Narrative Warfare: The Poz Arrives To The MCU

Marvel Studios took the time at the San Diego Comic Con to announce the slate of films and related projects that comprise Phase Four. The moment that many of us foresaw would be the case after Endgame has come at last: Woke Marvel's arrival in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The surviving characters, with actors still under contract, are being shuffled off the big screen to television series for the new Disney Plus service. They might as well have just cut the actors a check and bid them adieu because that service is a disaster waiting to happen; the smart folks will do what they do now- wait for the series to release, then pirate the hell out of it. With a few exceptions, those actors are all but gone and so are their characters; we may see them when the next Avengers film shows up.

We're getting the SJW versions of the roles whose actors have left due to contract expiration: Ironheart, Femthor, Falcon becomes New Cap. The Black Widow film is, for all intents and purposes, Scarlet handing off the role to a younger replacement. Shang Chi is Marvel pandering to the PRC; it's also the film least likely to suck, and therefore the most likely to actually be watchable and entertaining due to not wanting to piss off the ChiComs, who don't hold to SJW bullshit. Doctor Strange is next least likely to suck. The rest are actually ill-known or unknown, but due to top-down imposition of the Narrative are likely to suck harder than a black hole.

And here I am, shrugging my shoulders, and not all that bothered by it. I'm not for three reasons. First, I saw this coming and I've already cashed out of the MCU so I don't care anymore. Second, I already have replacements--indie domestics and foreign big players--to occupy that space. Third, I'm already making my own and therefore don't care about this crap sanctioned fanfic. I walked away from Omelas; I won't even glance back when the colony drop hits.

This time the Narrative doesn't have the stranglehold that it did in 2008 with Iron Man. Now that plenty of us are building new, healthy, original works we're going to solve the discoverability problem- which is where the current Line of Battle resides in the Culture War of the West. Once we can break the gatekeepers, and we've got folks on that now, we'll soon become too big to ignore and that's when the real fun begins.