…With all the Marvel-related excitement surrounding the
return of the ‘Iron Fist’ Netflix series, we decides to watch ‘Captain America:
The First Avenger’ movie as well, and-
And nothing, or rather – something. The movie certainly
calls out Hydra as being the Nazis’ scientific branch or a part of it, but
something like that. This means that the fraction of the Marvel fans who
claimed that Hydra was Nazi was more in the right than the one who claimed that
it wasn’t, it was just evil (and maybe fascist as well), but-
But frankly, the entire CA: TFA film has a notable
undercurrent of pulp fiction in it, where the brave heroes would go forth and
smite the evil Nazis with some good old-fashioned fisticuffs and similar
things. Please excuse me, but how does that
fit with historical accuracy? Once I read a love novel online where Menelaus,
(from the Iliad, husband of Helen) fell in love with Miriam, the sister of
Moses, and things derived from historical (literary, but still) accuracy very
quickly. MCU and the rest of the Marvel franchise amount to the same thing.
They didn’t exactly care about historical accuracy, they went for the Nazis
because they were convenient (and because the original Captain America comic
was something of a pro-USA propaganda piece), and then-
And then, or rather – now, the social situation changed,
both abroad and in the US, and the old values do not quite match with the new
ones anymore. Plenty of people thought that while Hydra was evil, it was not
Nazi, and if MCU itself said that it was, then who cared? Not enough people, that
is who, and they were right. If you are going for fiction, then do not be
surprised if fan fiction – the fiction of your fans – goes in a different
direction, especially if the canon became established well-enough for a
sufficient number of people not to care anymore. Canon can be reinforced, but
not on fan fiction level, as the ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ play
showed: Hermione became an Afro-Brit, plenty of people were angry at that,
Rowling defended this transformation firmly enough…and that’s it. HPCC was not
a flop as the rebooted ‘Ghostbusters’ were, for comparison, but only because
the actors’ acting was that good; these days, HP transformed into Fantastic
Beasts/FB, and in the first movie? Almost all of the main characters were
Anglo-American, or at least – of a European, rather than of Asian or African
descent; only the president of the MACUSA was Afro-American…can we say ‘token
character’ here? And yet no one made a stink about it, and so far, most of the
main characters in the upcoming second FB film also appear to be Anglo-American
too. J. Ro can be politically correct, but if it does not bring enough
dividends, she does not have to be, it seems. (Kind of like Rick Riordan and
his novels, remember?)
Where were we? Right, MCU and Hydra and pulp fiction. Also –
Disney. With SW, Disney began to alienate the old fan base, purposefully or
otherwise, by rebooting the SW universe entirely, and retiring everything else
into the ‘Star Wars: Legends’ reservation. As a result…well, we have talked
about the current result of that approach; in the Marvel merger, Disney seemed
to have done something different. In the CA: CW movie, which we discussed in
the past, MCU declared that Hydra was gone, (and made Zemo not part of it, but
rather an independent agent), but then there was AoS…
Let us check the facts: in CA: CW film, Hydra is supposed to
be gone; in AoS S3 Hydra was supposed to be defeated at last via the
cooperation of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the US forces, represented by Glenn Talbot; and
in AoS S5 Hydra was shown to be doing just fine and going strong and while S.H.I.E.L.D.
did set it back, it mostly had to deal with various aliens and Talbot, who
became the local Graviton instead, (a super-villain). So is Hydra gone or not?
Apparently not, it seems.
Where does it leave MCU? Looking stupid, as apparently
Captain America and co. don’t know what they are talking about; actually, in A:
IW film, Red Skull is back, so Hydra may be returning to the Marvel movies
again for real, and-
And this is more like J Ro, who plays fast and loose with
canon; it isn’t alienation, as Disney did with the SW fan base, (and for no
good reason), it’s more like… fracturing and factionism. The Marvel fan base is
arguing – whether Hydra is Nazi or just evil; whether Grant Ward was evil or
not; whether Cap or Tony – and Disney/Marvel is not reining them in; in fact,
it seemed to encourage the Cap vs. Tony debate as CA: CW movie was coming out,
and now…
Yes, MCU does not really have any tools for reining fans it
and probably it did not want to; yes, this is still better than the
straightforward alienation of Disney/SW, but still, considering the online
debates, arguments and fights regarding the MCU topics, they still earn a
cringe. The fracturing did not do any favors for AoS, (or AC), as its’ numbers
have sunk. Odds are, the upcoming 2019 AoS S6 will be something of a reboot
with an updated cast…and a new plotline; plus, with only 13 episodes as opposed
to 22, AoS will have to change, as the old strategies won’t work so well
anymore. Even back in S4, some of the AoS resolutions felt rushed, and that was
actually a good season…
Anything else? Well, on the subject of Nazis and pulp
fiction…we are probably getting back into the d20 Modern campaigns. Yes,
Pathfinder doesn’t seem to be abandoning its’ old layout straightaway as the
new ‘Runelords’ campaign path seems to indicate, but we aren’t so excited about
it either; the first Pathfinder adventure path that we did play was the ‘Shattered
Star’ one, and it was also heavily connected to the Runelords; did we enjoy it?
Sort of, but not enough, to go back to the beginning. Therefore, rather, we are
probably going to go down the d20 Modern path, because while D&D 3.5 is
similar to Pathfinder in the layout, d20 Modern is similar in approach.
Let us elaborate. From the ‘Complete Warrior’ onwards,
D&D 3.5 invested very heavily into various prestige classes – the ronin,
the beast lord, the blightlord, the ashworm dragoon and so on. By contrast,
Pathfinder was much more restrained with its’ prestige classes, which gave new,
different options to the base classes (aka the barbarian, the rogue, the
fighter, etc.), which otherwise were quite straightforward, (though yes,
different feats, spells, domain powers and so on did give them differences).
Later on, in ‘Unearthed Arcana’, D&D 3.5 tried to give variant abilities to
the base classes instead – and in Pathfinder, we have the archetypes, that gave
different abilities to the base classes, while d20 modern we have the so-called
talent trees that give the base heroes various talents, allowing the players to
create very different PCs following the same guidelines. In place of prestige
classes, d20 Modern had advanced classes, which were more tailored to various
base classes than D&D 3.5 prestige classes did. And while, yes, they were
also different from what Pathfinder did, d20 Modern featured such prestige
classes as the musketeer, the mesmerist, the spiritualist and so on – classes that
we also encounter in the Pathfinder.
That is not to say that Pathfinder is truly similar to d20
Modern – it has plenty of differences too, but still, the family relationship
is visible. So yeah, for now we may be making our own adventures in the d20
Modern world, but who knows…
This is it for now; see you all soon!
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