Falcon and winter solider

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don’t think any of that challenges what I said.

I disagree, and (currently) 3 others seem to as well.

 

[tomBitonti]

I guess the question is....what are the standing orders regarding the flag smashers? Are they to be taken as prisoners', or are they enemy soldiers where lethal force is authorized?

The attack was brutal but honestly may have been justified under the current rules of engagement. But of course, having your Captain America brutally finish a guy on camera is just bad PR, even if he was "allowed to" based on his current orders.

I'm asking trying to think back on the various OG Captain America scenes, as I have a theory. Do we ever really see OG Cap get truly "angry". I could argue that the serum for him would always turn his anger into "determination", whereas with John it turned it into "rage".

Well, it looked like killing was entirely unnecessary. The guy was down and out when new cap killed him. It seemed that the killing served New cap’s rage. Would the killing be justified if the guy had surrendered and had ceased to offer resistance?
TomB

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I disagree, and (currently) 3 others seem to disagree.

Most of your post doesn’t even engage with the same ideas and conflicts that I referred to. It read, to me, like you meant to reply to someone else. What does it have to do with anything I said?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I disagree. I think they earned it. Zemo won in Civil War.

What on earth does this have to do with whether the MCU has earned the whole premise that superheroes are maybe bad for the world, which is Zemo’s whole thing?

The only thing he lost was his opportunity to take his life when T'challa stopped him from shooting himself. His methods were/are completely wrong, but his points that power should not be handed to people who don't deserve it (and very, very few truly deserve power), and that good/well-meaning symbols can be used in bad ways are correct. With great power comes great responsibility and symbols/ideals are tools and not excuses.

what is with the rant about excuses? Zemo believes the world is better off without superheroes, but the MCU just kinda...started having people say that without at all showing any really good reason for a rational person to believe it. It’s understandable that Zemo believes it, but he’s clearly wrong.

 

[Tonguez]

What on earth does this have to do with whether the MCU has earned the whole premise that superheroes are maybe bad for the world, which is Zemo’s whole thing?

what is with the rant about excuses? Zemo believes the world is better off without superheroes, but the MCU just kinda...started having people say that without at all showing any really good reason for a rational person to believe it. It’s understandable that Zemo believes it, but he’s clearly wrong.

Wasnt the entire plot of Age of Ultron and Civil War about the fact that Superheroes cause as many problems as they solve and thus need to be contained? Even Spiderman Homecoming and WandaVision cue the same questions about whether Superheroes are a boon or a menace to society.
Really the MCU has been meditating on the question from the beginning (notably Hulk and Ironman), but Zemo has been the best articulation of the conundrum ...

 

[Stalker0]

Was just rewatching Captain America: The First Avenger.

The last line from Red Skull is actually pretty cool when you consider FWS: "I have seen the future Captain, there are no flags".

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wasnt the entire plot of Age of Ultron and Civil War about the fact that Superheroes cause as many problems as they solve and thus need to be contained? Even Spiderman Homecoming and WandaVision cue the same questions about whether Superheroes are a boon or a menace to society.
Really the MCU has been meditating on the question from the beginning (notably Hulk and Ironman), but Zemo has been the best articulation of the conundrum ...

Sure, the MCU has tried to hamfist this nonsense idea into the franchise, but it really fails most of the time, and the other times are only partial failures.

Age of Ultron isn’t a result of superheroes, it’s a result of a scientist developing AI tech too recklessly. The superheroes then stop the AI monster from murdering humanity or whatever. It’s only to give personal stakes and create internal and interteam struggle that the scientist happens to also be part of the team, but nothing about Ultron’s creation actually relies on the existence of superheroes. In a timeline without supers, Ultron could just as easily come about, and have no one to stop him.

Wandavision and civil war make a spectacle case for oversight of superheroes, for sure, though the incident with Wanda in CW is...extremely normal for US military action abroad, so it falls a bit flat for me.

The worst case is attempts to paint the battle of New York as somehow indicative of this whole “supers break as much as they save” garbage notion. They saved the world from an alien invasion. The alien invaders broke part of the city, and the Avengers contained the damage while minimizing casualties, and stopped the invasion. Whatever fallout comes from alien tech and whatever else, is on Loki and the alien invaders. This is like blaming firefighters for water damage. It’s obnoxiously silly.

The only things Zemo is right about are;

• It’s a bit sad but predictable that none of them visited the Sokovia memorial (also BS Steve didn’t. Nope. Steve absolutely 100% would have.)
• He is right to be bitter about his home, and to direct that at Stark, and at the Avengers for not holding Stark accountable
• Symbols can be dangerous sometimes. He wildly exaggerated the case, but technically he is right that they can be.

 

[Tonguez]

Was just rewatching Captain America: The First Avenger.

The last line from Red Skull is actually pretty cool when you consider FWS: "I have seen the future Captain, there are no flags".

That is pretty cool, and I’d be truely in awe if it was planned that way from the very beginning - I suppose, the writers do take notes from the earlier films and does Feige maintain a MCU bible?

 

[DeviousQuail]

He was also the only Flag Smasher that we’ve seen trying to keep Karli from engaging in her most extreme impulses. Narratively, of course it had to be him that Walker would kill.

And he looked up to the original Captain America (convo with Karli in the cemetary). Being brutally killed with Cap's shield just makes it all the more tragic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But, is that a bad thing? They've done a good job at outlining the characters, to the point that we can understand what they're doing and why they're doing it.

It's a bad thing when supposedly competent characters act like idiots. Walker getting distracted is in character, but Sam, Bucky and Ayo should all have known better than to let Zemo out of their sight for an instant.