparently the only one in this argument who would like more for Sue than stereotyped portrayals of her mothering her male friends and family. 7. Okay so it's a crazy comic book world where the unbelievable happens. So I'll stop taking issue with Super genius Reed taking his civilian friends on a dangerous space mission and you stop seething about Sue getting an expanded leadership role in the team. Mmmmkay?

Look at what I'm dealing with. You say that, instead of giving Sue any kind of leadership position, the filmmakers should do something like Alpha Flight. You'd be totally in to Heather Hudson leading a team. Not being an Alpha Flight fan, I looked it up. She didn't make the team. She assumed leadership 12 issues in after husband seemingly dies. So...not a great example of why Sue couldn't have more of a leadership role. When I pointed that out, you gaslit me saying "oh well he was already dead in issue one and it was told in flashback." Someone else pointed out that you were wrong. And then you bail on the character altogether. "In that case she definitely shouldn't be leading the team." Sad. Apparently out of some dogmatic adherence to how the characters were originally written. But neither the Marvel films or the comics themselves follow that dogmatism. Storytelling in general is something that involves constant revision and reinterpretation for contemporary audiences. The wikipedia entry for the movie cites Sue as the leader of the Future Foundation, which wasn't even a thing in the comics until 2010.

Sue is Reed's wife. She is Johnny's sister. Ben's friend. Why is it that you think she would need to be a mother figure to these people? It's not that matriarchs are shallow. It's that some people seem to have trouble viewing women as anything else.

Anyone who has the mental capacity to actually engage with the argument. Nuclear bombs have been around since the 40s. World leaders and governments can have them produced. Therefore, a fictionalized account of the Manhattan Project that features Oppenheimer, his wife, her kid brother, and their college football chum making the first such warhead is somehow not ridiculous. Not only in terms of feasibility, but in terms of what that says about Oppenheimer as a character.

1. The film industry is probably suffering from competition from streaming platforms and other forms of entertainment. The notion that this decline is the result of the studios producing content that you don't like is silly. 2. Most of the MCU depictions diverge from the source material--for good reason. It's 2025, I don't have an issue with a woman being the boss of something. I absolutely hope they give Sue more to do than following Reed's orders and getting whisked off by Namor in a speedo. As for the built in fanbase, how many of them are there? How old are they? What era of Fantastic Four did they read? And most importantly, how did you become these people's spokesman? 3. FFS. Aliens is the sequel. Ripley was not a mother in Alien. She was not Newt's mother in the second film either. You can't even get the facts right about your example. 4. You seem to have no problem as long as you ascribe it to maternal instinct or being some sort of matriarch. Which makes no sense for this team of adults. Anyone should, I think, be able to see the stupidity of this by viewing Reed as the team's daddy. View everything Reed does in the team as being a father to his wife, her brother, and his college friend. You know because paternal instincts are a thing. Being a patriarch is a thing. Lol.

Ok, so try actually putting some thought into this. If Bezos had actually designed the spaceship himself, at the beginning of space travel before NASA had done this. And, on it's maiden voyage brings his girlfriend, her brother, and his college friend into actual space in a faster than light rocket, not just something going into Earth orbit. Maybe you'd have a point. And it's not about believability. It's about his perceived judgement in an era when people actually wear seatbelts.

Lol wow. Didn't know that an off the cuff use of bizarre would send you off the rails. Your generic litany about "modern audiences not buying what they're selling" is a joke. There are so many variables about why films in general are decline but you're never at a loss to point out that it's because rankled fans aren't getting what they want. And we're having this discussion again about a movie that hasn't come out yet, in regard to how this particular character could be portrayed. Possibly too independent and too in charge for your delicate sensibilities. Neither Ellen Ripley nor Sarah Connor were mothers in their first films. Ripley in particular was an intelligent, resourceful crew member on a space vessel. The fact that you associate them with strong mother types is perhaps indicative of the problem--you can't seem to view them as anything else. Sue looking after her family and doing what she can to protect them doesn't require her to "mother" them. Any more than Reed trying to save the people of Earth requires him to father them.

And that would make sense if it were some kind of domestic drama where Sue is managing various relationships of an extended family. It's not. It's a team superhero movie where they are going to be facing down Galactus. It's her, her husband, her little brother and Ben Grimm. It would be really disappointing if they just relegated her to being a shallow mother figure character. Even the comics seemed to develop a tension about this when she transitioned from Invisible Girl to Invisible Woman, along with her brief stint as a supervillain. And that was back in the 80s. Comics evolve. Characters evolve. It doesn't need to faithful to the 1960s kid audience or risk not being "The Fantastic Four." There's nothing wrong with that picture. The point is that the idea was not particularly original. Most things in comics were existing elements reworked into other contexts.

Presumably there is a range of female character options available. So If I think Sue shouldn't be primarily a "mother type character"--it doesn't follow that she then has to be an invincible know it all whatever. Bizarre response. Also, If Reed is an asshole and Johnny is a man-child to the extent that Sue has to mother them--that sounds like a shitshow. That's certainly not something I want to see and it's not how the trailer is coming across to me. No, it's a film that's coming out in 2025. The issue is not about what happened in the comics in the 60s. So while contemporary audiences will roll with some absurd plot points, the more reasonable things are the more likely the narrative is going to succeed with audiences. "It's not supposed to be realistic storytelling" doesn't work if you've lost the viewer.

There's nothing wrong with a strong mother figure. It's stupid when you're talking about a super powered team and somebody's defining characteristic is that they are the mom. To a group of adult men. It makes her look like a cliche and them look like idiots. "making her a man-hating feminist girl-boss that "don't need no man." What is this? The allegation in this thread is that Sue is independent and leading the team. How would that entail this caricature? Reed's motivations--do I really need to explain this one? I'm going to build a spaceship and explore the universe--with my girlfriend and her little brother. Cosmic rays? Oooops! Well, at least they got super powers instead of cancer. Also, in regards to telling your own story, almost everything in comics is a rif on something else. Look at this still from Journey to the Center of the Earth that came out just a few years before FF:

I know nothing about this game, but am a big fan of the artist/director Alberto Mielgo who worked on the Spiderverse movie and did amazing shorts for the Netflix Love Death and Robots series. This is a cinematic trailer for the game Marathon:

It's not hard to understand. It's just quaint. I think I got over this disappointment while I was still reading comics. Long before they started making blockbuster superhero films. Some artist or writer would take over a title and destroy everything that I liked about it. But the comics continued. People kept buying them. I wasn't the true fanbase that was the center of success for a given character. As an adult who read FF in the 70s and 80s I'm looking forward to this movie. I'm absolutely not interested in seeing the Sue from my childhood on the big screen in 2025.

Wasp was not the leader of the Avengers. Cap was. Then it changed. Same with the X-men. The source material is comic books, which are subject to constant change and retconning, which is done to express different writer's ideas of what these characters are like but also to bring them in line with later eras to make them relevant to newer audiences. Regarding Alpha Flight, do you mean Heather Hudson? So Alpha Flight had a male leader--James Hudson who is a scientist that makes a power suit and becomes a superhero. He dies, and his girlfriend who has no superpowers or scientific background takes over the team. You're all for that--but the thought of Sue who is actually a very powerful character leading the team is an issue. Whaaaat?

If you're talking about roughly the first year, yeah I didn't feel this urge to rush to 50. In fact, it took a long time for me to hit lvl 50 on my main. However, the end of that first year also probably marked the steepest decline in server population. By 2005 most of the people I had been actively teaming with were gone. Whole sgs I knew left en masse for other games. So imo it's a distortion to say that there was no reason to rush to 50. If you were very invested in the game, probably not. Realistically though, a lot of people got bored with the content and moved on, particularly when expectations of what your $15 a month was going to get you turned out to be unrealistic.

If Sue is a strong independent woman who is leading the team, that would put her in a situation similar to other female supergroup leaders. Such as when Wasp lead the Avengers or Storm took over leadership of the X-men. I'm at a loss for what the problem would be.

Wrong. Once pvp was added in 2005 there was a subset of the player base that needed to get characters to 50 asap in order to participate in lvl 50 pvp. On HC, my personal motivation to make new characters is to get them to 50, get them enhanced and set up with incarnates, and then run the build on harder difficulty levels to see how well it performs. Occasionally I'll run a character at lower levels, but it gets boring very quickly. This isn't an argument for anything. It's a statement of preference. It is in no way significant whether someone like you can relate to it or not.

I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know where it is going to go. I did read the comic as a kid and that side of the extreme was a thing. What is the basis for this comment? Is there something in the trailer that indicates Sue will be "boss lady with no weaknesses who runs the show because men stupid." Just writing that out--it sounds ridiculous.

The premise of the Fantastic Four, as envisioned by Lee and Kirby in the 60's is absolutely ridiculous. It's a step or two above Scooby Do. Big brained Reed Richards decides to go on a space mission, to which he enlists his significantly younger girlfriend, her kid brother (!?!), and his football-player-turned-pilot former college roommate. They get pelted with cosmic rays and become super heroes. Sue being this cosmically powered mom figure that serves to "keep the family together" is just dumb. It's fine that Reed is the leader of the team, but it should be an actual team. They should have insights and perspective as superheroes. She shouldn't just be managing Johnny, making Reed's dinner, and then making forcefields when he needs her to do it. Not just because it's like an outdated "father knows best" 50s sitcom that we've moved on from, but because it reminds us of how bizarre Reed's motivations in the story are to begin with.

Which, if true, means that the majority of people at the time were doing something you didn't like. You were in the minority. And you're celebrating the fact that the playstyle you didn't like got nerfed, so that people like you--instead of playing with each other--got to draw on the pool of people who were nerfed into playing your way. That is the people who stayed around.

I know the character is "The Silver Surfer" or some variation. But that shiny metallic look is so evocative of 90s era cg--it would be like having a character named "lensflareman." The effects people really need to find a way to get the idea across without it looking like a stock effect.

The reason people waited around for a tanker to herd an entire map or sat in a dumpster waiting to blow things up was because the other classes were a lot squishier back then and people were looking for an efficient way to grind xp quickly. There were no double xp buffs available from vendors. There were no incarnate nukes or destiny shields. Etc. I often had blasters bugging me to team (on a dm/inv scrapper) because they couldn't handle aggro. It's always amusing to hear people justify nerfs because things were boring or unfun. I mean...did someone have a gun at your head making you wait on a tank? I was around from the beginning and did not have a problem avoiding this sort of thing if I didn't want to do it. I agree with the post above that the aggro cap at least should go.

The first time I've ever had all the incarnate slots unlocked before slotting any of them on a character. I also made my first genuine tank and droned the big GM dweeb a couple times.

If, by your own admission, you are this hated figure why would I take your advice about how to win people over? LMAO?