Avengers 2 (Spoilers)

[Gaidin]

Ok sorry...having a hard time following the rage should have read ten more times... not equivalent... I think.

[Kojiro]

Okay. Stupid over-reaction. What a surprise. Incidentally, no outcry about the impotency joke?

Not that I'm aware of. If there is it's significantly smaller and unrelated to his departure from Twitter.

Bullshit. He announced before it was ever released and follow-up interviews make it seam apparent its because he was tired of fighting Marvels executive orders.

I'm not sure exactly what you're calling bullshit on here. When I say 'left' I mean Twitter, not the Marvel franchise (I have no idea there, though being bound into such an interconnected universe must be difficult at times). If it appeared I was claiming otherwise I apologise for the confusion.

I know that. Tell that to the people who seem to think that if a women ever needs saving then its sexism, regardless of the situation or anything else she's done

Chill out dude, I'm not disagreeing with you. I had no problem with BW's depiction. The rape joke is in bad taste but sometimes people make bad jokes. Even people who consider themselves adamant feminists it seems are prone to such lapses.

[Gandalf]

This article sums up my feelings about the treatment of Black Widow in the film, placed amidst the wider context of Marvel and women in general.

[Block]

The whole scene with the Hulk is about how she was just as inhuman as he was, because she voluntarily did everything they asked to become a weapon. Sterilization was one, yes, because "it made everything easier, even killing". The more important part was that she had to murder some guy with a bag on his head, learn to be a soulless killer, etc. She was showing how everything she'd done made her less than human.

[Jub]

I don't get the whole outrage over the sterilised = monster thing myself. It was clear that she wasn't talking about it as if that was what made her the monster, but rather that it cut the last real thread she had to humanity.

[Kojiro]

On a more movie related note, did anyone else see Ultron display some sort of... magnetic... power a couple times? Pulling Stark forward, ripping up the road in Korea... or did I miss something there?

[Lord Revan]

yeah he seemed to ability to manipulate his surroundings from a distance in a way that would not be consistent with standard ironman tech, the effect had is blue glow to it so it could be something granted to him by the mind gem (the effect looked similar to what the specter used in Avengers).

[madd0ct0r]

ugh guys, can anyone actually point me to this 'backlash'?

at best I can find brit articles talking about 'backlash' (quotes included) and a series of historical mentions of whedon talking down his chances of directing the next movies and slightly loonier blogs crowing how the femminists have chased another femminist off.

but no actual backlash I can see.

EDIT:
https://storify.com/Astojap/wehdon-twitter-hate

not a lot of context, and I really can't be bothered to check how real those various accounts are.

[LadyTevar]

I have seen The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it is GOOD. 8/10 for me, because some of the jokes did fall flat.

Wanda and Pietro are different from the mutant twins we saw in Xmen, and I like that. Different origins for their powers (assuming it's due to Centipede/Extremis-based), very good reasons for hating Tony Stark, and yes, a bit brainwashed by Hydra into thinking their sacrifice and actions are all to help Slovenia against the Amerikans. The grafitti of IronMan with American dollar signs showed the rest of the city, perhaps the country, also believed Hydra's spin-doctoring, and why not? Stark Technology rained bombs on them, even if Tony had no idea his weapons were being used. I felt for them, understood them, and yes, I understood why they turned on Ultron so fast as well. Ruining Stark was one thing; watching as their city, their country they had sacrificed for was going to be used to jump-start Armageddon was another. The twins saw themselves as Patriots and Guardians of their People. Genocide wasn't part of the plan.
As for the car pushed in front of Hawkeye and the Child: Force=Mass x Accelleration. Pietro had the accelleration to make up for the mass of the car. However, while he could see bullets fired from handguns, the quinjet's GAU-17/A Gatling Gun was shooting 2000-6000 rounds per minute. At the low end that was 33 bullets a second -- 100 per second at the higher end. The Flash might have been able to dance between them, but Quicksilver doesn't have that level of speed. He made a choice to be the hero, and died a hero's death. It gives Wanda a very strong need to prove herself a hero, now, especially since she left her chosen post to attempt to kill Ultron. Didn't work, she had to be rescued by Vision. She's got serious "Red in her Ledger".

Did anyone note how The Vision based his costume on Thor?
First, the blue 'armor', with the same quilted look as Thor's chest and arm armor. Then, after eyeing Thor again, the cloak clasps appear, and the golden cape unfurls. All Vibranium, I'm sure, especially since the cape looked metallic and flowed differently than Thor's fabric cloak. As for the Hammer, I liked the sheer casuallness of the scene. No big buildup of Vision reaching out and grasping it, no 'sword-in-stone' 'he-is-worthy!' climatic fireworks. Just a simple, 'trust me or not, we need to go, here's your weapon'. Helmsworth also totally sold that scene, simply by the look on his face, followed by the collective jaw-drop of the other Avengers.
Otherwise, the Vision was rather blah. Yes, he was a good match for Ultron, he cut Ultron off from escape to the 'web, and he was the one to finally finish off the insane machine, but otherwise? Meh... a dialogue on humanity, on life, on who he was.... then he got lost in the chaos of the battles. (His comment about Mjolnir's balance was something I'd seen between two Scadian fighters, giving a new/borrowed blade a swing or three. Even down to the quip about too much weight spoiling the swing.) Nice hit with Mjolnir tho... lots of distance.

Speaking of Thor... while some are saying he did not have that big a part outside of brawling, I say he had one of the biggest ones: He Saw the Infinity Stones Coming Together. Yes, he had to grab his old drinking buddy to help him find a Pool of Sight, but he was able to pierce the confusion of Wanda's mindfucker, and see the REAL Trouble. The Staff, opening to reveal the gem; the red ooze, evaporating to reveal another; the Tesseract, the third; AND Thor saw the Fourth Gem, which he shouldn't have know was loose because that happened in Guardians of the Galaxy. So, unless he'd been updated by Asgard about the whole Ronan thing and the explosion at The Collectors (where they stored the Red Ooze), Thor wouldn't have known about the 4th Stone. Writer's Mistake/Movie Typo, or Genuine Vision from the Seeing Pool?

Hawkeye got major props this movie. He really is the 'everyman' out of the Avengers: the only one with a stable, loving home life. While also having Capt's devotion to Doing His Duty. It also explains why Hawkeye looked so worried when Ultron had downloaded "everything about us". Yes, he had to go to the "safehouse", just to make sure Ultron hadn't found his family. Nice fakeout on the "don't have girlfriend/on phone with girlfriend" quips. I would have sworn he was covering for being on the line with Fury.

Cap ... was Cap. I didn't see much growth here, but I did see the deeping mistrust of Stark that will boil over into Civil War.

Black Widow/Hulk. Believe it or not, I thought it worked. Two people who see themselves as monsters, finding common ground? I totally ship it. While the lullaby may have started as a post-hypnotic suggestion, triggered first by "The sun is setting...," followed by the touching of hands, it built trust between them. This wasn't something they did in a day, this was to top off what we'd been seeing throughout the opening scene -- The Avengers had been working like this for months, taking down Hydra. Since Agent Hill was in on it, I'm 100% positive the Avengers were unknowingly acting on Coulson's orders, being fed info on targets that Coulson knew his team couldn't handle. I really need to do a AoS marathon to see if there's EasterEggs to this fact. Then again, it could all be Fury acting behind the scenes.

Tony. Tony Tony Tony, still suffering from PSTD over NYC. No, he's not gotten over it, if he's even gotten help for it I'd be shocked. He's still reliving that day, which is why when Wanda mind-fucked him, it was back to that moment, back to the "not good enough/not done enough". Yes, Wanda was right, she let Tony have the Staff, because it would destroy him, and it damn near did. Even on the 'jet headin home, he was already plotting how to use the Staff. He got Thor to let him have it, and the Staff did the rest. Boom! Villian out to destroy all humanity, preferably with Stark and the Avengers as the appetizers.

Ultron supposedly had lot of Tony inside him, but he reminded me more of Loki. Making playful quips, laying on the charm, even making self-depriciating jokes... and then someone makes him loose his temper and he lashes out in rage, followed by a half-apologetic 'look what you made me do' attitude. Considering Thanos' grand plan, why not have the Staff 'imprint' on Loki? It was only a matter of time before some human 'cracked' the AI Code inside, and Thanos' little human-destroying timebomb would go off. Or did you *really* think that Ultron was 'glitching' as he tried to cleanse the planet of humanity. Plus, Thanos wouldn't get his hands dirty as the next Infinity Stone was released from it's cage.

BUT NOW: The After Credit Scene.
Thanos, griping that he would have to do this himself, reaching into a safe and donning the Infinity Gauntlet. "But But, that was in Asgard! In the Vault!" people are crying/whining. "How could Thanos get it! Did he destroy Asgard?!!!!?!" Clearly, as with the whole BlackWidow/Damsel in Distress brohaha, so-called Fans are not thinking.
WHO IS RULING ASGARD NOW. Come on, think back. You know the answer. YES! That's right! LOKI is impersonating Odin! What do we see at the end of Thor 2? Sif and the Warriors Three handing over the Red Ooze to The Collector. Why? "It is dangerous to have two of the items so close together."
Yeah... Right... get one of the two Infinity Stones out of Asgard's vaults, and into the hands of someone looking for them. Loki-Odin couldn't come up with a reason to get rid of both of them, but it was a very pausible lie. He even got the most trusted warriors in Asgard, his former friends and companions, to do it. I'll not be surprised to find that Loki-Odin spirited away the Gauntlet as well, and the 'new guardian' of the Gauntlet was one of Thanos' agents. No one would question Odin's Wisdom, after all. Keeping these powerful Artifacts apart is in the best interest of not just Asgard, but the entire Galaxy. And all the while, Loki-Odin is simply continuing to keep his alliance with Thanos, by giving the 'Mad God' just what he wants.

Thor's vision of Asgardians "in hell" is looking to be more and more like true prophecy of what Loki-Odin's been doing in Asgard. It could be blamed on the loss of Freya, all these changes and mood-swings Odin's been having. We know better, and I'm pegging that the next time we see Thor in a movie, it will be another Brother against Brother. Hopefully they get Branagan to do it again -- Shakespearian Pathos would be apt.

[Vendetta]

BUT NOW: The After Credit Scene.
Thanos, griping that he would have to do this himself, reaching into a safe and donning the Infinity Gauntlet. "But But, that was in Asgard! In the Vault!" people are crying/whining. "How could Thanos get it! Did he destroy Asgard?!!!!?!" Clearly, as with the whole BlackWidow/Damsel in Distress brohaha, so-called Fans are not thinking.
WHO IS RULING ASGARD NOW. Come on, think back. You know the answer. YES! That's right! LOKI is impersonating Odin! What do we see at the end of Thor 2? Sif and the Warriors Three handing over the Red Ooze to The Collector. Why? "It is dangerous to have two of the items so close together."

It's a different glove.

The one seen in Thor is for a right hand, the one in AoU is for the left hand (as was the original).

Remember that the Infinity Gauntlet itself wasn't special, it was just one of Thanos' usual gloves. Putting the gems in it was what made it special.

[biostem]

Who or what AI was Stark using between the point where Ultron "killed" Jarvis and him later coming back to work on Vision and later installing Friday? I know he called down Veronica to assist with the Hulk in Africa, but I took it that her AI was in the satellite/hovering parts depot thingy.

As to the Black Widow thing - I think part of the issue is that it's a misinterpretation of her training and role as a spy and seductress. She specializes in manipulating people to get intel. I'm not condemning her for that - not only was he basically indoctrinated and conditioned at an early age, but she's still trying to overcome that twisted upbringing, while still tapping into those skills to get the job done. It'd be taxing on anyone, if you had this set of skills to attract people and get them to drop their guard to you, only for you to betray them, while still trying to maintain a proper moral compass and do the right thing, when all is said and done. I definitely think Black Widow is one of the more complex characters on the Avengers.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I just saw it and I liked it. They gave Barton the development he didn't get in the first film, and I'm glad War Machine put in an appearance. The last-second appearance of Falcon seemed pretty pointless, and some of the drawn-out stuff with Barton could have been cut down. It's all the little funny moments that I noticed, from Stark telling Cap not to steal from his logpile when Cap's was twice the size of his, to Vision being able to swing Mjolnir and Thor unable to understand why, to Hulkbuster jackhammer-punching Hulk.

Having Barton being the only one not being mind-fucked was a direct reference to the first film, the return of the original helicarrier was cool, and it did answer the question that Loki's scepter did indeed contain an infinity stone.

The concept of the infinity gems was expanded from GotG with the inclusion of the yellow mind-stone bringing the total found so far to four, and Thanos wielding the gauntlet at the end vowing to collect the gems himself, setting up for the infinity war.

It seems a weird omission not to put Quicksilver in the machine that healed Barton (or else did it offscreen., was half-expecting that to be revealed post-credits). If they can bring back Coulson after several days, they can surely do the same with QS.

Okay. Stupid over-reaction. What a surprise. Incidentally, no outcry about the impotency joke?

They had Stark make one to Loki in the first one, I can't recall how they did it this time around.

[Lord Revan]

Spoiler

T.A.H.I.T.I. was destroyed though and the last sample of the drugs used on Skye

The Guest House Serum was based on something gotten from an alien (probably kree) corpse

while the healing cradle used on this movie seemed to be nanotech based

so to summerize the spoiler part they can't do to Quicksilver what they did Coulson as the tech used to bring back Coulson was lost.

[Lost Soal]

It seems a weird omission not to put Quicksilver in the machine that healed Barton (or else did it offscreen., was half-expecting that to be revealed post-credits). If they can bring back Coulson after several days, they can surely do the same with QS.

The cradle can't revive the dead, just regrow tissue, also Whedon stated that from the moment Quicksilver was cast he told Aaron that the only way he was surviving the film was an order from Disney not to kill their franchise. His view was, its a war & if people can't die then it cheapens the fact.

Okay. Stupid over-reaction. What a surprise. Incidentally, no outcry about the impotency joke?

They had Stark make one to Loki in the first one, I can't recall how they did it this time around.

When Barton tries to lift Mjolnir. "You've been injured, its OK if you can't get it up."

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Apparently the original cut was around three hours (!) long, and there are strong rumours of an extended cut for the home release a la LOTR. If that's the case, I can sympathise with the pacing issues with the film, and I'll certainly be watching the full edition when the time comes.

If nothing else, I'd like to see a better resolution to Black Widow's "I'm a monster because I can't have children" discussion.

Especially as Scarlett Johansson was pregnant during filming. The romance between her and Banner didn't really work. I get they had history from the first film (did anyone else notice that Hulkbuster punched Hulk in exactly the same manner as Hulk did to Thor in the battle of NY? ), but then she also had history with Cap following TWS. I'm glad they didn't honour the IM3 ending given that had a distinct torch-the-franchise-and-run feel to it.

The cradle can't revive the dead, just regrow tissue, also Whedon stated that from the moment Quicksilver was cast he told Aaron that the only way he was surviving the film was an order from Disney not to kill their franchise. His view was, its a war & if people can't die then it cheapens the fact.

It makes sense that if you're going to kill off one of the characters you make it a minor one to avoid a fan backlash; even if it was someone who performed a Heel-Face Turn.

[Lost Soal]

Apparently the original cut was around three hours (!) long, and there are strong rumours of an extended cut for the home release a la LOTR. If that's the case, I can sympathise with the pacing issues with the film, and I'll certainly be watching the full edition when the time comes.

3hr 15, Confirmed by Whedon that its coming out.

[Gaidin]

This article sums up my feelings about the treatment of Black Widow in the film, placed amidst the wider context of Marvel and women in general.

I can't go into detail for being on a damn phone but that article is missing black widow's character just to bitch about the trees. For all I largely agree with the non character complaints it's one step forward two steps back for getting the content utterly wrong.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Which still leaves him a complete idiot for a) not having a backup elsewhere or b) not having a few scarper the moment he lost his connection.

The lack of a backup was a huge plot-hole, for a second I thought the post-credits scene would reveal another bot. As for scarpering; when the tables started to turn, some did, were it not for War Machine they would have gotten away. It's not clear if the heavily-damaged one encountered at the end was from the earlier battle or downed during the retreat, and whether there were others that Vision had to pick off. I wasn't sure if in cutting Ultron's internet access it also cut communications between individual drones, which might explain things.

Since HYDRA somehow smuggled one of the leviathans downed in A1 to Eastern Europe, it's conceivable that one of their mooks might find a crippled Ultron clone after scouring the area and try to use it for their own ends. IIRC, one of the themes from TWS is that in order to forge a new world, the old one must first be torn down, which would certainly gel with what we saw here.

It was a bit anticlimactic/relieving to see that the scene with Cap's broken shield turning out to be a Scarlet Witch vision- I was glad they cleared up the issue of what it represented, that it was generated by the person's fears and not a premonition of the future.

[J Ryan]

Since HYDRA somehow smuggled one of the leviathans downed in A1 to Eastern Europe

They wouldn't have needed to smuggle it. Remember at the time of the battle of New York Hydra=Shield. As we saw in Agents of Shield, they are involved in the cleanup of these things.

[Gaidin]

This article sums up my feelings about the treatment of Black Widow in the film, placed amidst the wider context of Marvel and women in general.

Well, first thing's first, I largely agree with the first and third part of the article so I'll just...leave that out. And to really make the point I kinda have to reorder stuff. Some things will be in order, some things won't. Meh.

She does get some great moments in Age of Ultron. Black Widow’s the one who gets the Vision body away from Ultron. She saves Cap’s bacon by getting his shield back to him. All of that could have been part of her being an assassin working off her past — she even talks about how being an Avenger is a dream, and the reality is that she’s a monster.

---

And her role as the mother of the team, as a whole, is also implied when Black Widow ruins a perfectly great empowerment moment after picking up Captain America’s shield and stating, “I’m always picking up after you boys.”

I can't quite fathom what makes her executing her skills so special. Give me character building. More following.

Also great: her new escrima-sticks weapons, her light up suit, and the whole action scene where she takes on Ultron after jumping out of a jet on a motorcycle. (There were some complaints online about Black Widow being a “damsel in distress,” because Ultron kidnaps her and brings her back to his lair. But after her general ass kicking, seeing her get temporarily captured didn’t bother us. Plus, once kidnapped, Black Widow cobbles together a signal to tell the team where Ultron was, so she kind of saved herself and also saved the day.)

So Black Widow gets plenty of heroic moments in this film — but they’re overshadowed by her big “no kids” reveal, and the fact that the Hulk becomes her substitute child. How did this happen? We can only assume that the plot morphed over time (as many movies do) in various script drafts. But it’s sad, because it really casts away all the slow work the previous movies did teasing out that Black Widow’s past was built on bloodshed.

She can’t just be the coolest aunt, or have made the valid choice that, as an assassin and spy, maybe kids are not in the cards for her. Or even the more radical choice that she just doesn’t want them. No, she can’t ever have babies, so her life is ruined. She is an incomplete woman. Of course, only Hawkeye has kids — although he has to have them on a secret farm.

Black Widow is barren and therefore dead inside. Poor, empty-nested Mommy Widow, who even loses her love interest and pseudo-baby in one fell swoop at the end of the movie. The Hulk vanishes, to have more solo adventures later. Meanwhile, Black Widow is what? Captain America’s number two in The Avengers: The New Class. Sigh.

I'm kind of befuddled by how much their jaw dropped. I mean, first, the action scenes are pretty irrelevant to the character. We've learned for two movies, if not at least three that she can fight. Good for her. Nothing new to see their. Nice that she gets heroic moments, but when you want to bitch about the revelations in your article, stick with the new stuff. This is all over the place as she tries to close with...being second? Captain America has always run the Avengers, except the times he hasn't because Reasons(TM). What? She just supposed to disappear too? Assuming Black Widow's typical support movie role can't just be thrown out with a solo movie it's not a stretch for Cap to deploy her. The author is panic writing now.

Speaking of....more on the training later...that's actually...important. That bit flew way over their damn head. Forest for the trees.

If the Avengers represent peak Marvel (in notoriety and public recognition) then Black Widow by association is the main female character in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseMarvel's Movies. And quite honestly, that’s not saying much.

To quote Jen Yamato in Daily Beast, “In 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films thus far, strong female co-leads have only appeared in larger ensemble team-ups, primarily as lethal and emotionally impenetrable femme fatales who double as love interests (shoutout to Guardians of the Galaxy’s Gamora).” By the time Marvel makes a standalone female superhero film (Captain Marvel), Captain America, Tony Stark and Thor will all have had three standalone separate films. That’s 19 films before a singular film that stars a woman superhero.

Yes, there are other female-driven Marvel Studios properties (Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD), but Black Widow is the only female Avenger, and she’s the only recurring female character in the MCU who’s seen real character growth. Avengers: Age of Ultron was supposed to feature her big character reveal. Whedon was teasing her character arc back in 2014 via MTV:

I'm not one for shooting for peak Marvel notoriety and public recognition so glibly. Not when they conveniently release Avengers the first weekend of Summer Movie Season the author wants us to forget that Daredevil literally knocked the socks off Netflix's world a few weeks ago. So, if we're going to pretend Melinda May, Skye, Jemma, Bobbi, Peggy Carter, Vanessa Marianna, and perhaps one or two others I'm forgetting given I've only casually snapped one name up from the neutral and/or antagonistic side from a range of possibly literarily strong female characters in the MCU regardless of time on screen, we could at least not call it the MCU and at least stick with calling it Marvel's Movies. Bias shows.

To wit: me not reading a particular comic was never an excuse to say the event never happened. I should say someone not watching said connected show is not an excuse to say the character isn't there. But that's me.

Yes she acknowledges the TV show's existence. But she likes to quietly try to sweep it under the rug. Not really how it works. The characters are either there or they aren't. Especially with how TV shows are attracting good actors these days. It's nothing to casually sneeze at.

Joss Whedon: “Natasha is a huge part of the sequel because you do want to concentrate on the people who don’t have their own franchises. Although she in ‘Cap 2,’ [and] she’s great. She was the most fun for me because she’s not a hero, you know, and it’s something that I read—and I feel bad that I can’t remember who wrote the book—but it’s in one of the books explaining, ‘These guys are heroes, you are a spy. It’s a different thing—it’s a different skill set—and you don’t have their moral high ground or any of that good stuff.’ And that just makes her so interesting to me. So yeah, the stuff I’ve got going on with her in the second one is killer.”

Remember the whole (fairly baffling) accounting turn of phrase “red in my ledger” that was referenced way back in the first Avengers movie by both Black Widow and Hawkeye? This was (presumably) what Whedon was talking about. This “red” was Black Widow’s way of admitting that she’s not like the others, and that her role in the Avengers is an attempt to right the bloody wrongs from her past. Pair Whedon’s previous quote with the showdown between Black Widow and first Avengers villain Loki, and you’ve got one hell of a backstory:

Natasha Romanoff: It’s really not that complicated. I’ve got red in my ledger, I’d like to wipe it out.

Loki: Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov’s daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire? Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it’s GUSHING red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code. Something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!

Too bad none of that set up was actually followed up in Avengers 2.

It doesn't have to be. Themes change. Her theme in Avengers 2 wasn't, directly, about a debt she owed a character. The red is, likely, still in that ledger, she will likely still fight, probably until the day she dies, but until it is actually relevant, we don't have to hear the words "Red in my ledger" from her mouth ever again. She's a dynamic character. More on the idea of wasted dialogue later.

Her theme in this movie was a bit more complicated than that more simplistic debt she owed in the first ensemble. This was a question of her humanity. From herself. It was built up slightly in Winter Soldier with the idea with she could be anybody she needed, as opposed to having what might be a base personality, but Joss Whedon brought it out full bore and laid it bare for the world to see.

When Banner tries to tell her it’s not their fight and they’ve got to run, she kind of betrays him by bringing the Hulk out to join the battle. That would have been a more interesting story — the assassin so caught up in wiping out her bad deeds, she’s willing to sacrifice personal happiness for the greater good. That all would have tied into what we’d seen before. Would it have been perfect? Probably not. But it would have been better.

---

But it’s OK because The Avengers: Age of Ultron is going to give Black Widow a baby. A gigantic baby named The Hulk, and a brand new superhero power of “the lullaby.” Not a whisper or a song or a knock-out juice — a lullabye to coax her baby to sleep. This new power is trotted out over and over againONCE, as if to say: Black Widow don’t be sad — you have a baby Hulk.

The Hulk is, if not the most, one of the more insanely complicated facets of the question of her humanity that she herself brings out. This ties into her training, but the training will be covered as a separate point. She is the only one capable of approaching the Hulk in a peaceful manner in order to bring out Bruce Banner and put the Hulk to sleep. The very first battle of the movie notes that the lullaby that brings Banner back is getting easier. That's just a little bit interesting. As the designated Hulk calmer, trigger words and all("Hey, big guy, the sun's gettin' real low") with a ritualized sequence of gestures, through means learned from her own time being brainwashed(more later), one wonders just what she can think of it all.

And when she does shove him down the hole to get him to Hulk out? The author misses it. The author misses the tragedy of it all. Banner wants to run off with her, but she sees the necessity of the fight. It's sad, the way they can never get on the same page. He was the only person she had ever bared her soul to, as Cap noted, but he flew off in the quinjet. Why? For her safety, or for the deception? We don't know. We just see Hulk turn the comms off and sit down, even he himself, being sad instead of his usual angry self.

For months we scanned trailers picking out promises of a Black Widow’s soon to be revealed backstory. So imagine our disappointment, when Black Widow’s secret backstory, about training as a cold blooded spy, was boiled down to a forced sterilization. A horrifying reveal, but not really the “red ledger” reveal we’d been promised. Julie Delpy appears in a forced Black Widow flashback, showing her young spy training culminating in one horrifying gesture. Would Black Widow have to kill her parents? Her friends? Her puppy, Kingsman-style? No her “graduation ceremony” would be that she would be sterilized. Foisting a frustrated desire for motherhood and self loathing onto this character. It makes her feel permanently alone. We know this because that’s what she tells Hulk during a quieter character reveal moment for Black Widow.

Instead of an assassin constantly struggling with finding moral lines she didn’t know existed, we got a woman who feels incomplete because she cannot have babies:

“You know what my final test was in the Red Room? They sterilized me, said it was one less thing to worry about. You think you’re the only monster on the team?”

That’s what the Red Room did to her. It’s not the loss of innocence through killing or being forced to live a life of betraying people. The greatest loss is motherhood. That’s why she’s a monster like the Hulk. Poor Black Widow. She leaned in, and where did it get her? She’s a lonely, incomplete, monster.

I was really almost tempted to laugh at this. Black Widow was found as an orphan and trained and tested for years and they want to say it was boiled down to a sterilization. Now, that's a little bit of knowledge of the comics coming through there. Bearing what we know of just the movies we know roughly three things easily. First, there's the traditionally known ballerina training to the point of near abuse if not abuse. Second, there's the guy with the bag on his head, often interpreted to be killed, though not confirmed on screen. And third, there's the specific graduation ritual of sterilization.

One thing we definitively can say is that this dream came through as her fear. Her training is her fear. Training people is possibly part of her fear. After what she went through, could she be afraid she'd put others through something as abusive? All the training, all the tests, a barrage, one after another for years of her life. The sterilization ritual being the last.

Now the key part of the quote that I think is being ignored is the idea that it was one less thing to worry about. One of the few things that would matter more than the job. It was no longer an option to be available to her. She'd been trained from childhood, perhaps literally brainwashed, and now she couldn't even fall back on family. Forcibly denied it, not by choice. Just the job.

This was her opening herself up to Banner as to why they might be more alike as monsters and also not have a deal to fear from each other, though her as a career and him as a...experiment gone wrong. After Banner/Hulk leaves what does she do in spite of her literal fear as shown by Scarlet Witch? She steps up to help train the new Avengers. She literally faces the fear of her own training.

I really don't know. I think I apparently saw a different film. That or some blog poster wore rose tinted glasses so they could be the SJW of the day. Because Black Widow was the damn character of the movie.

[Mr Bean]

People seem to have skipped over that Black Widow drops the revelation that she's sterile in direct comment to Banner asking what could ever be between the two of them, like could we raise kids? I don't even know if I can have kids... to which Widow tells her story. It's a moment of empathy for her to relate to Banner and that bit of dialog is being edited out of the story and without it yes I could see how people would have a problem.

[Lost Soal]

Instead of an assassin constantly struggling with finding moral lines she didn’t know existed, we got a woman who feels incomplete because she cannot have babies:

“You know what my final test was in the Red Room? They sterilized me, said it was one less thing to worry about. You think you’re the only monster on the team?”

That’s what the Red Room did to her. It’s not the loss of innocence through killing or being forced to live a life of betraying people. The greatest loss is motherhood. That’s why she’s a monster like the Hulk. Poor Black Widow. She leaned in, and where did it get her? She’s a lonely, incomplete, monster.

That is awful and an inexcusable message, or it would be if that was actually what was said. Does this person report on politics because this is the exact same approach done for that, if the concepts being explained are too complicated for a 3 second sound byte then just make one up.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Thinking about this overnight I found myself wrestling with the question of whether this film was as good as Avengers 1, partly because A1 set the bar so high that it would be an achievement to even be in the same ballpark as its predecessor.

In the end I felt it was both yes and no, because it has it's fair share of the things that made the first one great, and then a few things that weren't as good- like the pacing being off in the middle of the film, the complete absence of Pepper. In Stark mentioning her it makes her non-appearance that much more striking- the amount of screentime she got in A1 was just right for the film. It's almost like she used up all her screentime in IM3 so there was none left for A2; somehow it was more noticeable than War Machine's non-appearance in Avengers 1. At least in having him there they made sure that he actually did something, and not merely the token gesture that they did with Falcon.

In many ways this film is like Dark of the Moon- that film had plenty of things wrong with it, but the whole Battle of Chicago IMO more than makes up for it so that by the end of it I thought it was totally awesome. This was similar because it seemingly had fewer flaws than that film. The film makers made it clear they weren't going to make this simply a rehash of what worked in the last one. I think that part of the problem is that Avengers 1 broke new ground so by extension was more original. The second though did have production values that were a noticeable step forward- as others have said, this film primarily deals with several storylines from the larger universe and thus makes sense in context.

My parents in the main didn't understand much of what was going on, despite my Dad having seen all the other films in the MCU. I think that those who went into the film who haven't seen the others and were expecting an introduction to each character would have been disappointed- seeing as all the introductions (both to the audience and each other) were taken care of in previous films and thus could get down to the action sooner.

[Majin Gojira]

I just want to add this link to act as a counter to the flood of hate towards the stupid Widow situation that we're commenting on. Like you, I really don't get it because the thing they are complaining about relies highly on quote mining. Devoid of the context of the scene, the line looks bad.

[Kojiro]

It was a bit anticlimactic/relieving to see that the scene with Cap's broken shield turning out to be a Scarlet Witch vision- I was glad they cleared up the issue of what it represented, that it was generated by the person's fears and not a premonition of the future.

I think we need to wait for Thor: Ragnarok to determine if/how prophetic the visions are for certain. Even so, it was a vision that convinced her to let Stark- the man she submitted herself to human experimentation to kill- walk away with a massive prize when he was most vulnerable. You have to assume she puts some stock in them as prophetic or she'd have just murdered Stark then and there.

My parents in the main didn't understand much of what was going on, despite my Dad having seen all the other films in the MCU.

This was the same complaint my partner had. She's seen everything and just got lost in the battles.