Sulagna Misra’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
If you’ve been on the fandom side of Tumblr, no doubt you’ve seen several iterations of the Civil War meme. The Captain America: Civil War movie was announced, set to follow a storyline lifted from the comic books about Iron Man and Cap splitting the Avengers in a debate that threatens the existence of the team itself. The purveyors of the meme have taken screenshots, mainly from the sequence in The Avengers when Cap and Iron Man are getting all up in each other’s faces, and then presented various conflicts.
And what exactly have Tumblronians suggested will be the debate that rends the community asunder? Comparing Siri to Jarvis. What makes them special (what makes them different, ooh). How goshdarned old Steve is. Benedict Cumberbatch. Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield. To take or not take a blueberry. Big Hero 6. The Civil War Meme itself.
The widespread sharing of the meme highlights yet another way fandom likes to tease the seriousness of these superhero storylines. There’s already Just Marvel Things, a Tumblr that takes its moniker from Just Girly Things, but accepts submissions on little interactions, relationships, and connections among the Avengers. (Please feel free to share other such memes in the comments!)
One meme in particular caught my eye: Marvel Nine Nine.
The lines are multifarious and sharp and always very, very on point somehow. Unlike Pepper Potts, who does not carry a hairdryer in her purse, Natasha has one on hand at all times. (That explains that one scene in CATWS.) Natasha is almost always Rosa when dispensing cutting remarks, except for the one time she’s Boyle. (A girl must have her passions.) Tony acts as the self-centered Gina but also the arrogant Jake. Loki has a lot of feelings and Thor has a lot of questions. Cap gives direction like Sergeant Terry Jeffords, but also asks Bruce Banner to become “Scary Bruce.”
The choice of show is telling. Brooklyn Nine Nine is one of few shows to feature a large ensemble cast working together to fight bad guys, but unlike Castle or Psych, it’s also a straight sitcom. For comparison, the Sherlock fandom pairs screencaps of the show with Arrested Development. Sherlock and Arrested Development are a bit more claustrophobic – one only has nine episodes, the other is stuck on the exploits of one family, and they’re all this side of jerkface to each other.
In the movies, the Avengers aren’t even a bit like the happy-go-lucky gang depicted here. During the movie, their interactions were anything but close, and even after working together to defeat the aliens, their individual movies focus on their own support systems and their individual problems. (Except Black Widow, because she’s a woman.) Their seriousness makes sense, considering they were in a tense situation: a superpowered megalomaniac who was bring aliens to Earth through a giant wormhole, all while they were trying to figure out whether they should trust each other.
That’s also RIDICULOUS. Right? It’s a little ridiculous. But The Avengers, like most superhero movies, takes these things very seriously. The “why” of that is a whole other essay about superhero movies being a defense mechanism against terrorism. (Just Google “superhero movies terrorist attacks” if you feel like diagnosing the American psyche. I’m partial to io9’s iteration.)
The way fandom likes to joke with its characters with these pseudo-sitcom setups, tease them with a kind of familiarity, taps into something deeper than that. In this GQ interview, Schur also talks about the kind of humor he loved in Cheers, which he wanted to have in his shows (emphasis mine):
“It’s the kind of humor that family members do to each other, and that’s what Cheers was so expert at. They love each other. Carla loves Cliff, because they spend so much time together and because they know each other so well. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t make fun of him in the same way that a funny sister makes fun of a lackadaisical brother or something….The best kind of humor on TV is character humor. It’s when you create indelible, interesting characters who have specific character traits, and then the jokes come out of the way that they act and behave, and not an insult that anyone could say about anyone else at any time. That’s weak humor.”
If anyone really understood the balance of silly and serious, characters and action, it was the dearly departed Dwayne McDuffie. He wrote for shows that were part of the DCAU (the DC Animated Universe), like Static Shock and Justice League, DC’s counterpart to the Avengers. In this ToonZone.Net interview, McDuffie points out that in the beginning, the Justice League characters suffered from a case of the Dads:
TZN: The DC characters are renowned, or perhaps even infamous – compared to the Marvel characters – for being a little bit too aloof…
DWAYNE MCDUFFIE: They were kind of a bunch of stiffs! The Justice League is a 1950s property. It’s when DC was kind of at the height of…all their heroes were like Hugh Beaumont. They were like your dad, but not even your real dad….They had no personalities. You could take the dialogue from any character and put it on any other character and it didn’t matter. Except you’d change the curse. Superman wouldn’t say, “Sufferin’ Sappho!”…although he’d enjoy watching. [OH MY GOD, DWAYNE.] And Wonder Woman wouldn’t say, “Great Scott!” But other than that, the rest of the dialogue, the voice was exactly the same….So when we started the Justice League series, there was a tendency to stay in that, like there wasn’t enough differentiation between the characters. And I saw that in a few first-season episodes and I thought, “Okay, we need to start separating these guys out, figuring out who they are, why they do what they do. What’s different about them? Why should we be interested in this guy instead of that guy?”
And it’s true, eventually each character starts feeling real and familiar: Superman suggests creating the team in the first place, and acts as everyone’s rock with his high morals. Batman broods and trusts no one, keeping files on all of them, but is also the man who makes the outer space treehouse satellite for his superhero friends. Martian Manhunter gets them all together through mind control but speaks to them with the naiveté, curiosity, and openness of a man without a planet. Hawkgirl is incredibly violent but also provides most of the saucy innuendo for the series, while Wonder Woman unironically says things like “[Men] can’t possibly be that essential to your life.” Military man Green Lantern cares about comic books and taking care of his Detroit community. Finally, the Flash is the comic relief – and, as is usual with these comic relief characters, the heart of the whole team.
(Sidenote: Am I saying you should watch Justice League? Yes, you foolish fool, that is exactly what I’m saying!)
The current DC TV properties Arrow and The Flash have, er, flashes of this, but each superhero mostly keeps to his (only his, so far) own support system, more like the individual MCU movies. Those current DC TV properties are like an alternate universe version of the DCAU. Comics are used to this: the MCU is an “alternate universe” or AU of the comics, which themselves have multiple AUs. There are touches of these in the Marvel comics now, especially Hawkeye by Matt Fraction:
But future Marvel movie Captain Marvel also gets in on the action:
The stories become wholly about character and communities above anything else. You know who that reminds me of? Stone cold Jane Austen.
Read Part II of “The Everyday Matters of Superheroes” — on Jane Austen, AUs, and Pacific Rim — tomorrow.
Tags: comics, movies, sulagna misra, superheroes, television
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These are so sharp and fun to read.
Sometimes when I get writer’s block, I write Hulk-ku:
CHECKOUT LINE TOO LONG
GOOD THING HULK WORE PURPLE SHORTS
UNDER PANTS TODAY
DANCEABLE POP SONG
MAKE HULK SING INTO HAIRBRUSH
HULK FEEL EMPOWERED
ACOUSTIC TRIO
HULK SMASH BAD GUITAR PLAYER
ACOUSTIC DUO
I now demand a whole tumblr full of Hulk-ku! Those are brilliant 🙂
Oh my god I love you, these are amazing!
Yep, still laughing over “ACOUSTIC DUO”.
It’s only 8:30 and this is already the funniest thing I’ll read today.
*A commenter has been slain*
This is exactly why I love Squirrel Girl. I think someone in one of the letters to the editor in the back of the issue said it kinda put the “comic” back in “comic book” instead of reeling from the 90s-anti-hero-everything-is-glum-and-srs that a lot of the bigger name titles seem to suffer from, in my opinion.
Also, Ms. Marvel has so much heart that it makes it interesting. You CARE about the characters, it’s not just a palette swap of every other hero.
I am definitely excited for tomorrow’s continuation!
I was just posting the same thing! Man, my heart broke for Kamala in that last issue.
This was really entertaining! I clicked on all the links. Can’t wait for part 2.
Honestly, if the Marvel movies were 100 % more banter and 80% less action, that would be just fine with me. I love ’em, but the last 20 minutes of property damage is always the least interesting part. It’s also why I love Ms. Marvel, and the current incarnation of Thor: I know exactly who they are as people (even if we don’t even know Thor’s real name for certain at this point)
So, my day’s going okay and I get to wake up when I want tomorrow. But then:
“Stone cold Jane Austen.” It’s now taken off.
I think this all means that I basically submit my Facebook friends to lots of different sandwich “Tumblrs” at once, that they didn’t ask for, and dare them to hide me.
Naturally once I put “Wizard People” quotes on Doctor Who stills I had to do some of the reverse. Whozard People! I *was* actually asked to stop (he just wasn’t watching the show yet was all).
I’m saying I love all of this.
A day with a new Sulagna Misra piece about superhero fandom is a good day.
This is a fantastic piece, and I’m really happy to see more Marvel coverage on the Toast! I do wish the movies had more banter and character/relationship building, though I’ve got tentative hopes for Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. One of the things I loved about CA:TWS is that it took the time to build some new relationships, especially between Cap and Natasha (need that solo Black Widow movie like yesterday, btw). I see that as one of the main ingredients to the MCU’s success – that blend of fun/banter and actually giving the characters distinctive voices and personalities beyond their powers, while still taking the stakes of the conflicts and the villains seriously and including the big bombastic action scenes and special effects.
Also I just need to talk a bit about how obsessed I’ve become with Captain America since none of my friends are super into MCU fandom, and it’s partially due to TWS but mostly, I have to say, due to fanfiction. I started out seeing him as one of the less interesting heroes but I’ve done a complete 180 since then. Ugh, guys, he’s so complicated and lonely and he just loves Bucky so much and he’s so good/moral but not boring or saintly and Chris Evans is the cutest lil Dorito with the best face and absurdly ridiculous shoulder-to-hip ratio. Also weirdly into Brock Rumlow now, because Frank Grillo’s face/hair/body and overall hot dad-ness. Ok, phew, got that out of my system *fangirl flails into the sunset*
(whispers) But if anyone wants to talk Cap and/or Bucky and/or Rumlow, I’m here for that.
Molly Hooper, I will talk about Captain America movies all day. You know, work permitting.
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
I love Cap. I love Bucky. I love Peggy. And Sam. And Tasha.
And dammit, Cap became my fave (well, Cap & Clint) even though I was a staunch Tony/Bruce fan in the beginning.
Yes please let’s talk Cap all day, err’y day. I am here for it (though also working on my grants calendar for the next FY, so…sporadically but enthusiastically here for it.)
Guys, let’s just have a post every day to talk about the MCU and how much we love it and how ridiculous the fandom is. Because there are very few things I love more than discussing anything and everything to do with it (DAREDEVIL SEASON TWO. AGE OF ULTRON IS OUT NEXT WEEK. ANT-MAN MIGHT NOT BE 100% THE WORST).
I’m also a fan of the Marvel/Parks and Rec tumblr mostly because I love both of those things so damn much. And you get things like this:
ANT-MAN MIGHT BE GOOD.
I still can’t get over that. I’m…cautiously excited. I might get more excited once I catch up with AoS and watch DareDevil
That train scene in the trailer is the second thing that made me even remotely interested in seeing Ant-Man (the only other thing is bringing Cassie into the MCU so we can MAYBE ONE DAY GET YOUNG AVENGERS PLS).
I’ve been seeing suggestions that InHumans may be a thing in MCU… Which means Kamala Khan could be in the movies! Maybe! I want to see her!
They’re totally a thing.
I can say no more.
They are definitely a thing. Seems like the MCU is using them to explain the stuff they can’t do since they don’t have rights to the X-Men/mutant stuff.
Whenever I think this site isn’t going to get geekier…. See: piglet bath
DO NOT DOUBT THE DEPTHS OF GEEKINESS INTO WHICH THE TOASTIES CAN PLUNGE.
Yeah. There’s a storyline in their own comics line (written by Charles Soule, one of the better newer comics writers working for the Big Two at the moment) in which there are a lot more of them now, and they’re forming up into factions. They’re assuming almost exactly the same trope of born-this-way, non-origin superhumans that the X-Men did (and wizards in the Potterverse, for that matter).
Obligatory Ant-Man train GIF:
This is both potential cross-promotion for the new Avengers movie and a reminder of how much I miss Brooklyn 99. WHY IS IT ON HIATUS, I WANT IT SO MUCH.
My favorite mash-up tumblr remains Arrested Westeros, because the family relationships match up so well that the jokes in AD actually become literal sense in the world of GOT: http://arrestedwesteros.com/image/6012607429
My friend said sometimes I remind her of Captain Holt and it was one of the highest compliments I have ever received. (She meant it as a compliment, too, which is why we’re friends in the first place)
Oh, oh, that is a wonderful compliment!
When these mashups are on point–when the quotes match the characters so much I can believe it’s canon–it messes me up SO MUCH. Like, wait, when did they say that? I remember someone saying that, but I don’t remember the scene…OH.
Y’all, I am trying so hard to remain emotionally divorced from MCU at this point but then I see stuff like this, or promo interview gifsets on my dash and I’m all
Buuuuh *flappy grabby hands* Why can’t it be tomorrow already! I want to read ALL OF THIS. Which, I guess is a sign that this is a really good article. This is also seriously why I love Tumblr so goddamn much. There are fandoms that, while I’m not super in love with the source material, I am so in love with the Tumblr fandom and what they’ve done with it. The MCU is one of them for sure, but also Harry Potter.
Speaking of “the seriousness of superhero movies,” I watched Batman Forever on TV the other night and it was amazing in its absolute commitment to never be serious, or even have a touching resemblance to any reality we know. It was actually great? idk, I feel like it would be cool to have movies in that direction as well.
It might have worked if it hadn’t been such a jarring switch from the Tim Burton esthetic that had been established in the first two films.
part of me wants to say that it’s not a good movie, but also whatever it was trying to do is 100% different than what “good movies” are that maybe it is? It was just so different, especially for what I know of as a “big budget” movie with real stars in it and all.
It was SO MUCH FUN. I have never had more fun watching a movie. We took a tally of the ice puns – I think there were about 40? I don’t remember.
Yeah. There's a storyline in their own comics line (written by Charles Soule, one of the better newer comics writers working for the Big Two at the moment) in which there are a lot more of them now, and they're forming up into factions. They're assuming almost exactly the same trope of born-this-way, non-origin superhumans that the X-Men did (and wizards in the Potterverse, for that matter).
It might have worked if it hadn't been such a jarring switch from the Tim Burton esthetic that had been established in the first two films.
My favorite phrase for that type of dilemma is "wife goals or life goals? I just can't decide." I picked it up from another toastie on tumblr, and it just applies to so many marvel women. (Oh, Agent Carter, I don't know if I want to be you, or be with you)
I have been known to describe Justice League as “DC characters with Marvel attitudes” so definitely watch Justice League. This article is great.
Uma grande variedade de torrent das coisas da Marvel Aqui