#marvelmeta

Karen : the shenanigans with United Allied happen, but Matt and Foggy aren't in the picture. She is arrested, arraigned, and incarcerated pending the outcome of the murder trial. Which doesn't get put on the docket for ten months because of the back-up of cases [like real life!] and then gets rescheduled for six months after that because of boring reasons, also like real life! Karen's public defender can't get her bail reduced, so she has more than a year at Rikers to get lessons in how to survive, plus a lesson in how the criminal underclass operates in NYC. Two weeks into The State of New York versus Karen Page, Ben Urich breaks open the United Allied story, with the help of a certain costumed freak he's a little hesitant to accept help from. Karen, who has been interviewed by Urich, and her lawyer seek a dismissal of all charges because there's circumstantial evidence that UA paid for someone not her to murder the guy she's on trial for killing. The DA's office goes along because there is too much probable doubt to make a conviction a slam dunk.

Karen helps Ben work on the story and she is with him, talking to one of her old UA colleagues in a hipstery pizza joint on 51st off 10th Avenue when the bullets start flying from outside in. Daredevil shows up before the cops do and subdues the would-be assassins, who still warn Karen and Ben and Colleague that their lives are forfeit should they talk.

Three weeks later, Ben and Colleague are murdered and Karen barely survives her own gunshot wound to the head. She recovers well, except not -- there's enough of a personality shift, enough damage to the parts of the brain that work to keep people socialized, that the Punisher can be born. She doesn't need Frank's martial skills; she has what she learned in prison and she's a lovely white girl and that gets her closer to who she needs to be than sneaking in wearing a hoodie. (She'll futz with her appearance enough that it's not immediately obvious who she is to those who most need to know.) The only skill she develops is her marksmanship, especially long-distance. She knows how to shoot a rifle -- her family hunts -- so it's not like she's starting from scratch. She's not against the concept of a Devil of Hell's Kitchen, but she's a little eye-rolling about the Vigilante Who Will Not Kill. She's been in prison long enough to realize that some people are just bad humans and can't be redeemed; she and Matt get into debates about repentance and grace and leaving vengeance up to God on the tops of various buildings when they're both dressed for work.

Frank : Frank is still a marine, but leaves active duty for the reserves after Maria's mom get sick. Camp Lejeune is too far from New York for Maria to be there for her folks and, even if they were to go back to New York while Frank was deployed, she can't be both a full-time single parent and a full-time parental caregiver. It's meant to be a temporary thing -- Frank will use the time to get the PME credits he needs for promotion, Maria will do her thing, they'll return to the Corps once the inevitable occurs -- but it becomes permanent when Maria, the kids, and Billy Russo are killed in a single-car crash on Long Island en route to Jones Beach. [optional: the kids live because they can here!]

The car, Billy's, had been tampered with -- something more sophisticated than a brake line -- and Frank is a suspect; there's video footage of him going in to Billy's garage the day before and completely unfounded but nonetheless circumstantial evidence that Billy and Maria had been fooling around behind his back. [Actual story: Frank went to Billy's garage to borrow some gear for his upcoming drill weekend; the beach trip had been planned because there were going to be fireworks, Billy was driving the Castles because Maria's car was on the fritz and Frank needed his to drive to drill.]

Enter Nelson and Murdock, brought in by Curtis because he knows Frank didn't do this. Matt and Foggy (and Daredevil) get Frank off the hook. [Billy was the target, the way Frank was, and the Castles are collateral damage.] Frank sticks around the office because he's now unemployed and because he's going to study criminal justice at John Jay, which is in Hell's Kitchen. [John Jay is where everyone goes to become a cop/fed/whatever.] He's not the office manager, more a legal assistant and investigator and voice of common sense. He's there because Curtis convinces him that he should do something productive to recover from the trauma and going back into the Marines is the absolute worst idea for healing. Also, Frank isn't ready to leave NYC -- his wife and children are [buried] here and he needs to be close to them.

okay so i thought long and hard about this, but i just need to get this out of my system. and to be honest i don’t even know if people agree with me or not. so here goes my take on the steve/sharon kiss in civil war.

first of all i want to say that i honest to god can ship steve with almost every single person in the mcu. may it be peggy, tony, bucky, sam, nat or whoever. so don’t start saying i’m not behind steve/sharon because i see him with someone else then tony or bucky or whoever - that is not the case. and we all know that they won’t go the road of a bisexual captain america… (hopefully, one day)

so, we first meet sharon in the winter soldier and it’s not like she is the next big thing, she is basically just there - we get introduced so to say. the thing i’m not okay with right from the startis the fact that she lied to steve and still flirted with him, cause i’m not a big fan of building any kind of relationship on a lie - and that’s kinda what happened here. you could argue that she was just doing her job, but there was no need to try to get this close. nothing happened after that and i really hoped she would just be a good asset (because gimme for woman in the mcu) at this point and in future movies. that is where civil war starts with her as well. she is doing a good job, nothing mayor seemed to have happened in the meantime. and since i don’t wanna spoil anything i’ll just get right to the kiss.

so what exactly is my problem? that there is no fucking build-up. they have one scene where they actually do connect for a second before one of them gets called away. that’s it. it’s been made pretty clear that nothing happened between them after the winter soldier. no meetings, nothing. and bahm we get the kiss after a short talk in their next scene. that is not steve rogers. not at all - i am not one of these fans who think he is a delicate flower, cause he is NOT, but this? way too fast for the kind of character they build in the mcu.

i think that the russos have a pretty good handling of how steve works - so what the hell happened here? do we need a love story? no, we really don’t. these movies work very well without them. so why not actually build up a relationship between them before they kiss? make it happen in a future movie? cause it seems like there might not be another cap movie? (we all know the schedule and there are the avengers movies and i think that might be it for this steve rogers) still no. they could have had build up between the winter soldier and civil war (easily) or put something in the next avengers movie. just don’t rush into it like this.

i know a lot of people will say: “but they were in a relationship in the comics” - i don’t care. the comics are not the movies. believe me i know. i still don’t think that they handled the friendship between steve and tony very well. i am talking about both avengers movies (joss just wasn’t good with writing steve, at all. sadly.). they did good in this one - finally. okay this got kinda out of hand. but what i’m trying to say is that they would have needed more something in the movies to make this work.

the other thing, emily (nothing against her as a person) just cannot fucking act - the main problem with her is that she has difficulty with chemistry and that she hardly does anything with her face. i’m a fan of understated acting, but that’s not what she is doing. i mean come on. chris had chemistry for 10 people during that scene and there was nothing coming from her side. it sucks and it makes me mad. cause this at least could have been avoided with better casting. marvel usually does so well, here it seems like they didn’t cast for chemistry - which is weird. they knew this was coming, we all kinda knew this was coming, cause in some parts they do keep pretty near to the comics.

it was perfect

the amount of heartbreak in one movie was too fucking much, i was more then happy about steve’s letter in the end, cause that would have been a few horrible months - still not happy about it though

domestic avengers before everything went to shit - so much fun and i want like 10 hours of that. gimme more!

the big battle was fucking amazing. i don’t know how they keep doing it, but they never get boring. and i mean the one with all the avengers, cause the steve/tony/bucky one was one big fucking heartbreak - i really feared for everyone at one point. just the way they edited and filmed steve’s final blow against tony. FUCK ME. and him leaving the shield behind after tony telling him he doesn’t deserve it. wow… i wanna cry so much about this broken thing.

seriously though all the fights were awesome. steve pulling that helicopter back? holy shit!

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team cap

steve: holy shit there was some heartbreak going on… there really was not one second of him not knowing what side he’s on, cause it’s always bucky and it makes sense, even though it will break your heart. evans did another fantastic job - he honestly cannot do any wrong with steve. LOVED the little bit about his legs being his weakness.

bucky: the reason everything really went to shit and i could totally understand, hell i would give my left arm for bucky. sebastian finally had more lines and more screentime and he did shine. the little comedy they did give him was perfect and so on point.

sam: damn i loved red wing (nice touch) and sam being his awesome fun self even though everything was kinda horrible. mackie and his comedic talent should get their own movie though. basically gimme a buddy movie with bucky and sam.

wanda: okay I LOVED that they choose her for the final blow, cause it works so well and elizabeth can totally play the emotions that were needed for this. i still want to see more of her power.

clint: my baby, he was once again perfect and i am so digging this whole protecting wanda that is coming from him

scott: okay i just fucking love paul rudd and there could not have been a better casting. nice touch about giant man. plus i laughed so hard during the entire scene. him getting introduced to steve was so glorious.

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team icon man

tony: i will keep saying this, because rdj was so amazing during the reveal that bucky killed his parents… seriously i teared up because it felt so real - i could totally understand why he wanted bucky to die, because even though bucky had no choice, being brainwashed, it still must have hurt so much. i loved to see him in a suit for more of the time and damn his scenes with steve - THIS is what i want. no fighting. ;) young!tony SO made my day.

rhodey: i really thought for a second they were gonna kill him, thank god they didn’t - there would have been no coming back from that. i hope they include him in infinity war.

vision: DAMN SON! he is totally falling in love with wanda… and he cannot deal with that. it’s amazing and i want that story. and how cute was he wearing normal clothes?

spidey: AHHHHHHH! he was amazing. fucking perfect to be honest (i still love andrews peter, but tom really was the perfect choice) he has the comedic timing and the face to make peter lovable and little bit of an asshole at the same time. the entire scene of his introduction was so much fun. just wow! and him talking bullshit during the fight? THAT is what i want.

t’challa: what an amazing addition, really made me wanna see his solo movie, cause he is interesting and can totally hold the scenes he’s in. chadwick was a great choice to play him. he even moved like a fucking cat. LOVED HIM.

nat: kindaaaaa team iron man. she was amaaaaaazing through the entire movie. she had many great one on one scenes that i loved.

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others

zemo: gosh i love daniel brühl and i’m so happy he had a part in this. i liked him as the villain and i loved that they made him human. a human who can destroy the avengers with so little. his plan unfolds quite beautifully and while i had the feeling it might be tony’s parents from the start, if you’re not that into the whole franchise you won’t get it till later.

sharon: why i love her as a character i’m just not behind that relationship. well, there is that. i have a whole post lined up about this. the one good thing that came out of it was bucky and sam in the car looking like some fucking idiots.

martin freeman felt underused, but i guess there might be more coming up?!

so fucking upset about peggy dying even though i knew that before the movie. that steve/nat scenes was fantastic though and showed the amazing chemistry evans and scarlett have.

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