Luke Cage (spoilers)

[Crazedwraith]

So I've finished. Nice to get the final fight done early and an extended epilogue. But damn was Misty stupid about Candace and her phone. I was surprised she neither seemed to quite. Nor lose her arm for a bionic one despite the hints in that direction.

Presumably Matt defending Cage will be the impetus for the Defenders. And Claire picked up a ticket for a self-defense class run by Collen Wing so presumably that's her in for Iron Fist. One wonders how many side characters and subplots they can fit in that series. It'll be sad if Foggy or Misty's subplots and development get lost in the Team up.

[SCRawl]

I've watched it now, and I liked it. I did notice (and appreciate) a large number of nods to the comic book fans, many of which have already been pointed out, though the original Power Man costume was clearly meant as an inside joke (with the comic fans being the ones on the inside). I'm pretty easy to please, though.

I do take issue with some of the assessments in this thread about his strength level and that of Jessica Jones. In the comics he's stronger than Spider-Man (who is himself an order of magnitude stronger than Captain America), but in the MCU I'd probably put the two of them in about the same league. He can punch through brick walls with ease, and Jessica Jones (who in the MCU is probably supposed to be about as strong as Cage, and perhaps a little stronger) can jump at least 50 feet vertically. Cap can do none of these things, though he is shown performing some feats which would require far greater strength than he ought to have (e.g. holding back a helicopter).

[Joun_Lord]

Caps strength is weird. Sometimes he seems barely stronger then a normal person while other times he is incredibly strong. Others with the same sort of enhancement as him such as Blonksky and Mike Peterson do some pretty impressive shit that is arguably more impressive then anything Cap did such as Blonksky going toe to toe with the Hulk and Peterson jumping from a 5 story building with no problem. Peterson later on pushes a bulldozer about 50 feet with no problem but apparently Steve did the same thing even faster off screen.

The bulldozer thing combined with onscreen stuff like the helicopter and him holding a motorcycle with 3 women over his head like it was nothing show that Cap is apparently very strong. Maybe not Hulk or Thor level but still not just peak human strength.

Clearly Cap holds back, maybe by alot. Which I guess makes sense character wise. As a former weakling he knows what strong people can do and maybe consciously or subconsciously holds back, uses just enough strength most of the time and doesn't go full power like people like Cage and Jones might do.

[Elheru Aran]

Finished the series this morning.

Thoughts:

--The timeline is... difficult to reconcile with the movies. I'm not sure where the hell they're all at relative to the latest MCU film (Civil War, haven't seen Doctor Strange yet, that's next week for me). I haven't finished Jessica Jones either.

If the bad guys are using stolen Hammer tech... it would make sense for LC to happen either just before or slightly after IM2, but if they've mentioned the Sovokia Accords, then obviously that's not the case. Now if they added the adjective "old" to the "Hammer" it would work as it might suggest old Hammer stock that they're getting rid of on the black market.

--Cottonmouth was the best villain out of the three (four if you count Shades). He had style and attitude. Mariah is just a slippery politician, and Diamondback is a lunatic. You never get the impression that Diamondback is as much of a long term threat as Cottonmouth could've been. You also don't ever really get the idea, *after* he shows up, that Diamondback is this big gang lord, big enough for Cornell Stokes to be afraid of. No. Diamondback is just a tough with some interesting toys. So why was Cottonmouth so scared of him?

There's some allusions towards that, notably when Mariah holds the gang-head meeting and Diamondback shows up and kills a few of them, but otherwise there's little to indicate that Diamondback really is a big shot. It's a pretty remarkable contrast to how Daredevil treated Wilson Fisk; you never really got the impression that Fisk *wasn't* a big deal. Maybe this was deliberate to illustrate how penny-ante all the other city crimelords are after Fisk, but I don't think it works.

--The tie-in to Defenders is pretty obvious at the end. Claire will call Murdock in to defend Luke and get him off with the help of the file that Fish found in the barbershop, Claire pulls a tab off an advertisment for a self-defense class that I'm pretty sure is going to tie in to Iron Fist... Mariah and Shades might be a new enemy for Luke and company but more likely they're going to bring in someone new. Not sure how Jessica Jones is going to tie in, especially as I haven't finished JJ yet.

[Tsyroc]

Finished the series this morning.

Thoughts:

--The timeline is... difficult to reconcile with the movies. I'm not sure where the hell they're all at relative to the latest MCU film (Civil War, haven't seen Doctor Strange yet, that's next week for me). I haven't finished Jessica Jones either.

If the bad guys are using stolen Hammer tech... it would make sense for LC to happen either just before or slightly after IM2, but if they've mentioned the Sovokia Accords, then obviously that's not the case. Now if they added the adjective "old" to the "Hammer" it would work as it might suggest old Hammer stock that they're getting rid of on the black market.

--Cottonmouth was the best villain out of the three (four if you count Shades). He had style and attitude. Mariah is just a slippery politician, and Diamondback is a lunatic. You never get the impression that Diamondback is as much of a long term threat as Cottonmouth could've been. You also don't ever really get the idea, *after* he shows up, that Diamondback is this big gang lord, big enough for Cornell Stokes to be afraid of. No. Diamondback is just a tough with some interesting toys. So why was Cottonmouth so scared of him?

There's some allusions towards that, notably when Mariah holds the gang-head meeting and Diamondback shows up and kills a few of them, but otherwise there's little to indicate that Diamondback really is a big shot. It's a pretty remarkable contrast to how Daredevil treated Wilson Fisk; you never really got the impression that Fisk *wasn't* a big deal. Maybe this was deliberate to illustrate how penny-ante all the other city crimelords are after Fisk, but I don't think it works.

--The tie-in to Defenders is pretty obvious at the end. Claire will call Murdock in to defend Luke and get him off with the help of the file that Fish found in the barbershop, Claire pulls a tab off an advertisment for a self-defense class that I'm pretty sure is going to tie in to Iron Fist... Mariah and Shades might be a new enemy for Luke and company but more likely they're going to bring in someone new. Not sure how Jessica Jones is going to tie in, especially as I haven't finished JJ yet.

I really liked Cottonmouth as an antagonist. He had quite a few layers to his character and if a few things had gone differently I could have seen there never being a confrontation between him and Cage.

Diamondback really was a nutbar. I'm presuming that at some future point he'll be "Power Master" since I think that's who Stryker is in the comics, or at least who it looks like the show is setting him up to be. In the 90's Cage comic Cage ends up going through the enhancement process again because of that story line and he gets an indestructible leather jacket out of it too.

It seems a bit of a coincidence that Diamondback ends up being who he is where he is, with Cage just happening to be in one of his areas of interest.

[General Zod]

So this weeks Agents of Shield actually sums up pretty nicely why they haven't recruited Luke Cage yet. The director was going on about how they can't afford to be known as an agency that's in league with murderers, and as far as public record goes Cage is still guilty of murder. (He wasn't explicitly talking about Cage but still.)

[Gandalf]

So this weeks Agents of Shield actually sums up pretty nicely why they haven't recruited Luke Cage yet. The director was going on about how they can't afford to be known as an agency that's in league with murderers, and as far as public record goes Cage is still guilty of murder. (He wasn't explicitly talking about Cage but still.)

So have they publicly disavowed their relationship with Black Widow, or Merchant of Death/Murderbot creator Tony Stark?

[Broomstick]

>ahem<

I think the Black Widow's public story is that she's a spy, she's not widely known as a former assassin.

Tony Stark is a billionaire and a capitalist - he didn't kill anyone, it was other people! (Using his stuff, but still...)

[General Zod]

So this weeks Agents of Shield actually sums up pretty nicely why they haven't recruited Luke Cage yet. The director was going on about how they can't afford to be known as an agency that's in league with murderers, and as far as public record goes Cage is still guilty of murder. (He wasn't explicitly talking about Cage but still.)

So have they publicly disavowed their relationship with Black Widow, or Merchant of Death/Murderbot creator Tony Stark?

Well. In this particular case a woman had footage of Ghost Rider killing someone that she was blackmailing the Director with. And I guess if you want to go to the Tony Stark extreme they'd have to disavow themselves.

[FaxModem1]

I'm pretty sure even Steve Rogers killed people in World War II, he was shooting real bullets, after all. Unless Hydra and Nazis don't count?

[General Zod]

I'm pretty sure even Steve Rogers killed people in World War II, he was shooting real bullets, after all. Unless Hydra and Nazis don't count?

I'm trying not to spoil the episode. And writing tags on my phone sucks.

[Vendetta]

I'm pretty sure even Steve Rogers killed people in World War II, he was shooting real bullets, after all. Unless Hydra and Nazis don't count?

Everybody knows nazis don't count, and Hydra were basically just double nazis in the first film, so they count even less.

(Let's face it nobody cares about Agents of Shield)

[Lord Revan]

I think it's more that soldiers in a war don't count. Generally when a organization like SHIELD yes they don't want to associate with murderers they don't mean war veterans but rather people convincted of murder outside of an active battlezone, like Luke Cage (aka Carl Lucas) was even if he was framed for it.

Including soldiers would cut down the recruitment pool too much.

[Joun_Lord]

Tony Stark did kill people when he was flying around shooting tank missiles in A-stan among other times. Tony was not a soldier even if he was fighting in an active warzone. When he attacked and killed the 10 Rings soldiers in Afghanistan with the MK III he was acting as a private citizen interfering in an internal conflict of another country. Not acting in self defense like any 10 Rings killed during his escape from his cave of scraps or fighting "The Mandarins" fire flower explody soldiers. I'm relatively positive by international law he is a war criminal or murderer or something. Probably got a pass for it because he is rich and has connections.

That doesn't get into all the other people he killed by being a moron and doing shit like fucking around with Ultron.

Black Widow is probably a criminal too but was acting under orders from a nation when doing her Widowy shite and probably got a pardon for government service when she defected to the US/Shield.

Steve Rogers was a soldier in a war killing enemy soldiers.

Carl Lucas was as far as anyone knows just a murderer and isn't some rich white guy with fancy toys and government connections.

[Gandalf]

>ahem<

I think the Black Widow's public story is that she's a spy, she's not widely known as a former assassin.

Based on the ending of Winter Soldier, Widow's record seems to be more or less open. She even concedes that she won't be arrested, if only because she has powerful friends and is apparently a better class of people.

Tony Stark is a billionaire and a capitalist - he didn't kill anyone, it was other people! (Using his stuff, but still...)

He seemed perfectly fine turning on Ultron and... leaving it so he could go and party.