What if season 2

[Mr. X]

Anyone watching this?
People post clips on youtube. Doesn't seem all that compelling. My guess is they are going to have a squad of women fight the big baddie at the end. Agent Carter seems to be a big theme for some reason. My guess is she's royalty free.
What I dislike about this animation style is nothing really matters. Like Avengers Assemble there is no real meaning to any action. Some bad guy is blah-blah, Thor hits him with hammer, PONK sound, bad guy back to blah-blah with no ill effect. Everyone seems to hit as hard as everyone else. Unlike Bruce Timm's work where Superman could get some serious hurt or there was meaning and strategy in a fight. Superman vs Darkseid had gravity to it. You could feel it was titans clashing. Carter seems to literally tank everything.

And if Ms. Marvel is so great - where is she. Never anywhere. For a character they were so hot to promote they sure don't promote her.

Everyone is interchangeable. Nothing has meaning. Now Purple hulk is a thing (again I suspect royalty free). Its like some big inside joke. Also the "switches" don't seem to be very note worthy. What if Capt America ordered a ham sandwich instead of turkey.

And the worst - not one ounce of sex appeal. Even the Superfriends had a little fun stuff in it and that was made when shit was run by prudes.

[shevek]

I'll probably try to watch at least some of it over the next week.

Looks like they created another Native American character (other than Echo) specially for the What If series. A Mohawk named Kohhori.
What are the two aitches for? Are you going to pronounce it differently if it was spelled Kohori? No. So pretentious.
By the way, did you know Mohawk only has eight consonants? h, k, n, r, s, t, w and y. And two of those are actually semivowels so they really only have six.

I saw this trend coming, and that was why I 'hit back' with characters who are Lebanese Christian, Serbian, and Basque, and two Indians, because I sensed that Indian superheroes would be getting the shaft (and they are, except for Kingo. Eternals sucked anyway).

How to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character:

Pocahontas 1995

pocahontas__disney.jpg (167.02 KiB) Viewed 1341 times

Kohhori 2023

kahhori_standingpose_co3_v002.jpg (45.61 KiB) Viewed 1341 times

I rest my case.

I'll watch this shit and report back.

[dajinx1]

Anyone watching this?
People post clips on youtube. Doesn't seem all that compelling. My guess is they are going to have a squad of women fight the big baddie at the end. Agent Carter seems to be a big theme for some reason. My guess is she's royalty free.
What I dislike about this animation style is nothing really matters. Like Avengers Assemble there is no real meaning to any action. Some bad guy is blah-blah, Thor hits him with hammer, PONK sound, bad guy back to blah-blah with no ill effect. Everyone seems to hit as hard as everyone else. Unlike Bruce Timm's work where Superman could get some serious hurt or there was meaning and strategy in a fight. Superman vs Darkseid had gravity to it. You could feel it was titans clashing. Carter seems to literally tank everything.

And if Ms. Marvel is so great - where is she. Never anywhere. For a character they were so hot to promote they sure don't promote her.

Everyone is interchangeable. Nothing has meaning. Now Purple hulk is a thing (again I suspect royalty free). Its like some big inside joke. Also the "switches" don't seem to be very note worthy. What if Capt America ordered a ham sandwich instead of turkey.

And the worst - not one ounce of sex appeal. Even the Superfriends had a little fun stuff in it and that was made when shit was run by prudes.

I Think you have something there with them going extra strong with Captain Carter, they definitely want to make her the next big thing. She's an original Disney owned character so no royalties to other creators and/or estates. The one thing DC has over Marvel with their heroines are more sex appeal and it looks like Sony might be fun in that area too with the Madame Webb movie.

I disagree about Ms. Marvel though. I thing they are over-promoting her. She's been in Cartoons, video games and keep re-booting her comic and now they are trying to get er into the X-men comic by making her a mutant. I don't find her that compelling and neither do most fans.

[cannonfodder]

Ms. Marvel, Jubilee, Shadowcat They've always had some young new mutant to bring in new readers.

[lionbadger]

How to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character:

I find it hilarious, like laugh out loud funny, at how the ideology has flipped in the US

5 years ago this would have been (and still is in most of the world)

"how to make your sexy character more conservative"

I wonder how long the cycle is for it to flip back, 10 years? 20?

[Mr. X]

How to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character:

I find it hilarious, like laugh out loud funny, at how the ideology has flipped in the US

5 years ago this would have been (and still is in most of the world)

"how to make your sexy character more conservative"

I wonder how long the cycle is for it to flip back, 10 years? 20?

Exactly! Its a cycle.

More like its the same people who simply jump for one side to the other. Anita Sarkesian or Jack Thompson... both from the same cloth. Social busy body managers... church ladies.

[shevek]

Ms. Marvel, Jubilee, Shadowcat They've always had some young new mutant to bring in new readers.

Oh, they've had a lot more young new mutants than that! There was a whole team called "New Mutants". And another book called "Generation X".
And then there were the Morlocks who had young members. Readers had more than their pick of role models.

Yes, Kitty Pryde was introduced as a young character the teens reading the book could identify with. I can attest to this - Kitty was one of the main reasons I read the X-Men in the 80s - I thought she was very cute, and her adventures were worth following. But it's not surprising, considering that Prof X ran a SCHOOL for mutants, so at some point they would have had to focus on the character development of a new recruit at that school, and Kitty just happened to be the first.

Ms. Marvel, however, does not belong on that list at all. Because she was not even identified as a mutant until this year!
For the first ten years of her comics, she was identified as an *Inhuman* who had a fan crush on the *Avengers*. Not much mention of X-Men
at all, which makes sense, since generally the X-Men are not a super-team admired by fans. Rather, they are reviled by mutant-haters.

Kamala was not a character to "bring in new readers" - she was a self-insert by Sana Amanat to provide income for her, and representation for her religion and ethnicity. Except for the woke libraries who bought all the Ms Marvel TPBs for their graphic novel section, Kamala Khan did not bring
a whole lot of new readers to Marvel. Certainly a lot less than Shadowcat or Jubilee did.

How to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character:

I find it hilarious, like laugh out loud funny, at how the ideology has flipped in the US

5 years ago this would have been (and still is in most of the world)

"how to make your sexy character more conservative"

I wonder how long the cycle is for it to flip back, 10 years? 20?

Ummmm...."how to make your sexy character more conservative" is the SAME THING as "how to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character."
A hardcore conservative would look at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because church God Bible morals religion corrupting young minds blah blah blah claptrap from the pulpit."
A hardcore progressive looks at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because cultural appropriation male gaze decolonization objectification claptrap from academia."
Both of them don't want her to be sexy, but for different reasons which actually both amount to some kind of extreme doctrine.
The only way to avoid this is to constantly advocate for actual truth and facts in the center for what is popular and beautiful: "She looks great! And the vast majority of people think so. Keep her the way she is."

----------------------------------------------------------

Also: I watched this shit.
Or, at least, I watched the Kohhori episode, and the Avengers 1602 episode.

The Avengers 1602 episode was somewhat entertaining because they tried to make the super-team into the characters of a Shakespearean play or other classics.
Thor is brooding King Lear, Loki is foppish Hamlet, Hulk is the raging Man In the Iron Mask. There was lots of swashbuckling swordplay in Three Musketeers mode.

The drawback, though, is the way that Peggy Carter is the center of this entire season of What Ifs. She looks like a man from the neck down. She's super strong and defeats everybody, and she is always proven to be right (like the woke version of Babylon 5's Susan Ivanova, who was way hotter and feminist enough for anyone). The only reason that character is there is to virtue signal woman power - I mean, she's certainly not even an Avenger.

Also, the Watcher talks to people (Peggy, for one). He's not supposed to be doing that. He's the Watcher - he just WATCHES and narrates.

As far as the Kohhori episode, this Mohawk Indian superhero character was created for one purpose - to push the 'decolonization' narrative.
I don't recommend you watch it. In fact, I'll give you the whole plot just so that you don't have to:

In the Kohhori reality, the Tesseract landed in a lake in Mohawk territory. All the natives who fell into the lake got superpowers and were transported into a paradise dimension where nobody dies, and everybody dances around all day and eats gems for nourishment. Meanwhile, back at Kohhori's village, the evil Spaniard colonizers invade looking for the Fountain of Youth (which is the rumored power in the lake) and when they can't access it like the Mohawks did, they start enslaving her entire village and dragging them back to the ships to take to Spain. Kohhori plunges into the lake and gets superpowers. Unlimited Mary Sue powers like super speed, powerful blasts, super strength, even the apparent ability to teleport. She beseeches all of the immortal Indians to come back to the village and help her defeat the Spaniards but they don't want to leave. So she tries to defeat them herself and is doing a good job until getting overwhelmed by too much cannon fire. Then the immortal Indians come to her aid and pretty much kill most of the Spaniards, leaving a few to escape. A little while later, there's a scene in Queen Isabella's court where she is a grumpy evil woman who wants to kill and enslave the natives and is mad that she is being opposed by those natives. Suddenly, Kohhori and her friends TELEPORT ALL THE WAY TO SPAIN, levitate Isabella in the air and destroy her throne, and force her to make peace with the New World. Doctor Strange arrives and comments "World Peace in record time".

Apparently, all it takes is giving 'marginalized people' superpowers and world peace is achieved by force. The theme of this episode is decolonization, and that's also the purpose of Kohhori and her Mohawk friends. She's not a well-developed character - she's an ideological stance made flesh, like many of these woke 'creations'. She's there to smash the West and teach it a lesson. The writers of this episode probably have Palestinian flags displayed in their offices.

Do I have another complaint? Yep. The whole Fountain of Youth quest had to do with Ponce De Leon, and he was searching FLORIDA for it, where he came into contact with the Seminoles and other southern tribes. The Mohawks, on the other hand, were allied with the Iroquois Confederacy and were located in what would become upstate New York about 1500 miles away. The Spaniards never came close to that area. It would have been considered New France and was right in the middle of the battlegrounds of the French & Indian war, which the British and their colonies and Indian allies won over the French and their Indian allies. The TV show should have depicted evil French colonizers instead, but then that wouldn't have provided an excuse for a Tesseract to give the Mohawks their powers because the French were mainly just there to build forts that enabled them to trap furs. In their zeal to spew their ideology, the writers completely fucked up early American history. Congratulations.

SKIP THIS FUCKING MESS.

[Mr. X]

I saw the last episode. Need more cow bell. Scratch that - its nothing but cow bell.

Nothing makes sense. Nothing matters.

[Dogfish]

I think it's hilarious that now the MCU is fast becoming a chore for people who aren't super into it already that on top of making all the required reading that you need to do to properly enjoy the next main movie they're also making a show about stuff that won't be on the test.

Well done Disney, you've made a TV show that is as appealing as an extra-credit assignment.

[Mr. X]

I think it's hilarious that now the MCU is fast becoming a chore for people who aren't super into it already that on top of making all the required reading that you need to do to properly enjoy the next main movie they're also making a show about stuff that won't be on the test.

Well done Disney, you've made a TV show that is as appealing as an extra-credit assignment.

Yes most of the time I'm asking "who is that minor character who now has super powers."

With all the replacement characters its like when you go to the Dollar Store to buy a toy but instead of Ironman they have Metalman.
Its like the MCU became the Dollar Store version of itself.

[shevek]

I think it's hilarious that now the MCU is fast becoming a chore for people who aren't super into it already that on top of making all the required reading that you need to do to properly enjoy the next main movie they're also making a show about stuff that won't be on the test.

Well done Disney, you've made a TV show that is as appealing as an extra-credit assignment.

Yes most of the time I'm asking "who is that minor character who now has super powers."

With all the replacement characters its like when you go to the Dollar Store to buy a toy but instead of Ironman they have Metalman.
Its like the MCU became the Dollar Store version of itself.

This makes me think of Alpha Flight. None of those characters have been used in the MCU at all (I wonder why?) and among them are two strong Native characters: Shaman and his gorgeous daughter, Talisman, plus they fight real threats from Native folklore such as the Wendigo. There is also Danielle Moonstar from New Mutants, a beautiful Cheyenne Indian.

Instead, they created a random Mohawk with wildly inaccurate history whose single purpose is to create a "decolonized" reality. This is the saga of the woke.

[lionbadger]

Ummmm...."how to make your sexy character more conservative" is the SAME THING as "how to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character."
A hardcore conservative would look at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because church God Bible morals religion corrupting young minds blah blah blah claptrap from the pulpit."
A hardcore progressive looks at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because cultural appropriation male gaze decolonization objectification claptrap from academia."

yes, correct, we have 2 arguments on how to be conservative now, hilarious

[Mr. X]

yes, correct, we have 2 arguments on how to be conservative now, hilarious

And what I argue is take it one step further and see these people as one group who are self elected social police and they merely use whatever is the power base of the day to police. They are the same people. Same mentality. Religion or woke don't matter, those are just platforms/tools. Church ladies or Karens... they are the same.

[shevek]

Ummmm...."how to make your sexy character more conservative" is the SAME THING as "how to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character."
A hardcore conservative would look at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because church God Bible morals religion corrupting young minds blah blah blah claptrap from the pulpit."
A hardcore progressive looks at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because cultural appropriation male gaze decolonization objectification claptrap from academia."

yes, correct, we have 2 arguments on how to be conservative now, hilarious

It's not about being "conservative". That's the wrong terminology. Conservative simply means preserving things from the past the way they are.
Progressive means changing things as quickly as possible. Most people are Centrist or Classical Liberal - they accept a modicum of very gradual change as long as it is beneficial to them. Both extreme ideologies are falsely premised on this issue because 1) there have always been sexy women and there always will be and 2) there has always been the male gaze and there always will be. Centrism just accepts it and moves on to something that's actually important, like getting the streets paved and the garbage picked up.

What you're talking about is two arguments on how to be TOTALITARIAN. Puritanical. Authoritarian. Surveillance. Dogma. Compulsion. etc.
However you want to say it, it's about controlling what everyone does to keep them happy and the powerful in charge.
The opposite of totalitarian is libertarian. Freedom. Liberty. Autonomy. Voluntary. Self-Determination.

I'm actually in the middle right now of watching "They Cloned Tyrone" (it's woke, but it makes valid points) and it has me thinking about these dichotomies.

[DonShip]

Ummmm...."how to make your sexy character more conservative" is the SAME THING as "how to drain all the possible sexiness out of your woke character."
A hardcore conservative would look at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because church God Bible morals religion corrupting young minds blah blah blah claptrap from the pulpit."
A hardcore progressive looks at the 1995 drawing of Pocahontas and say "she shouldn't be sexy because cultural appropriation male gaze decolonization objectification claptrap from academia."

yes, correct, we have 2 arguments on how to be conservative now, hilarious

It's not about being "conservative". That's the wrong terminology. Conservative simply means preserving things from the past the way they are.
Progressive means changing things as quickly as possible. Most people are Centrist or Classical Liberal - they accept a modicum of very gradual change as long as it is beneficial to them. Both extreme ideologies are falsely premised on this issue because 1) there have always been sexy women and there always will be and 2) there has always been the male gaze and there always will be. Centrism just accepts it and moves on to something that's actually important, like getting the streets paved and the garbage picked up.

What you're talking about is two arguments on how to be TOTALITARIAN. Puritanical. Authoritarian. Surveillance. Dogma. Compulsion. etc.
However you want to say it, it's about controlling what everyone does to keep them happy and the powerful in charge.
The opposite of totalitarian is libertarian. Freedom. Liberty. Autonomy. Voluntary. Self-Determination.

I'm actually in the middle right now of watching "They Cloned Tyrone" (it's woke, but it makes valid points) and it has me thinking about these dichotomies.

Well said.

[lionbadger]

yes, correct, we have 2 arguments on how to be conservative now, hilarious
[/quote]

It's not about being "conservative". That's the wrong terminology. Conservative simply means preserving things from the past the way they are.
Progressive means changing things as quickly as possible.

What you're talking about is two arguments on how to be TOTALITARIAN. Puritanical. Authoritarian. Surveillance.
The opposite of totalitarian is libertarian. Freedom. Liberty. Autonomy. Voluntary. Self-Determination.
[/quote]

It is about being conservative, you've two clubs battling for control of the same thing (probably because addressing the real structural issues of poverty and inequality in America isn't a great grift - but that's for a different forum).

you're right, conservative means preserving things from the past, like female modesty, like tribal purity, like the monarchy, like the power of the church (though church has probably become a load of weird cults that still rule on social norms) both sides are arguing about the same thing and it is hilarious

Mr X sees it (honesty surprised me)

you're saying "yeah that's true but no!"

it's funny, in a depressing Doug Stanhope way and I just wonder what's going to change it

[shevek]

It is about being conservative, you've two clubs battling for control of the same thing (probably because addressing the real structural issues of poverty and inequality in America isn't a great grift - but that's for a different forum).

you're right, conservative means preserving things from the past, like female modesty, like tribal purity, like the monarchy, like the power of the church (though church has probably become a load of weird cults that still rule on social norms) both sides are arguing about the same thing and it is hilarious

Mr X sees it (honesty surprised me)

you're saying "yeah that's true but no!"

it's funny, in a depressing Doug Stanhope way and I just wonder what's going to change it

First of all: addressing 'poverty and inequality' is a fantastic grift. Often, it's called "DEI", and thousands of university graduates with otherwise worthless diplomas have been making money off it for a few years now in corporations, institutions and government. One such organization made over $90 million in grift, converting it into mansions for themselves and cash for their relatives. Another such organization squirrels away billions with the assistance of a Middle Eastern despot while deliberately keeping its people in grinding poverty to burn them as living virtue fuel. Oh, there's much more grift than you can even imagine.

Yes, you've got two extreme clubs (technically three, if you count Islam) battling for complete control of society, but please understand the extent of what these clubs are because the common theme is not "conservatism".

- Religious conservatism is not just Christian or Western. It is RELIGIOUS. In other words, Islamofascism and Hindutva are religious conservatism just as much as fundamentalist Christianity is. And both of those have MORE adherents than right-wing Christianity does and plenty of political power globally. You just don't hear about it because the Western media just doesn't want to explain it or fully understand it.

- Ideological hard-leftism is not "conservative". Yes, it goes all the way around the horseshoe and meets the hard right when it comes to methods of power and control. But it does not want to "preserve". It wants to BURN DOWN. It is revolutionary. Whenever and wherever you see it in action, there is no creation, there is destruction. No matter what else you hear about it, that is it's prime aspect: get rid of all Western institutions. And that is not conservative, that is progressive (at least, it is in their eyes). Sure, both are technically "purification" but it is a very different kind that must be classified differently.

This is why it initially meshes in with the goals of Islamofascism, and you have this tentative red-green alliance, because both parties want to burn down the West and start again. It's only the "start again" part which is the problem because after the destruction of the West happens, the two erstwhile allies won't agree on almost anything else, and the "Gays for Palestine" will be thrown off the tops of the buildings.

- So yes, the hard right and the hard left do agree on a few of the same things. They both hate Jews, and the constitutional freedoms of America, and the liberal expressions of the West, and the exposure of the female body which is simply an *aspect* of the liberal expressions of the West. They both use ethnic minorities as scapegoats, purse puppies or human shields. They both want authoritarian control of people's lives down to the smallest detail. But they differ greatly: one is about "preservation", and the other is about "destruction".

Now, while we're getting distracted arguing about this, you know who is really in charge? The billionaires with all the money. The thing is: these titans are NOT all on the same side. Some are despotic leaders of countries, others are heads of corporations, and still others are techno-bureaucrats puppeteering behind the scenes. The most ambitious people in the world are those who have figured out how to fairly quickly join that elite club (note: it's not always an inherited position). Sometimes their interests mesh, and sometimes they clash, but almost every one of them has a slightly different agenda. The great battles of the globe are between these formidable forces, while people like us are mere cannon fodder. It's modern feudalism (as has been noted occasionally by astute observers).

The battles will always rage. All you can try to do is to stay as comfortable and safe as possible while the conflict continues ad infinitum. So, the answer to your question is that NOTHING is going to really change it overnight or radically. But neither are we "better off" with any philosophy that wants to burn everything down and start from scratch.

That's why I'm mostly a centrist and classical-liberal who believes that the best kind of change is that which happens so gradually that you barely even notice it, and that the changes become mainstream over a few generations until we just can't imagine living any other way because everything seems fine and stable. Unfortunately, the culture of instant gratification cultivated by social media, as well as the rapid pace of technological progress, seems to mitigate against that, and so you have these violent spasms which occur, prompted and approved of by the billionaire class, to keep everyone in line and/or distracted from the deeper initiatives such as the implementation of their systems of control onto us.

Apologies that the discussion has veered so far away from the actual topic of the thread, but it seems like there's agreement in the thread that this What If animated series is pretty useless (none of the What If title questions even bring up interesting alternate scenarios, anyway) and not worth watching anyway, and even the OP (Mr. X) seems to agree with that, as well. So, with that being said, maybe the thread should just die in ignominy. Or, we can continue arguing over the use of the term "conservative" if you want. Whatever.

[sugarcoater]

It is about being conservative, you've two clubs battling for control of the same thing (probably because addressing the real structural issues of poverty and inequality in America isn't a great grift - but that's for a different forum).

you're right, conservative means preserving things from the past, like female modesty, like tribal purity, like the monarchy, like the power of the church (though church has probably become a load of weird cults that still rule on social norms) both sides are arguing about the same thing and it is hilarious

Mr X sees it (honesty surprised me)

you're saying "yeah that's true but no!"

it's funny, in a depressing Doug Stanhope way and I just wonder what's going to change it

First of all: addressing 'poverty and inequality' is a fantastic grift. Often, it's called "DEI", and thousands of university graduates with otherwise worthless diplomas have been making money off it for a few years now in corporations, institutions and government. One such organization made over $90 million in grift, converting it into mansions for themselves and cash for their relatives. Another such organization squirrels away billions with the assistance of a Middle Eastern despot while deliberately keeping its people in grinding poverty to burn them as living virtue fuel. Oh, there's much more grift than you can even imagine.

Yes, you've got two extreme clubs (technically three, if you count Islam) battling for complete control of society, but please understand the extent of what these clubs are because the common theme is not "conservatism".

- Religious conservatism is not just Christian or Western. It is RELIGIOUS. In other words, Islamofascism and Hindutva are religious conservatism just as much as fundamentalist Christianity is. And both of those have MORE adherents than right-wing Christianity does and plenty of political power globally. You just don't hear about it because the Western media just doesn't want to explain it or fully understand it.

- Ideological hard-leftism is not "conservative". Yes, it goes all the way around the horseshoe and meets the hard right when it comes to methods of power and control. But it does not want to "preserve". It wants to BURN DOWN. It is revolutionary. Whenever and wherever you see it in action, there is no creation, there is destruction. No matter what else you hear about it, that is it's prime aspect: get rid of all Western institutions. And that is not conservative, that is progressive (at least, it is in their eyes). Sure, both are technically "purification" but it is a very different kind that must be classified differently.

This is why it initially meshes in with the goals of Islamofascism, and you have this tentative red-green alliance, because both parties want to burn down the West and start again. It's only the "start again" part which is the problem because after the destruction of the West happens, the two erstwhile allies won't agree on almost anything else, and the "Gays for Palestine" will be thrown off the tops of the buildings.

- So yes, the hard right and the hard left do agree on a few of the same things. They both hate Jews, and the constitutional freedoms of America, and the liberal expressions of the West, and the exposure of the female body which is simply an *aspect* of the liberal expressions of the West. They both use ethnic minorities as scapegoats, purse puppies or human shields. They both want authoritarian control of people's lives down to the smallest detail. But they differ greatly: one is about "preservation", and the other is about "destruction".

Now, while we're getting distracted arguing about this, you know who is really in charge? The billionaires with all the money. The thing is: these titans are NOT all on the same side. Some are despotic leaders of countries, others are heads of corporations, and still others are techno-bureaucrats puppeteering behind the scenes. The most ambitious people in the world are those who have figured out how to fairly quickly join that elite club (note: it's not always an inherited position). Sometimes their interests mesh, and sometimes they clash, but almost every one of them has a slightly different agenda. The great battles of the globe are between these formidable forces, while people like us are mere cannon fodder. It's modern feudalism (as has been noted occasionally by astute observers).

The battles will always rage. All you can try to do is to stay as comfortable and safe as possible while the conflict continues ad infinitum. So, the answer to your question is that NOTHING is going to really change it overnight or radically. But neither are we "better off" with any philosophy that wants to burn everything down and start from scratch.

That's why I'm mostly a centrist and classical-liberal who believes that the best kind of change is that which happens so gradually that you barely even notice it, and that the changes become mainstream over a few generations until we just can't imagine living any other way because everything seems fine and stable. Unfortunately, the culture of instant gratification cultivated by social media, as well as the rapid pace of technological progress, seems to mitigate against that, and so you have these violent spasms which occur, prompted and approved of by the billionaire class, to keep everyone in line and/or distracted from the deeper initiatives such as the implementation of their systems of control onto us.

Apologies that the discussion has veered so far away from the actual topic of the thread, but it seems like there's agreement in the thread that this What If animated series is pretty useless (none of the What If title questions even bring up interesting alternate scenarios, anyway) and not worth watching anyway, and even the OP (Mr. X) seems to agree with that, as well. So, with that being said, maybe the thread should just die in ignominy. Or, we can continue arguing over the use of the term "conservative" if you want. Whatever.

Regardless of whether I agree, disagree, or a little of both, I find Shevek's analytical posts well worth reading and reflect a thoughtful mind. Good post.

[Mr. X]

Mr X sees it (honesty surprised me)

Yeah cause I'm an old lefty and classic liberal, not conservative.

[heroinehunter]

I only enjoyed a couple of the episodes. The Nebula/Blade Runner episode was rather good. Marvel 1602 was entertaining but needed a fuller cast. I do like the character of Captain Carter - I'm probably one of the few who feels there should be an 8-10 episode series on Disney+. Sort of like an Elseworlds series.

However, for me, it is way past time for a complete MCU. I mean that it's time for the Fantastic 4, X-Men, and a new Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow to all be in the same world and make a complete MCU. That's what fans want now. Don't try to drag it out for years or even a decade. Now. As in three years ago. If Marvel/Disney is smart, use the Avengers: Secret Wars to introduce other characters and reboot your films.

[Mr. X]

Yeah Captain Carter doesn't rub me the wrong way. At least you understand her power set not like the Indian girl or Capt Marvel.

I think the snap in Infinity War should have been the end. Then they could make up anything after that.

[shevek]

I only enjoyed a couple of the episodes. The Nebula/Blade Runner episode was rather good.

It actually was - thanks for the recommendation. It's obvious, though, that they're leaning heavily on the female characters (in this case, both the protagonist and the main antagonist) in the latest line of stories. Plusses: some peril for Nebula (shocks and beatings) and an alternate universe of Howard the Duck who runs a casino.

The other thing I noticed upon reading the episode summaries is that they've made another sneaky attempt to bring back the Ultraverse again (which nobody seems to notice). Marvel seems to do this every now and then, very much under the radar, possibly so as not to violate the secret NDA they signed with Malibu Comics' Scott Rosenberg. The same actress who played Ultraverse amazon Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok also plays her in What If S2 E4 as the enforcer of the Grandmaster on the planet Sakaar. Guess I'll have to skim through that to see what she looks like, since she was my favorite character in the Ultraforce.

Oh Christ, never mind, she looks terrible, I'm not watching it.
This is what Marvel thinks women look like in 2023

What_If..._Topaz_infobox.jpg (268.82 KiB) Viewed 793 times

Topaz.jpg (118.36 KiB) Viewed 793 times

vs this is what Topaz looked like in the 90s. (I have an action figure of this one)

topaz ultraforce.JPG (358.4 KiB) Viewed 793 times

[Danorian]

I only enjoyed a couple of the episodes. The Nebula/Blade Runner episode was rather good.

It actually was - thanks for the recommendation. It's obvious, though, that they're leaning heavily on the female characters (in this case, both the protagonist and the main antagonist) in the latest line of stories. Plusses: some peril for Nebula (shocks and beatings) and an alternate universe of Howard the Duck who runs a casino.

The other thing I noticed upon reading the episode summaries is that they've made another sneaky attempt to bring back the Ultraverse again (which nobody seems to notice). Marvel seems to do this every now and then, very much under the radar, possibly so as not to violate the secret NDA they signed with Malibu Comics' Scott Rosenberg. The same actress who played Ultraverse amazon Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok also plays her in What If S2 E4 as the enforcer of the Grandmaster on the planet Sakaar. Guess I'll have to skim through that to see what she looks like, since she was my favorite character in the Ultraforce.

Oh Christ, never mind, she looks terrible, I'm not watching it.
This is what Marvel thinks women look like in 2023

What_If..._Topaz_infobox.jpg

Topaz.jpg

vs this is what Topaz looked like in the 90s. (I have an action figure of this one)

topaz ultraforce.JPG

I'd hate to think what they'd do to Mantra!

[shevek]

I'd hate to think what they'd do to Mantra!

Not to draw this too far off topic again, but regarding the Ultraverse....

Other than Topaz briefly appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy and then What If?, there was only one other Ultraverse mention which also came
out this year:

"Who Is Adam Warlock #1", a digital-only release on Marvel Unlimited's digital app back in May, included a reference to **Rune**, written by the legendary Ralph Macchio (the comic book writer, not the actor).

And that's it. No mentions of Mantra, sorry!