Weekly MCU Review for April 29

Another week, and more MCU news!  Not a ton of MCU-related news this week, but only because I didn’t include the mountains of press for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which hits theaters next weekend.  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 TL;DW

Image Courtesy www.ew.com

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens in U.S. theaters just over a week from today on Friday, May 5.  This will be the 15^th movie released as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which also includes a number of tie-in comics as well as an entire line-up of television series (on ABC, Netflix, and (soon) Hulu and Freeform).  Considering how well received the first Guardians of the Galaxy was, it’s pretty likely that a lot of people are going to see the second one.  However, it’s entirely possible that people will be seeing this movie as their entry into the MCU.  So to help these people out, here is a “Too Long; Didn’t Watch” summary of the MCU to date, focusing especially on what is relevant to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  At the end I will offer my suggestions for movies that you should watch (or rewatch) before going to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and why.  We’ll start from the beginning, with Iron Man.

Note:  There will (obviously) be spoilers.  Also, these TL;DW articles are starting to get loooong!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 19, "All the Madame's Men" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com

You know, I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to watch this show when it first airs, considering my struggles the last two weeks!  In fact, when the episode first started, I half expected the TV to spontaneously combust just to make it a trifecta of missing episodes.  Fortunately, however, the television remained intact, the satellite was unaffected by the weather, and I did not receive any last-minute hospital calls, so my Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.-watching experience was uninterrupted.

And what an experience it was!  There are a lot of things that this series has been doing well with the Framework pod of episodes, and they are on full display in this episode.  There are some less-successful elements as well, but as a whole it is a very enjoyable episode.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 18, "No Regrets," REVIEW (SPOILERS) and Episode 19, "All the Madame's Men" EXPECTATIONS

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So obviously my plans for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t come together quite the way I expected them to.  I didn’t watch it yesterday; I watched it today.  I’m not going to post a separate article with expectations for tonight’s episode; that will be at the bottom of this (somewhat abbreviated) review.

That being said, the “Framework” pod of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes has not disappointed me yet!  I kind of expected both “twists” in this episode, but they were handled in such a way that I wasn’t too disappointed at being unsurprised.

The New Warriors Line-up

Image Courtesy news.marvel.com

As I mentioned this morning in the Weekly MCU Review, Marvel and Freeform just announced the full roster for the New Warriors, and it looks pretty interesting.  If you remember from my previous articles about the potential of a group of teen heroes in the MCU, I had only really called 1 or 2 of the heroes they selected, but I’m certainly not upset about that—I’ve gotten pretty good at making wrong predictions on this blog!

With that being said, let’s take some time to familiarize with the heroes Marvel and Freeform selected for the (first iteration of the) New Warriors.

Weekly MCU Review for April 22

Another week, and more MCU news!  There’s all kinds of news about movies wrapping production and scheduling the start of their production, plus a whole bunch of TV news.  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 17, "Identity and Change" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com

Well, it took quite a while (and abc.go.com didn’t want to cooperate with me) but I finally managed to watch last week’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  And it was certainly worth the wait.  There are a lot of things going on inside the Framework, and a lot of our favorite characters’ personalities are being explored in new and different ways.  There are a lot of fun moments in the episode, but there are also a lot of serious things going on, as well.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 18, "No Regrets" EXPECTATIONS (Sort of)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 4 continues tonight with “No Regrets” (4x18).  However, I only just got my DirecTV local channels fixed yesterday afternoon, so I will be recording this week’s episode to watch later, and I will be watching and reviewing last week’s episode before watching this week’s.  So what can you expect for this week?

• I plan to watch and review last week’s episode today or tomorrow, depending on where I can find it
• I will then watch and review this week’s episode on Friday, so you can expect that review later in the day on Friday
• Next week I will (hopefully) be back to my usual schedule

Iron Fist REVIEW Part 3 (The Villains) SPOILERS

Image Courtesy www.ign.com

Before moving on to the side characters in my series of Iron Fist reviews, we need to take some time and talk about the villains.  There are three of them in the series, and each have their positive aspects.  However, none of the villains are perfect.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe catches a lot of flak for its lack of good, well-rounded villains, particularly on the movie side.  I have noted in my movie reviews that I find most of these complaints, though valid, to be overblown.  On the television side of the MCU, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has done a respectable job of creating compelling and interesting villains, particularly once they were able to take off the gloves and really push the Hydra angle in the back third of season 1.  However, the most interesting and compelling villains in the whole MCU have been those on the Netflix side:  Wilson Fisk, Kilgrave, and Diamondback, in particular.  Thanks to the extended runtime and binge-watching format, these villains were all given full arcs and fleshed-out back stories tying them to their respective heroes in personal ways.

Unfortunately, this strong streak does not continue with the three villains of Iron Fist.

Weekly MCU Review for Holy Saturday

Another week, and more MCU news!  So we got the first trailers for both Thor: Ragnarok and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  And that’s about as much as our little brains could handle!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review DELAYED

So I was hoping that I could talk about last night's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode today, but unfortunately, DirecTV had other plans.  For some reason, all of the local channels were unavailable last night (not just our local ABC affiliate).  So instead of watching last night's episode, we watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was fun, but isn't Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and we have it on DVD so we can watch it any time).

Considering that this is the middle of Holy Week, I don't know when I will have time to hunt for last night's episode online, so it may be a while before I review it.  Please call the following number with any complaints:  800-531-5000.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 17, "Identity and Change" EXPECTATIONS

Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues tonight with “Identity and Change” (4x17) at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific.  What do we expect from tonight's episode?

Iron Fist REVIEW Part 2: In Defense of Colleen Wing

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When I was thinking about my review series looking at Iron Fist, an article discussing the character of Colleen Wing seemed like a no-brainer.  After all, she is one of the main characters and a love interest.  Additionally, she is based on a character with a long and interesting history in the comic books.  And it doesn’t hurt that she is already confirmed for an appearance in The Defenders.

However, those were not the primary reasons why I decided that I wanted to write this article. In reality, this originated as a reaction to a couple negative reviews I read shortly after the series premiered in which the reviewers noted their dislike for Colleen’s character in this series.  However, any more than that will risk spoiling elements of the series.

At the outset, it should be enough to say that I really like Colleen’s character arc in this season and think that it is setting up a strong future for her in the Marvel Netflix series.

Weekly MCU Review for April 8

Another week, and more MCU news!  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back, we know when The Defenders will be released, and there’s all kinds of other news from Marvel TV!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 16, "What If..." REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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So Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back. And it is pretty much insane! This is certainly shaping up to be the craziest pod of episodes that we’ve seen from this series. Nothing is as it seems, the characters are all different than we remember, and some of the sides have completely changed. Hydra won over S.H.I.E.L.D., so Hail the New World Order!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 16, "What If..." EXPECTATIONS

Image Courtesy
www.screenrant.com

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns for the third and final “pod” of episodes in season 4 tonight. Enter the Framework with “What If…” (4x16) at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific.  What do we expect from tonight's episode?

Weekly MCU Review for April 1 (April Fools' Day)

Another week, and more MCU news!  Sony is still moving forward with their Venom and Black Cat/Silver Sable movies (and that's not an April Fools' joke).  But on the bright side, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns this Tuesday!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!