Tag: Marvel Television

Marvel, Movies

Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider Should Be MCU’s First R-Rated Film

The television side of the MCU hasn’t crossed over to the film side yet for many reasons. However, I think Robbie Reyes would be the perfect bridge to officially connect these sides of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also for Marvel Studios to have the first R-rated film on their roster. If you’ve watched season four of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or at least have a good idea of what happened in the season, you’ll know that Robbie Reyes a.k.a Ghost Rider appeared; and he was freaking awesome! Robbie Reyes needs a solo project, and he should be one of  the characters that should get an R-rated film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Interview, Marvel

The Iron Fist That Almost Was: One-on-One with Steven Maeda

It’s been nearly two weeks since Iron Fist debuted all 13 episodes of its initial season on Netflix. Prior to its release, the first half of the season previewed for critics received a drubbing the likes of which is unheard of for a Marvel/Netflix property. I’ve since watched the whole season, and yeah, it wasn’t good. Setting aside my issues with the casting of the lead, Iron Fist suffers from the worst sin of any piece of entertainment: it’s boring! Worse than that, it has absolutely zero point of view. I still don’t know what Scott Buck is trying to say with this show. To that end, I wrote a post about different Asian American showrunners who could have brought a unique perspective to the Iron Fist story that the current show lacks. In response to my article on twitter, one of those writers, Steven Maeda, even revealed he actually pitched an Iron Fist concept to Marvel!

I reached out to the former X-Files and Lost writer to get the skinny on what happened to his pitch to Marvel.

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Marvel, Television

Iron Cyst and the Eight Point Strike

It’s too bad Iron Fist wasn’t remotely close to being as entertaining and brilliant as the backlash it’s been receiving. If it had, it would’ve been as popular as Daredevil or Luke Cage as opposed to being one of the biggest punchlines of 2017.

I’m sure one day we’ll all be tired of the proverbial “T” Madame Gao is serving us.

However, today is not that day.

Shifting into Midnighter mode, I’m about to demonstrate my 8-point strike on the fustercluck of white mediocrity that is Iron Cyst.

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Art, Marvel

Thanks to Jen Bartel, Kris Anka: This #AAIronFist Redesign Took Over Twitter

This past weekend, Netflix finally dropped all 13 episodes of Iron Fist. For the most part, the internet was not pleased. While a smattering of Fist Stans tried their damnedest to pretend what they watched was, you know, good, the consensus among critics (and fans too) was this was Marvel’s first big miss. There was one awesome outcome of the Iron Fist debacle, however: a slew of awesome comics artists began sharing their takes on a redesigned Asian American Danny (or Dani) Rand! And it all started when Jen Bartel shared her riff on Kris Anka’s original:

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Marvel, Television

Iron Fist Abridged: The Adventures of Iron Goldendoodle & The Bargain Bin Lannisters!

by Andrea Tang

This weekend, between bouts of story-editing, I meandered my way through the first four episodes of Netflix’s Iron Fist, which I’m actually quite enjoying so far, probably for the same reasons I’ve seen Vampire Academy three times. I’m pretty sure the writers pitched this series as, “What would happen if you put a goldendoodle puppy in the body of a WASPy ten-year-old blue blood, then traumatically dropped him off in the Himalayas for Fifteen Whole Gap Yahs? Probably, he would die, but that is boring and untrue to comics canon, so what if we made kung fu magic happen along the way in a manner most likely to bring the wrath of Edward Said’s ghost down on our heads? LET’S FIND OUT.”

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Marvel, Television

The Frustrating Aftermath of #AAIronFist

We are rapidly approaching the release of Iron Fist, the fourth Marvel series on Netflix, and reviews have been less than kind. When the show announced it had a (non-Asian American) showrunner, NOC re-introduced the hashtag #AAIronFist. It was an attempt to get Marvel to acknowledge that Iron Fist is a character whose origins are Asian, and should be played by a person of Asian descent, to increase representation in media.

For my part, I wrote an opinion piece about why we need an #AAIronFist. I submitted that being Asian, or even half-Asian, would give Danny Rand a depth to his character that we hadn’t seen before. The “stranger in a strange land” trope where the white man is the foreigner has been done to death, and is vaguely insulting. An 8-year old orphan comes to magical Asian land and becomes the ultimate martial artist? That right there is the definition of the white savior.

Why would my approach have been more interesting? Let me educate you on what it’s like to be an outsider.

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Marvel, Television

Five Showrunners Who Could Have Gotten Iron Fist Right

Three years ago, when I initially wrote about casting an Asian American in the lead role on Iron Fist, I had no idea the NOC would become ground zero for the #AAIronFist movement. I just never thought an Asian American Danny Rand was that radical a notion! Now that we’re on the eve of the show’s debut on Netflix — in addition to its star’s recent twitter tantrum — years-old arguments are starting to resurface on twitter and elsewhere. Coupled with early reviews savaging the series, I figured now was as good a time as any to resurrect one more Iron Fist thinkpiece before (hopefully) never having to talk about this goddamn show ever again.

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Guest Post, Marvel, Television

Finn Jones Whitesplains Iron Fist to Asian Woman Then Takes Twitter Timeout

by theblerdgurl | Originally posted on Medium

Yesterday, Finn Jones, the actor playing Danny Rand on the Netflix debut of Marvel’s live action version of Iron Fist abruptly quit twitter. He wasn’t being harrassed, he wasn’t threatened, there was no controversy. In fact, to most observers, he simply seemed to be having a conversation. This raised more than a few eyebrows, especially since the show is set to debut in less than two weeks on March 17.

On Sunday night, Jones appears to have gotten into a discussion on twitter with Asyiqin Haron, a 21 year old artist from Singapore who also happens to be the creative director for Geeks of Color, (Heron’s comments are from her own personal twitter account and she was not representing GOC or tweeting from their account when she made them).

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Marvel, Television

Color Commentary: Luke Cage

Color Commentary returns and this time we’re taking on the first season of Marvel’s Luke Cage.

In the spirit of MST3K and Honest Trailers, Color Commentary is done in complete satire, is intended for a mature audience and is meant for entertainment purposes only. In other words, if you take any of this seriously, you are a fracking idiot.

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Marvel, Television

#AAIronFist and The Law of Liefeld

So in desperate need of attention and relevance, Rob Liefeld has decided to weigh in on the #AAIronFist controversy.

For those of you just joining us, this summary here breaks it down.

Created at the height of the 1970s kung-fu movie craze, Iron Fist is an American who learns martial arts from masters at the hidden city of K’un-Lun. He becomes their best student and earns the power of Iron Fist, the ability to channel superhuman energy into his fists. Basically it’s a story about a white guy being better at martial arts than everyone else, steeped in tropes that critics regard as examples of cultural appropriation.

According to Liefeld, Iron Fist “has never ever been considered racist,” (never ever never ever) and casting an Asian American actor would be “reverse white-washing.”

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