The MCU aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe is supposed to be the live-action representation of the rich and diverse Marvel Comics Universe mythos. Ever since it came into existence, Marvel Comics has grown into a publication giant with thousands of superheroes to its name. The Marvel Universe is also now a very intricately planned and developed saga that a live-action representation never does true justice to! That has happened more than once in the 22 movies that the Marvel Cinematic Universe comprises of.
Sometimes, Marvel just lets us down – plain and simple. This list is to let the fans know where the Marvel juggernaut faltered and failed to connect with the fans. Comic book accuracy was never Marvel Cinematic Universe’s strong suits. And they have proved it time and again. Don’t believe us? Let us make our case even clearer. Presenting – 10 ways MCU was massively changed from the comic books that fans will never forgive!!
1. Ultron’s Origin story arc
Ultron is one of the Earth’s mightiest heroes’ greatest adversaries. He is so powerful that we will go out on a limb and say that he poses a threat far greater than Thanos the Mad Titan ever could. In the comic books, the Ultron origin story involved Hank Pym. He was the one who developed Ultron from scratch to help the Earth and act as its guardian angel. But it soon went rogue and destroyed Humanity and kept the superhero population captive.
The resulting Age of Ultron timeline was very bleak and unforgiving. In the movies, Hank Pym was not even mentioned when Ultron was brought into the picture. They made Ultron as an alien A.I network within the Mind Stone that achieved sentience and decided to end the world. The former story arc had more depth and added to Ultron’s character. The latter, not so much!
2. Scarlet Witch and Quick Silver
The sibling mutants have a complicated past in the Marvel Comics universe. They are actually mutants that were hunted down by human mobs and they grew distrustful of everyone. They are also the children of Magneto. But in the movies, they were not mutants but experiments that were subjected to the mysterious energies emanating from Loki’s Mind Stone holding staff to gain superpowers.
One question – how does an Infinity Stone grant a human subject superpowers all of a sudden? And if it was possible then why did not Loki or Hydra use it to create their own super-powered army to fight the Avengers? And also, why did Thor leave the Staff with humanity when he took Loki to Asgard along with the Space Stone?
3. Red Skull on Vormir
Sure, at first glance it does sound and look cool to finally see the Red Skull back on his feet again. But how did he end up there? If you are thinking that the Space Stone did it, then tell us this – is the Space Stone some sort of inter-galactic navigational supercomputer? How did it know which planet to send the Red Skull to?
And since no mere mortal could hold an Infinity Stone and survive the aftermath, how did Red Skull manage to not kick the bucket? When Thanos and Gamora came to Vormir, they realized that the Red Skull now knows all there is to know about the Infinity Stones. Who taught him that? It might have looked cool when you saw it but the Red Skull reveal in Vormir was ultimately, a very confusing scene.
4. The Mandarin
Ben Kingsley is an acting juggernaut of the Hollywood industry. When he gets into a role, he does it with so much grace and elan that we have to stop and gawk at his marvelous skills. So when he portrayed the Mandarin, Iron Man’s primary arch-nemesis from the comic books, everyone was glued to the screens. The real shocker came when it was revealed that the guy who was claiming to be Mandarin was actually an English fool and a frontman for A.I.M. The reveal was so infamous that Marvel had to make a short film where they had to show Ben Kingsley playing the real Mandarin escaping from jail called “All Hail the King” and he was not pleased with the impostor taking up his role.
5. Baron Zemo
The Marvel Studios were trying to do something radically different when it came to Baron Zemo in Captain America: Civil War. And we appreciate that. It takes balls to change a guy that has an awesome costume and a knack for time traveling to help the Nazis win the Second World War into a guy who is just an ordinary Sokovian Intelligence officer and a master manipulator.
To some extent, Zemo actually resonated a lot with the fans. Our issue was how boring he got after the first few minutes of his debut. We wanted a Zemo that had a deep character and an incorrigible connection to the Avengers’ past. What we got was not what we had expected.
6. MJ
Sure, an African American MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming garnered a lot of controversies but truth be told, Spider-Man issues are filled with too little POC characters so this was a welcome gesture. Our real issue was how Spider-Man: Homecoming handled her. MJ or Mary Jane is supposed to be the love of the life of Peter Parker.
Homecoming took the whole movie and only revealed Zendaya was playing MJ at the very end. Another issue was that Zendaya and Tom Holland have a lack of chemistry on screen, which is clearly visible. Let us hope they can make up for that in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
7. The Stormbreaker axe
Did you know that when Thor lost access to his hammer in the comic books, it was not the Stormbreaker that became his next signature weapon? Believe it or not, Thor’s actual weapon is not Mjolnir but Jarnbjorn, a mystical axe that can cut through anything. Stormbreaker was the weapon of Beta Ray Bill, a fan favourite superhero of the Korbinite race in Marvel Comics. What Infinity War did was gave away the only thing that made Beta Ray Bill a superhero to Thor, thus ending any chances of Beat Ray Bill’s entry into the MCU. That is an unforgivable offence.
8. Hank Pym is Old
The only guy who can actually give Tony Stark a run for his money, or maybe even trump the armoured Avenger’s intelligence in pure science talk, is Hank Pym. In the comic books, he is the world’s foremost expert in more than two dozen fields’ of sciences and is second to none in several more. He is about the same age as Tony in the comic books and a fellow avenger. In Ant Man, we come to know that Hank Pym is an old senile guy way past his prime. It is a pity to be honest as Hank Pym and Tony Stark’s conversations itself would have been such a charmer.
9. The Inhumans
When Marvel realized that it is going to take forever for the mutant race to make their debut in the MCU, they found a loop hole. Mutations are not just what made the Mutants but also Inhumans in the Marvel Universe. So they created a show based on the latter community and had plans to integrate those into the MCU. The plan backfired when the show was found to be a big flop. The Mutants are now confirmed to be coming to the MCU but with the Inhumans already in the picture, it is going to be a bumpy ride.
10. The Civil War story line
The fans were really excited to see the actual live action representation of the acclaimed Civil War story line. What they got was an affront. In the comic book arc of the same name, Civil War was about whether or not masked superheroes should register their real identities with the Government, potentially risking their families. In the movie, the storyline basically was whether or not the superheroes should deal with international politics.
The former had much greater stakes and it was a lot darker. The latter was just a shallow excuse to put one team of superheroes against another to make a Box Office killing. Also, the amount of superheroes involved were far too loess. We would have liked if Civil War happened after a larger MCU with a lot more superheroes had been established.
