Post by Mark Gallagher, University of Nottingham

This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Mark Gallagher, is an Associate Professor in the department. Today’s entry is the second installment in a two-part post, and resumes with the third point in a five-point diatribe. Part One of this two-part post appears here.

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens with a battle scene that recalls a comic-book splash page. But don’t be fooled.

3. As a magnet for fandom, superhero movies violate the implicit contract between producers and consumers. At the risk of bowing to nostalgia, I point to the letters pages of 1970s Marvel comics for their evidence of fan engagement and for editors’ own discursive efforts at artistic legitimation.

A Thongor fan weighs in on Creatures on the Loose‘s letters page.

On one side, consider the hair-splitting response of one 1973 letter-writer to Marvel’s horror-fantasy series Creatures on the Loose, a fan distressed with the company’s depiction of obscure pulp-lit creation Thongor of Lemuria. (You know, THAT Thongor of Lemuria.) “Thongor just does not sound like the Thongor I know and love,” writes the aggrieved reader, Brian Earl Brown, before lavishing praise on the (soon-to-be-cancelled) series.

Fandom is of course about returns on investments of time in the form of (sub)cultural capital. Brown’s implied engagements with neo-pulp novelist Lin Carter‘s 1960s Thongor stories licenses him to judge the adaptation’s fidelity, and to weigh in subtly on transmedia style considerations (by noting the difficulty of adapting Carter’s “deceptively simple and lucid style”). Still, as purveyors of fantasy adventure, pulp fiction and comic books appear complementary textual forms, and both in the realm of low culture, hence the letter-writer’s concern with fidelity rather than legitimation.

Soon enough, though, readers and editors did take to the front lines (or at least comics’ letters pages) to argue for comics’ place in the landscape of art. Consider in this respect Marvel editors’ own sympathetic response (also in Creatures on the Loose, in early 1974) to another reader’s losing battle to legitimate his favored leisure form.

More dispatches from the id on the Creatures on the Loose letters page.

Addressing the letter-writer’s experiences of being “ridiculed, scorned, pitied” and more, Marvel’s editors note not only that “college courses in the literature of comics are springing up all over the country” but also, prophetically, that “filmmakers are studying the techniques” of then-prominent comics artists. Uh-oh.

Fast-forward 40 years, to the present. With the question of artistic legitimacy either resolved or simply abandoned—either way, think pieces about the merits of “graphic novels” appear less commonplace in the current climate than in the 1980s and 1990s heyday of Art Spiegelman‘s Maus (1991) and Joe Sacco‘s initial dispatches from war-ravaged Central Europe—mainstream comic books and their cinematic offshoots may now lack the fundamental transgressiveness that lent them vitality in the 1960s and beyond. Thanks to longstanding distribution practices, comics remain a fundamentally niche product. Recent digital-distribution initiatives notwithstanding, for the past thirty years in the U.S., serial comics have been sold only in specialty comic-book stores, limiting their readership to those people who set foot in such stores. Yet by serving up this niche commodity in adapted form to all four key quadrants of the filmgoing population, rights-holders Disney and Time Warner deplete the subcultural capital of their properties and their readerships.

4. Superhero movies relocate film-industry resources from more original material and siphon talent from richer projects. Many people involved in superhero films’ production are doing the best work they ever will, which is a compliment or insult depending on one’s judgment of the finished product.[2] Others—particularly actors given the visible evidence of their work—appear to be squandering their considerable talents. Mark Ruffalo may use his Avengers paychecks to bankroll his political activism and to appear in films that make greater demands of his craft, but his normally prolific output slows to a trickle in the Avengers films release years of 2012 and 2015.

Elizabeth Olsen shows off her casting-a-spell pose on The Daily Show.

Elizabeth Olsen delivered an impressive debut performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) but as the Avengers’ Scarlet Witch spends much of Age of Ultron frozen in a “I am casting a spell” pose (as she memorably demonstrated on a Daily Show appearance preceding the film’s release).

Scarlett Johansson has enjoyed a succession of compelling roles, but any bipedal runway model could just as well play her Black Widow character in the Iron Man and Avengers series given the role’s limited requirements. (#1: Look good in body-hugging outfit. #2: Talk sassy.) Is the sprawling Avengers franchise the price we pay to get Under the Skin (2013)? I hope not (but note to studios: please do give us another Under the Skin, even if you wouldn’t fund the first one).

Some actors—Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the X-Men films (2000-2014), and Robert Redford in last year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier—have benefitted from scripting that allows them to, in a word, act. Perhaps no one loses if Jessica Alba’s work in the 2000s Fantastic Four films (2005, 2007) prevented her from making Into the Blue 2, but certainly many people with talents in front of and behind the camera turn down other film projects in favor of the high visibility (and possible residuals) of tentpole superhero films. (Sure, I know too the scientists who could be developing the next Internet are instead hard at work on iPhone fart-simulation apps, but still.) Even those whose performance styles suit the material well can be ill-served. The Iron Man role, for example, limits Robert Downey Jr. to vocal and facial performance in support of his body double or CGI avatar’s screen image. He’s skilled at both but is capable of much more.

Age of Ultron literally gives Robert Downey Jr. little space to act.

5. Superhero movies pollute film discourse. Like Donald Trump’s Presidential candidacy, superhero movies appear a harmless diversion but actually refocus the cultural conversation in unproductive ways. As dreadful acronyms such as “MCU” and “Phase 3” (the latter meaning, “we’re determined to run this thing into the ground”) infiltrate entertainment discourse and popular consciousness, one might reasonably assume that superhero films represent some kind of high-water mark of contemporary cinema.

Many other high-calorie multiplex products occupy comparatively less intellectual real estate—the Transformers series (2007-2014), for example, does not excite viewers and commentators in the way recent superhero adaptations have done. To me, more than anything, a film such as The Avengers looks expensive. As a vehicle for directorial artistry, or acting talent, or narrative complexity—or for more expressly technical categories such as impressive cinematography, sound design and visual effects—it’s pretty unmemorable. Like most other Hollywood superhero films, its contribution to film economics is substantial, its contribution to film art is negligible, and its contribution to film culture is dare I say dispiriting.[3]

Make what you will of this lament from an aging white male who finds his cherished Rosebud replaced with a 160-horsepower Ski-Doo. And credit superhero films with managing to make even fare such as this summer’s Jurassic World—the “why not another one?” sequel to a calculated-blockbuster franchise that sprang to movie life in full bloat over two decades ago—appear fresh and original. But perhaps the violation I feel is instead resentment at receiving studio superhero behemoths at the wrong moment. After all, I thought Watchmen (2009) was one of the year’s best films—if the year was 1989. And Quentin Tarantino’s remarks in a New York magazine interview last month ring at least partly true for me:

The Black Panther’s first appearance, in a 1966 Fantastic Four issue.

I wish I didn’t have to wait until my 50s for this to be the dominant genre. Back in the ’80s, when movies sucked—I saw more movies then than I’d ever seen in my life, and the Hollywood bottom-line product was the worst it had been since the ’50s—that would have been a great time.

Still, this year, even de facto industry cheerleaders show signs of unrest. Media outlets trumpeting spotty opening-weekend performances for recent releases such as Ant-Man and Fantastic Four (both 2015) appear to exhibit exhaustion with the superhero phenomenon, and perhaps for oversized tentpole releases generally. As for me, I’ll start looking elsewhere for costumed characters onscreen, whether it’s the pleasingly ridiculous tussling models of Taylor Swift videos (de facto superheroines all, but sullying no previous creations), or better yet, the delirious art mutants who parade through Ryan Trecartin’s outlandish chamber dramas. Just keep me thousands of miles away from that Black Panther movie, because I like that character just fine in two dimensions, on yellowing newsprint.

[1] Preview of corrective coming attractions: for an international, and more level-headed, take on this trend in contemporary cinema, join us on September 24, when Nandana Bose contributes to this column with her analysis of recent Bollywood superhero films. For other recent, thoughtful takes on superhero films, head over to Deletion for its current “episode” on sci-fi blockbusters, and particularly to the entries from Liam Burke and Sean Cubitt.

[2] In this respect, I have only praise for the giant canvas afforded Sam Raimi for three Spider-Man films (2002-2007) and for Anthony and Joe Russo’s helming of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) as a 70s-style conspiracy thriller.

[3] Consult the comments section of this link for raves about The Avengers‘ rumored $260 million budget, which for many fans translates into sure-fire “epic” quality.

Post by Mark Gallagher, University of Nottingham

This post continues the ongoing “From Nottingham and Beyond” series, with contributions from faculty and alumni of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. This week’s contributor, Mark Gallagher, is an Associate Professor in the department. Today’s entry is the first in a two-part post, with the conclusion appearing tomorrow.

As the 2015 summer movie season winds down, let this modest scholar now go on record as saying I hate superhero movies.[2] Clearly this is a headline-worthy news flash: another snobbish egghead rails against consumerist popular culture. Beyond trying to prove that such a view is at all novel or should matter to anyone, I have worked to develop some kind of empirically sound hypothesis, or at least a not totally argumentatively unsound one. What follows is a five-point screed (prevented by blogging convention from being a 500-point screed, though even this condensed rant may test the limits of readers’ patience). It’s no Defence of Poesy, but read on anyway.

1. Superhero movies repackage subcultural esoterica and sell it back to us in bloated, unrecognizable form. Or, speaking personally, movies such as 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, the 2013 superhero sequel Thor: The Dark World, and this year’s repackaged Fantastic Four cynically monetize my childhood objects of wonder. Did the baby boomers, I wonder, feel this way when the 1960s were endlessly repurposed for later generations’ consumption? Maybe they found themselves in a warm cocoon of familiar pop cult as the world around them evolved, both in and not in their own image. As for me, when confronted with entertainment spaces and referents repurposing youth-centric popular culture from deep in the past century, I feel I’m inhabiting an adolescent dystopia far more disturbing than anything presaged in Lord of the Flies (1954) or Wild in the Streets (1968). Message to Paramount, Columbia, Fox, Universal, Warners and Disney (and of course, Marvel Studios): please stop.

Or if not, let the rest of us submit, with or without protest. Earlier this year, Ta-Nehisi Coates, award-winning journalist and student of systemic power imbalances, gave an interview to New York magazine published in print as “The Superheroes Won.” Coates flags up comics’ familiar selling points for progressives—Marvel has long had more than zero black characters, and even a Native American X-Man for five minutes in the 1970s—but says little about the grindingly market-centric logic now animating corporate rights-holders, or the fairly small slice of the population that actually reads comic books. (Sources indicate that comic-book sales have risen in recent years though still speak chiefly for and to white men.)

On superhero comics and films, Coates does make a plea for the unmoving image, arguing that “superheroes are best imagined in comic books.” He continues:

The union between the written word, the image, and then what your imagination has to do to connect those allows for so much. I always feel like when I see movies, I’m a little let down by the [digital] animation. […] Avengers movies will always disappoint me. X-Men [movies] will always disappoint me. […] I feel sorry for people who only know comic books through movies. I really do.

All the glitz of comic conventions in 1973.

I share Coates’ sentiments and would go further to address the ways this production trend infects larger constituencies, including film journalists and reviewers who labor to accommodate it. A popular coping (read: denial) strategy in this regard is to tune out corporatism in favor of ostensibly utopian fandoms. Reporting on this year’s consumer showcase Comic-Con (which not that long ago was a glamour-free used-collectibles bazaar), the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott remarks of comics and superhero culture that “What were once subcultural pursuits have conquered the mainstream.” He continues: “What was once a body of esoteric lore is now a core curriculum, and what was once a despised cult is now a church universal and triumphant.”

Would that I could join in Scott’s even-handed, or mostly celebratory, appraisal. Corporate product has undoubtedly spawned legitimate fan cultures that allow for myriad forms of self-expression and contingent identity formation. In moving comics materials from dispersed subculture to the center of a globalized monoculture, though, studios and their corporate parents dilute the artistic and political qualities that accompany subcultural production and circulation. The 2000s and 2010s wave of comic-book adaptations, particularly the as-yet inexhaustible roster of Marvel films both before and after the company’s 1999 acquisition by media giant Disney, sharply limits opportunities for creativity and imagination on the part of both producers and receivers. Ironically or not, superhero films’ outsize scales foster an inverse degree of imagination (though Dumb Drum‘s sweded trailers are pretty wonderful). Which leads into my second point…

2. Superhero movies distort the scale of their modest origins. At the time of Disney’s purchase of Marvel, Disney chief Robert Iger claimed that “Marvel’s brand and its treasure trove of content will now benefit from our extraordinary reach.” I don’t know if he then let out a maniacal laugh, or spoke those words in an ominous Darth Vader voice, but it sounded portentous to me. Five years later, the gifted, and highly opinionated comics writer-creator Alan Moore observed that “I found something worrying about the fact that the superhero film audience was now almost entirely composed of adults, men and women in their thirties, forties and fifties who were eagerly lining up to watch characters and situations that had been expressly created to entertain the twelve year-old boys of fifty years ago.” Moore muses further that “this embracing of what were unambiguously children’s characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence.” (An odd claim, perhaps, coming from a professed black-magic practitioner, but a notable point nonetheless.)

Moore’s charge could be leveled too at any film since the 1890s adapted from children’s stories, fairy tales, newspaper cartoons and more. Moore in this instance ignores comic books’ expanding audiences—comics were of course popular among soldiers in the 1940s and 1950s, and beginning in the second half of the 1960s, increasingly among university students and eventually graduates, to name just a few groups beyond preteen boys.

Still, his remarks indicate the degree to which a decidedly low-budget cultural form with discrete readerships became, in glossier cinematic form, not just legitimate but omnipresent. The Onion tweaked this emerging sensibility, and the increasingly recognizable figure of the Gen-X comic-book nerd, in the still-novel headline “Area Man Has Far Greater Knowledge Of Marvel Universe Than Own Family Tree” (a cautionary tale for those of us who also, like the article’s Area Man, can better gloss comics chronology than our family medical history).

Area Man’s pop-cultural literacy may now pay modest dividends in the form of semi-useless knowledge deployable in film consumption, though he may have to divest himself of any emotional attachments to familiar characters and storylines. Or for maximum outrage, he could curl up with Iron Man 3 (2013), which not only offered up the dismal cliché of a precocious orphan boy who helps our super-inventor hero get his mojo back after a first-act crisis but also tramples on the legacy of the armored character’s longest-running adversary, the Mandarin.

The Mandarin in his first appearance, in 1964.

Apparently not seeking to offend Chinese audiences with the Cold War Orientalism of the comic-book Mandarin—instead, it was superfluous scenes only appearing in the mainland-Chinese release that roiled audiences there—the filmmakers reimagine the character as a connotative Arab terrorist.

The film does not explain why this nowhere-near-Chinese foe would be called “the Mandarin,” but it matters little, as this Mandarin turns out to be nothing but a for-hire actor with no integrity. Perhaps Ben Kingsley—excuse me, Sir Ben—appreciated the meta-joke here. So much for the fiendish Mandarin as comics readers had known him, though.

Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin in Iron Man 3, styled as an Arab terrorist.

I don’t mean to suggest that textual fidelity is an essential criterion of judgment. In any case, film adaptations of comic books are not really comparable to serial comics anyway. Abundant film sequels aside, the recent wave of superhero television adaptations, such as Netflix’s atmospheric, psychologically-minded Daredevil (2015–) or the CW’s vigilante family melodrama Arrow (2013–), more closely match comics’ serial narrative form. As preconceived event movies, superhero films mirror the event comics Marvel and DC began publishing extensively in the 1960s—miniseries, giant-size issues, annuals that culminated epic serial storylines, and the like. Reviewing this year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron in Sight and Sound, Kim Newman reminds us that “these get-togethers feel like comic-book annuals or crossover events,” packing the screen (or page) with minor characters and subplots (most of which take us to other films or television series for completion, or help fill out toy-store shelves with expanded merchandise lines).

Why is Age of Ultron 141 minutes long? Not only because of its closing credits (clocking in at a mere 7 ½ minutes), but also because of its padding with character subplots that will continue in later films and TV series. Why does Thor depart mid-film for a bath in mystical waters? We may never know (or need to), though the film’s editing by committee and focus group apparently played some part. Even shortened from director Joss Whedon’s over-three-hour pre-release cut, the film’s surfeit of story compels viewers to search for explanations in other Marvel franchise film and TV output, if not diverting us back to the characters’ comic-book sources.

Comics fans have tended to read annuals more out of duty than enthusiasm, hoping for resolution of protracted storylines rather than nuance and narrative depth. Multiplex patrons may approach superhero movies with the same attitude, but lacking any extended-chronology alternative aside from derivative minor-character tie-ins such as ABC’s brand-named Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–). Even this might be less objectionable than the parallel permanent-first-issue trend, with characters’ origins retold in slightly altered form with each successive reboot. (With the Fantastic Four’s 1961 first issue filmed three times since 1990 with ever-younger casts, I await 2022’s Fantastic Four Infants, with uniforms to match.)

The fundamental distortion of superhero films is one of scale. The superhero comic books of the late 1930s to early 1980s that form the basis for contemporary films (in the most recent vintage, last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past adapts a 1980 storyline, and the Guardians of the Galaxy first appeared in comics in 1969, though last year’s film adaptation derives from a 2008 miniseries version of the group) were produced by small groups of men (and a handful of women) laboring over drafting tables in low-rent offices or spare bedrooms.

Action scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron in comic-book splash-page style.

The comic-book Avengers in battle, as rendered by Don Heck in 1967.

Despite films’ occasional nods to comic-book compositions in action set pieces, a good deal more than the Benjaminian aura is lost when this artisanal work becomes the province of thousands of software technicians working in discrete teams on modular tasks. And back in comic-book world, Marvel now milks the long-ignored Guardians of the Galaxy characters for all they’re worth, with at least eight different spinoff comics series under way or announced. It’s hard to feel anything but cynical about this short-sighted franchise stewardship.

Return tomorrow for the gripping Part Two of this two-part post.

[1] For the record, I have given a lot of time to superheroes so can claim more than passing knowledge of the subject. If any value lies in asserting the depths of my interest, let me note that I am the proud owner of somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 comic books, including nearly all of Marvel’s 1970s output and beyond, and enough DC, Archie and indie comics to dampen my marriage prospects forever.

[2] This is not to say that certain forms of popular entertainment do not merit critical attention. I remain a proud contributor to the upcoming anthology The Many More Lives of the Batman (ed. Roberta Pearson, William Uricchio and Will Brooker, BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming). Stimulation and repulsion apparently are not mutually exclusive.

Post by Piers Britton, University of Redlands

As I started planning this post, a few days before the general release of the second Avengers movie, issues of authorship and creative control—and attendant problems of narrative cogency in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—already seemed to offer a fruitful basis for comment and reflection. Not for the first time in his career, Ultron’s writer-director Joss Whedon was telling stories of conflict between himself and studio executives. At first remarks were notionally at his own expense: he jokily characterized the development of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as his misunderstanding of the studio’s brief for his three-year contract. Apparently his abrupt withdrawal from day-to-day creative involvement in the ABC series was the result of Marvel’s primarily wanting him to focus on the Avengers sequel. In the wake of Ultron’s release, in a podcast for Empire, Whedon painted a starker picture of creative differences that apparently opened up during production of the movie. He claimed that Marvel executives held to ransom the more surreal and intimately personal passages in Ultron, namely the vignettes of the heroes’ troubled visions brought on by Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and the sequence at a secluded farmhouse, owned by Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), which allowed for various ruminative two-handers between the principal characters. These are arguably the most “Whedonesque” segments of the blockbuster. According to Whedon, the Marvel team was preoccupied with scenes that tied into, and teased, future MCU movies, viz., those showing the mantic Thor bathing in the Waters of Sight. In short, Whedon offered a narrative of conflict between authorial sensibility and industry logic – Age of Ultron as an internally coherent, emotionally resonant text versus Age of Ultron as an iteration in a cycle – and thus a de facto preview of forthcoming attractions underscoring the fact that the MCU is “all connected.”

Almost at once this narrative of authorial conflict was overshadowed by a more immediately newsworthy one, which again spoke to tensions between individual entries in the MCU super-franchise and the avowed interests of Whedon as a writer and director. On May 4^th Whedon terminated his Twitter account, immediately exciting speculation that this was a response to an online “backlash” against Ultron’s portrayal of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). During the subsequent week a wide array of commentary centered on Whedon’s avowed feminism, and whether or not his treatment of Romanoff in Ultron upholds or (as was more widely opined) undercuts his claims to be a feminist. Objections to Whedon’s treatment of Black Widow focused on a series of plot elements, and one specific line of dialogue. Among other things critics objected to Romanoff’s being romantically paired with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), to her being cast as the stereotypical caregiver—taming the Hulk with a lullaby, “cleaning up” after the “boys” in the team, etc.—and to her “domestication” in the scenes at Barton’s farm. While at the farm she discusses with Banner the possibility of their settling down, and we learn that she was rendered sterile in a particularly nasty graduation ceremony at her assassins’ academy. According to Todd VanDer Werff’s transcription at Vox, the line runs as follows:

They sterilize you. It’s efficient. One less thing to worry about, the one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier — even killing. You still think you’re the only monster on the team?

The line is ambiguous in its import: at best, as VanDer Werff speculates, it is a clumsily constructed attempt to suggest that Romanoff is a monster by virtue of her whole career as a spy and assassin; at worst, as many claim, it atavistically reinscribes notions of a woman’s humanity being defined solely by her capacity to bear children.

I don’t want to dwell on the various positions in the Black Widow debate per se, but I do want to reflect on the fact that I did not myself experience the film as sexist in its portrayal of Romanoff. Structurally, scenes that showed her domestic side or stressed her emotional vulnerability did not strike me as out of balance with the scenes that showed her as single-minded, rational, intensely courageous and supremely competent in her professional life. Nor did the manifestations of her self-doubt and uncertainty about life choices seem to me egregious in comparison with the corresponding treatment of her fellow (male) Avengers. However, there’s no doubt that my neutral-to-positive reading of her portrayal at large, and the “monster” line in particular, was determined by my willingness to give Whedon the benefit of the doubt – which in turn is based largely on my prior knowledge of his television work. In other words, in spite of my scholarly interest in the MCU as brand, by default I read Age of Ultron primarily as a Whedon text, not a Marvel text. The same seems to be true of his detractors: in spite of the odd attempt to read the furore in the context of Marvel’s endemic gender asymmetries, excoriation of Ultron’s sexism has for the most part been couched in terms that presuppose Whedon’s primary authorship.

So has Whedon’s self-identification as a feminist, and his reputation as at least a would-be feminist writer, served perversely to obfuscate larger patterns of authorial bias, drawing attention away from Marvel Studios’ problematic representations and exclusions of women? In the short term this may be the case, but probably not over the long haul. While the billion-dollar success of Ultron will likely do little in production terms to encourage reevaluation of storytelling strategy and values in the MCU, from a reception standpoint this latest cause célèbre seems almost certain to be historicized as part of a pattern. If we compare the sluggish, scattered responses to the undermining and cheapening of female characters in the last Bond movie, Skyfall (Mendes, 2012), the groundswell of frustration at Marvel’s institutionalized sexism—articulated most recently by one of Ultron’s male stars—suggests that Marvel’s new breed of tent-pole movie is likely to be a prime locus of critique on issues of balanced and diverse representation for some time to come.

Figure 1: Texturally rich costuming of Matt Murdock character in Daredevil.

Post by Piers Britton, University of Redlands.

How far are Marvel Studios’ film and television franchises visually coded for homogeneity? How insistently, that is to say, is brand identity maintained at the levels of design, cinematography, editing and post-production processing? This question seems worth pursuing in relation to Marvel’s Daredevil (Netflix, 2015), which has already been critically positioned as divergent from prior entries in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” super-franchise. All the MCU films since 2008 have been rated PG-13, while the ABC television series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–) and Marvel’s Agent Carter (2014-15) are consistently anodyne, even at their darkest. Daredevil, by contrast, is already notorious for its frequent and intensely graphic violence, which earned it a TVMA certification, and for the conflicted nature of its anti-heroic protagonist. This shift in tone is not the only departure from the prior Marvel norm. Much more assertively than Agent Carter, and even more than the DC offerings on the CW, the new show emphasizes that its protagonist is one of Marvel’s “street-level” superheroes, with the action never straying beyond Hell’s Kitchen and the narrative focusing heavily on the socially disadvantaged and marginalized. While it is not the first Marvel property to introduce comic-book characters without their familiar costume trappings and idiosyncrasies of grooming, Daredevil has arguably gone further than its predecessors in this regard. For example, the series reduces the comics’ hirsute, flamboyantly coiffed and green-ulster-clad Leland Owlsley (Bob Gunton) to a deceptively avuncular elderly man with thinning hair and a short back and sides, dressed in earth-toned tweeds. Indeed, Daredevil even deprives Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) of his red superhero suit until the climax of the final episode.

Showrunner Steven DeKnight has underscored the ways in which Daredevil differs visually from network series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., noting that he and his D.P., Matt Lloyd, “wanted to be able to do a show that was literally darker than what you would see on a network,” where series tend to be “very bright, very evenly lit,” and further that they “wanted to take more of the color palette of the classic movies of the ’70s, the Dog Day Afternoon and French Connection and Taxi Driver.” The series’ production designer, Loren Weeks, also emphasizes Daredevil’s departure from the sleek, well-appointed and technology-rich environments that typify Marvel’s cinematic tales of billionaire playboys, demigods and super-soldiers. Tellingly, Weeks claims: “We’re more The Wire than other Marvel movies. It’s not the stuff you see in Agents of SHIELD, it’s the stuff you see every day.”

Stress on the quotidian, invocation of the ultra-realist Wire, insistence on chiaroscuro lighting (with its inevitable noir associations), and reference to the subdued palette of dour seventies thrillers all serve to distance Daredevil not only from other Marvel properties but also from other broadly cognate television shows. They rhetorically position the series as something “grittier” than the quasi-realist narratives of street-level superheroes in Arrow (CW, 2012–) and The Flash (CW, 2014–). Indeed, if there is a DC comparison to be made, it is with the notoriously tenebrous and bleak Dark Knight films. So, if we are to take Weeks’ and DeKnight’s remarks at face value, how does the visual style of Daredevil fulfill the branding imperative of offering variety within identity and novelty within continuity?

A number of recurrent or repeated visual motifs both in Daredevil’s paratextual materials—posters, publicity stills, and so on—and in the episodes themselves serve to weld strongly to Marvel’s other film and television, and to its comic-book lineage. Use of strong color in Daredevil represents the most interesting variation on established Marvel brand elements. MCU style in toto is defined by chromatic intensity and richness (in contradistinction to the DC film and television “multiverse” that has gradually developed since Batman Begins). Dominant color values have varied, with Phase Two movies and the second series of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. frequently exhibiting lower values and lower-key lighting than Phase One. Even so, selective, punctuative use of high-intensity colors is endemic to Marvel’s television and film offerings. Only the environments and personnel of S.H.I.E.L.D. are stripped of high value and saturated color; otherwise, the heroes and villains and their worlds are as bright as the Marvel logo, and the comic-book pages we glimpse in the animated version of that logo that heads each film and television show from the MCU. In most cases, focal points of vibrant color are typically located one way or another on the bodies of the protagonists, from Iron Man’s scarlet and gold livery to Peggy Carter’s blue suit, white blouse and red hat (used so extensively in publicity materials for Agent Carter), and from Thor’s flaxen hair to the Hulk’s green skin.

Figure 2: Superficially neutral costuming of Wilson Fisk character in Daredevil

Daredevil largely displaces intense color from bodies, except in the case of the saturated red costume worn by the “ninja” villain, Nobu (Peter Shinkoda), in a watershed fight scene. As befits a faux-realist television series, and especially one that unfolds over thirteen instantly reviewable episodes, the devil is in the details in Stephanie Maslansky’s costumes; bold gestures are correspondingly few and far between. Thus Matt Murdock’s suits are mostly mid-value monochrome but his clothes are texturally rich—shirts, for example, are nubby oxford rather than smooth poplin—suggesting the blind man’s heightened reliance on tactility (Fig. 1). By the same token, wisecracking Foggy Nelson (Eldon Hensen) is also superficially neutral in his dress, but the printed shirt fabrics and animal-motif ties reward leisurely, close inspection and add a “quirky but not flamboyant” note – and so on. Unmodified strong color is eschewed in inverse proportion to the dominance of all these surface nuances, a choice that is most notable in the reimagining of principal antagonist Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). The white suits and ascot of the comic book Kingpin are relegated to an “Easter egg” joke in the fifth episode, while Fisk’s open-necked silk shirts and mohair-tonic, three-piece suits for the series are either black, gray or muted blue, the surface of the latter sometimes broken up with self-stripes that further mitigate saturation (Fig. 2).

Figure 3: Vivid lighting in Daredevil.

Vivid color is mainly a property of environments, and more specifically the illumination of environments, in Daredevil. Murdock speaks of experiencing “a world on fire,” and in addition to a couple of livid-red POV shots simulating this for the audience, the idea is echoed each episode in the opening credits, which show New York landmarks and finally Daredevil himself forming viscously out of a red haze. A no-less insistent leitmotiv is the acid yellow and green light suffusing the panes of the picture windows that are endemic to the various warehouse and loft spaces in which so much of the nocturnal action takes place — including Murdock’s own apartment (Fig. 3). This sickly glow can in most cases be rationalized as light pollution from neon signage and street lamps (the now celebrated hallway fight from the second episode is one of the exceptions), but this is ultimately beside the point. The device is surely used chiefly because the grid of glazing bars in these windows provides a strong, stylized, quasi-graphic backdrop to action – and perhaps because both the strong color fields and insistent linearity recall the simplified backgrounds beloved of comic-book inkers and colorists (Fig. 4).

Figure 4: Example of simplified backgrounds of classic comic books.

Figure 5: Netflix’s posters for Daredevil.

Very little of this disembodied color creates as potent an effect as Netflix’s Hopperesque banner and posters for Daredevil (Fig. 5), which feature a cityscape bathed in the super-intense blue that hyperbolically represents nighttime in screen media as well as some comic strips. It is in these paratextual images that the “Marvelness” of Daredevil is perhaps most economically and powerfully expressed. Even so, and notwithstanding analogies with The Wire and Dog Day Afternoon, Daredevil’s imagery consistently reflects the fact that, as Loren Weeks puts it: “We didn’t want to be too literal with the real. It is the Marvel universe, after all.”

Ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and the summer blockbuster frenzy, a smaller Marvel property, Daredevil, launched April 10 on Netflix. The 13-episode season of Daredevil is the first deliverable of a $200 million, 60-hour deal with Netflix to bring Marvel’s “street level” characters to life on the small, streaming screen. This deal includes Daredevil, this fall’s AKA Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist in 2016, and an Avengers-esque team-up show, The Defenders, likely targeted for 2017. As the first of its ilk, Daredevil marks not only a milestone for Netflix’s original content strategy, but also the expansion of Marvel Television, currently responsible for ABC’s Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D, which has received, at best, mixed responses from fans and mediocre ratings for a network series.

For the uninitiated, Daredevil follows the exploits of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox)–blind lawyer by day, extrasensory crime fighter by night–as he attempts to reclaim the streets of a retrograde Hell’s Kitchen from a criminal syndicate lead by Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). Steven S. DeKnight (executive producer, Spartacus) took over showrunner duties from Drew Goddard (dir. and writer, Cabin in the Woods) after Goddard left the show to pursue a Spider-Man project at Sony Pictures ten weeks before principal photography began. Despite the hiccup, DeKnight was able to keep the ball rolling and Daredevil remained on schedule.

Joining the likes of House of Cards (2012-) and Orange is the New Black (2013-), Daredevil is only the latest example of Netflix’s aggressive original content strategy. Owing to increasing competition in the streaming space with Amazon Prime, Hulu, and HBO (including the recently introduced standalone HBO Now), securing exclusive, licensed content has become more difficult and expensive. Opting to fund original programming means Netflix can brand itself not only through its proprietary algorithmic recommendation engine, but also through its original, critically acclaimed series, the latest of which also happens to be set within the astronomically successful Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise.

Consisting of films like Iron Man (2008), The Avengers (2012), and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the MCU has broken box office records, revitalized the Marvel brand under its current owner Disney, and arguably spearheaded the golden era of comic book movies in Hollywood. And with the release of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the MCU has become the highest grossing movie franchise in history, topping the Harry Potter franchise in total box office revenue. Moreover, The Avengers and Iron Man 3 (2013) hold the records for the first and second highest opening weekend box office at $207 and $174 million, respectively. With multiple films releasing every year, and with Marvel expanding its transmedia storytelling to comics and Marvel Television series across networks and platforms, the MCU looks to increase its commercial dominance in the decade to come.

The ascendance of the MCU at the box office and within popular culture is part of a more general superhero zeitgeist in entertainment media. This zeitgeist arguably illustrates the movement of comic book properties from the margins of popular culture to its proverbial center, now prominent not only at the box office, but also increasingly in the living room. The last several years have seen comic book properties invade the television space, led primarily by Warner Bros.-owned DC Comic properties with shows like CW’s Arrow (2012-) and Flash (2014-), Fox’s Gotham (2014-), and NBC’s Constantine (2014-), to say nothing of AMC’s runaway hit The Walking Dead (2010-), one of the few successful franchises not under the Marvel or DC umbrella.

Starting with Daredevil, Netflix has joined the comic book hero zeitgeist, choosing to plant its flag squarely within the MCU. By all accounts, Daredevil has proven a critical, if not commercial, success over the first week of its availability. While praise is spread throughout the series, one particular hallway fight scene–an homage to Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy (2003) in episode two, “Cut Man”–has proven especially popular among viewers, and has been broadcast across social media and featured in dozens of articles.

Yet while it’s easy to scan the Internet for general praise of Daredevil’s 13-episode run, the show’s actual viewership is more difficult to determine. While Netflix claims over 60 million global subscribers, we do not know what percentage of these watched Daredevil during its first weekend. This is due to Netflix’s infamous silence when it comes to ratings for their original programming. Without advertisers, Netflix ascribes very different value to its own internal metrics, placing much more emphasis on shelf-life viewing rather than viewership over any particular period.

Yet one metric pertaining to the program’s popularity we do have access to is its estimated piracy numbers. Despite Netflix being available in over 50 countries for around $10 per month, over 2.1 million users illegally downloaded episodes of Daredevil in its first week of availability, according to piracy-tracking firm Excipio, a figure topped only by the reigning champ of pirated programs, HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011-).

Early indications suggest Marvel Television and Netflix’s 60-hour experiment has so far been a success for both companies. Netflix stock just skyrocketed after a company announcement of higher-than-expected global subscriber gains, making the streaming company now worth more than media giants like CBS and Viacom. Additionally, despite four other Marvel series scheduled to hit Netflix over the next two years, people are already asking about a second season of Daredevil. Owing to the fact Netflix has already renewed OITNB for a fourth season ahead of its June season three launch, one can assume a Daredevil season two announcement is not far off, depending on the particulars of Netflix’s deal with Marvel, of course.

In their partnership, Marvel Television (in conjunction with ABC Studios) gains a robust, popular distribution platform for their franchise product, and Netflix strengthens its catalog of original content while providing a corner of the wildly successful MCU not available anywhere else.

Yet in addition to the context of its production and initial reception, Daredevil seems ripe for further critical analysis. For instance: How does the early success of Daredevil further cement the place of comic book heroes within popular film and television, and how long will this genre remain favorable? Also, having emphasized its on-location shooting in New York City, how does Daredevil evoke authenticity in the construction of its narrative spaces, and what value is there in this authenticity? Finally, what does the deal between Marvel Television and Netflix signal for the future of franchise television and transmedia production and distribution?

In recent years, the superhero genre has been doing better regarding female characters. Comics publishers for example are announcing more titles with believable female protagonists, finally becoming aware of their increasing female readers. However, historically the genre itself, which includes not only comics but also adaptation films, has always had problems with their female representations in the past that still exists now. Marvel Studios, after ten films have yet to give their viewers a female protagonist. The next two new superheroes scheduled to have their own films next are Ant-Man (2015) and Doctor Strange (2016), who are again, male, and it is not until 2018 that a Captain Marvel film will be released with a central female character. Film adaptations of DC Comics’ heroes are no better. In the last decade, what we have gotten are several Batmans and Supermans, with a bit of Green Lantern and Jonah Hex. Despite Wonder Woman being one-third of the Big Three in the DC Universe, she will only be finally introduced on movie screens in Batman v Superman next year. Her own film is not scheduled until the year after that.

Lack of representations is not the only problems female characters in superhero comics have faced and are still facing now; stereotyping has always been an inescapable issue. One of the most famous stereotypes that women are confronted with is the Damsel in Distress, which is a theme briefly explored in the second episode Agent Carter. As Peggy sneaks up behind a man who drives the truck that is believed to have delivered Howard Stark’s stolen weapons, the Captain America radio show plays in the background. In the radio show, Peggy is no agent or officer, but a “beautiful triage nurse” who is taken hostage numerous times, doing nothing but forever wait for Captain America to come rescue her. The sound effects for the radio show’s Captain America punching out his enemies created by smacking a chunk of meat syncs perfectly with Peggy’s kicks and hooks. When radio show Peggy encourages her Captain to “hit him again,” it is the actual Peggy that obliges, thus in a strange way, saving herself. Finally, when the radio’s Captain America asks if “Miss Carter” is all right, Peggy looms over the man she has easily beaten (on her own), asking in disbelief if that is “all [the man]’s got.” By syncing the fighting scene with the radio show, Agent Carter allows Peggy to knock out her own hopeless Damsel in Distress double, as well as present to the viewers of the show the ridiculous unreality of the stereotype, and how outdated it is.

Unfortunately, constraints of female characters do not end with stereotyping either. It should be mentioned that whatever stereotype the heroine is subjugated to, in many cases they are reduced to the plot device named “the love interest,” and rarely are they privileged with full stories of their own. After all, how many of us are fully familiar with back or side stories of Lois Lane or Mary Jane Watson like we are with Superman or Spider-Man?

However, this is what makes Agent Carter interesting: “the love interest” is where Peggy Carter started. There is no denying that Peggy was amazing character when she first appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), but the film was a Captain America movie. She was his love interest in which viewers were given merely minimum information about her character, mostly in relation to Captain America’s tale. Yet Agent Carter sheds light onto this love interest, giving her more than her relationship with Captain America. The series portrays her as a fully developed character who is struggling with her emotions, career, and undercover work. We see a woman who gained strength but also suffered a tragic loss with the war, trying to build a life of her own where she does not quite fit in. She is unsure of herself and her future, but everything changes when she is given a mission to prove Howard Stark’s innocence. With this newly found mission to bring justice to her friend, Peggy Carter rises as a superhero. Agent Carter is about Peggy Carter. Captain America, one of the most famous superheroes in the world, is her back-story.

Therefore, not only does the series criticize sexism in society by presenting their viewers with Peggy’s unfair treatment from her sexist co-workers or male customers harassing her waitress friend, she fights sexism of her genre by challenging stereotypes that has existed for decades. Unfortunately there have been talks about the series’ low ratings and possibility of cancellation. I sincerely hope this will not happen, for Agent Carter, with Peggy effectively knocking down false beliefs about women, sets an excellent example for future female protagonists and superheroes that may face similar struggles in the superhero genre.

Further, Marvel are constructing a sequential tapestry unrivaled in cinematic history by drawing from the comic book concept of continuity and building a grand universe of interconnectivity and hyperdiegetic expansion. DC, on the other hand, have announced that their film and TV properties will probably be separate universes which indicates a lack of vision and something which irks this author greatly. I do not want to craft dubious assertions about the audience here, but my own research has shown that fans love hyperdiegetic continuity, something which DC fail to recognize again and again going back to the 1960s/70s and leading into the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series which was created to (supposedly) streamline DC’s erratic and errant continuity. DC has periodically performed continuity cleansing operations in 1994 (Zero Hour: Crisis in Time), 2005 (Infinite Crisis/52) and 2011 (Flashpoint/The New 52) whereas Marvel’s continuity goes back to those early Timely Comics featuring the first iteration of Captain America, Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch. Simply put, DC repeatedly pushes the reboot/reset button while Marvel has never resorted to such drastic tactics that often risks the ire of the fan culture by casting decades of comic material into the dustbin of history. Once again, DC are on the back-foot, defending rather than attacking.

Marvel’s latest film, Guardians of the Galaxy, is certainly another example of the studios’ risk taking, but this should not be surprising. As Marvel’s flagship characters, Spider-Man, X-Men and the ‘first family,’ The Fantastic Four, are unavailable due to a copyright deal that surely has Stan Lee weeping into his Hulk pajamas, Marvel Studios took a step into the unknown by using (then) B-lister, Iron Man, to launch their Cinematic Universe. Of course, we all know that casting Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was a momentous decision and set the ground for what was to come. But even Iron Man had considerably more gravitas than Guardians of the Galaxy, a relatively unknown gang of motley mercenaries which includes Star Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, a talking tree creature named Groot, and Rocket Raccoon. In comic book lore, the Guardians is the second iteration of a team that first made its debut in 1969, but in current continuity, the revised roster has a relatively recent pedigree, first appearing in 2008. In 2012, as part of Marvel’s response to DC’s regenerative initiative, “The New 52,” Brian Michael Bendis began a new series featuring Rocket et al which has helped propel the intergalactic ensemble into the fan conscience.

Still, a massive risk when one considers the fan-ghetto that is the contemporary comic book industry. Guardians does not come with a pre-built recognition like Iron Man, Hulk, or The Avengers. Many commentators agreed that Marvel Studios could be hoisted by its own petard by breaking free of the comfortable confines of branded characters and experimenting with lesser known fare. An early scene in the film operates as an arch-commentary on the unknown quality of these characters when Peter Quill fails to spark any recognition from one of Thanos’ henchmen. “I’m Starlord!” he says proudly, to which his pursuer responds emphatically: “WHO?” with a quizzical lack of comprehension.

Any anxiety has surely been put to rest now as Guardians broke box-office records which demonstrates that the Marvel brand has become a trusted commodity rather than this-or-that superhero. But is the film any good?

Well, first and foremost, it has a raccoon who wields awesome weapons and has a penchant for wry doses of humor. That alone has me on-board. What is striking about this film, for this reviewer at least, is that it does not take itself seriously at all and fully embraces the absurd to deliver a fun-filled, comedy-laden adventure that DC’s audio-visual properties sorely lack. Even Man of Steel managed to take the most optimistic of superheroes and turn him into a dour, miserable facsimile imbued in the grim and gritty ambiance of The Dark Knight (I know, I promise I will stop with the DC/Marvel comparisons, but the former has colored me irritated). Conversely, Guardians is a romp: it is zany, silly and crafted with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink irony that had the audience spluttering popcorn and joining in a collaborative chorus of laughter that was joyful to partake in. There weren’t many laughs in Nolan’s Batman films or Man of Steel (there I go again!). Not that I am against the grim and gritty: Nolan’s films were astounding, a three-act epic that deserves the accolades.

Guardians acts as a kind of pilot for the team’s further adventures (which we are informed during the final credits “will return”) and the story presents an origin narrative for how the team first meet and begin to form an alliance. It is not until the film’s final act that the Guardians come together into a cohesive unit. This is, for all intents and purposes, “Guardians of the Galaxy: Year One.”

Did I mention the raccoon? With guns?

Now, perhaps Zeitchik is right and audiences are simply enjoying the film’s special effects, humor, and endearing camaraderie without having much of a sense of the macroplot. But can we truly separate these things, as Zeitchik implies? He writes, “Why people are literally doing what they’re doing, or what the plausible psychological explanations are for what they’re doing – seem beside the point.” Yet the audience cannot fundamentally make sense of the narrative without understanding each character’s specific motivation. Why does a drunken Drax call Ronan, for instance? Or is the audience simply so dull it does not ask these questions, but rather sits back and waits for the fighting to begin? Considering the relative simplicity of the plot and the film’s concerted efforts toward classical narrative redundancy, Zeitchik paints the audience (and himself) in a rather poor light.

I could continue breaking down Zeitchik’s article, but my primary intention here is not simply to beat up on a piece of pop criticism that strikes me as wrongheaded. Instead it’s to point out a trend in contemporary film criticism in which critics strive to separate themselves from a strawman “fanboy” audience that is completely uncritical of comic book films, and possesses the arcane knowledge necessary to comprehend them. Rather than accurately representing how these films are constructed, and the way audiences engage with them, I believe this critical attitude serves mainly to reinforce traditional taste hierarchies.

Years ago in another defense of the contemporary franchise blockbuster, I suggested that these films were clearly constructed to appeal to both fan and general audiences. I’d argue that Guardians succeeds especially well in this regard, and is quite accessible to viewers who have neither read any Marvel comics, nor seen any Marvel films. Yet many critics continue to propagate the idea that only a fan audience (something that is never concretely defined) can fully understand a film of this kind. Zeitchik writes that “Hard-core Marvel enthusiasts, versed in the 1960s comic where it all began, may disagree” with his confusion. Likewise, The New York Times’ A.O. Scott praises Men in Black 3 because “You don’t need to study up on the previous installments or master a body of bogus fanboy lore to enjoy this movie.”

The New York Times critics have been particularly guilty of defensive posturing while reviewing superhero films. In 2012 Scott griped, “A critic who voices skepticism about a comic book movie…is likely to be called out for snobbery or priggishness…and trying to spoil everyone else’s fun. What the defensive fans fail or refuse to grasp is that they have won the argument.” Manohla Dargis complains that “oppositional voices” like hers and Scott’s “can be difficult to hear in the contemporary media context.” (Reminder: Dargis and Scott are film critics for the newspaper with the second-highest circulation in the country.) Scott continues, with an utter lack of self-awareness, to criticize “comic book fans’ need to feel perpetually beleaguered and disenfranchised.” This is presumably quite unlike Scott and Dargis’s efforts to position themselves as the last bastion of good taste against the onslaught of the fanboy hordes.

Rather than being embarrassed for their alleged lack of ability to follow a science fiction action film, critics take pride in their confusion, using it to carefully separate themselves from fans, considered to be dupes of the Hollywood marketing machine who revel in sexist, racist, and infantile power fantasies. I’ve spent a good deal of time reading film reviews for my manuscript on the economic and cultural transformation of American science fiction film, and it’s been fascinating to trace the shifting tone of critics from condescending dismissal to the nearly hysterical defensiveness and hostility seen today. Film critics may be soured on fandom due to the appalling, unrepresentative behavior of internet trolls. But at a time when comic book adaptations are some of the most culturally prominent films worldwide, critics might consider making an honest effort to appreciate why they strike a chord with the hoi polloi.

1) We’re all going to be millionaires! Well, 1,600 of us are after Twitter’s IPO, which had been raised to $26 a share before going public Thursday, saw shares open at $45.10 on the NYSE before closing at $44.90. What’s that mean? Twitter raised as much as $2.1 billion ending with a market capitalization of $25 billion. The big numbers have raised eyebrows as to what might be the next big Internet company to jump to the exchange. Others, however, saw the IPO as a failure, though this Forbes column is well over 140 characters, so who has the time to read it, am I right?

2) Like all things in Congress, it took longer than it should have, but the Senate has officially confirmed Tom Wheeler as the new FCC chairman. Wheeler was unanimously voted in after the confirmation was held up by  (who else?) Ted Cruz, who put a hold on the nomination two weeks ago. Wheeler didn’t waste time holding his first staff meeting in which he called for a “nimble” department, referring to the FCC as an “optimism agency” that promoted competition, innovation, and consumer protection.

3) Wheeler’s FCC might see a possible merger come across their doorstep sooner rather than later. After it was revealed Time Warner Cable was hurting more than it let on after its summer battle with CBS resulting in losing 306,000 television subscribers, news emerged that Charter Communications was weighing a bid for the cable provider. Though the initial talks began near the beginning of this year, recent troubles see Time Warner Cable being more open to the deal, spearheaded by John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp, partial owners of Charter. This may be best for everyone, as Time Warner Cable’s stock spiked considerably after the news broke.

4) A story involving California, a politician, the entertainment industry, and bribes… stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A report from Al-Jazeera America revealed California state Senator Ronald Calderon accepted bribes as part of an undercover FBI sting, just one of many claims to Calderon’s corruption. Calderon was one of the primary champions of a recent local film production incentive program and the chair of the Senate Select Committee on California’s Film and Television industries. After the report, Calderon was removed from that committee. The affidavit reveals FBI agents posed as executives from a fictitious studio offering a bribe of $60,000 in exchange for the industry friendly tax break program. I can’t wait to see the movie based on this! Call Ben Affleck.

5) Marvel and Netflix have come to terms on what both are calling an “unprecedented deal” that will see Marvel Television develop four original live-action series for the streaming service followed by a miniseries featuring the four characters from each. Focusing on more ‘street-level’ heroes Daredevil (recently reacquired from Fox), Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist, the deal includes a commitment of four 13-episode series plus the culminating “Defenders” miniseries, taking a similar narrative approach to the Avengers team-up.

6) Turning to international news, Italy might be planning to privatize it’s state-run broadcaster RAI after losing more than $250 million last year. The move would be in line with the country’s recent steps to reduce its debt (second in the EU only to Greece) without further raising taxes. While the idea of privatizing has been brought up multiple times before, the larger fears for the country seem to indicate these talks are more serious and possibly more likely to come to fruition.

7) A new Royal Charter being discussed in the U.K.’s Parliament with new press regulations faced threats of injunction from the country’s The Newspaper Society. This attempt failed, however, and the Royal Charter made its way to Her Majesty, the Queen for final approval. The Charter is an attempt to create a more powerful watchdog group to hold accountable those publications that break rules and regulations.

8) In an effort to build upon the importance of the Chinese market and co-productions, NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer announced plans to open a film office in Beijing to act as a local “base of operations.” The MPAA supported the announcement, expressing excitement over the tighter connection with the bustling market and the door to more co-productions.

9) If you are at all interested in media industry news, the name Nikki Finke is assuredly familiar to you. The founder and editor-in-chief of Deadline Hollywood will be leaving the site, now owned by Penske Media Corp. There have been rumblings about Finke’s displeasure and desire to leave for months, with her departure coming before the end of her current contract through 2016, thus resulting in her leaving substantial money on the table.

10) It’s the end of an era, as Blockbuster has announced it will close its remaining 300 vide0-rental stores. Now owned by Dish Network, Blockbuster will also stop its DVD-by-mail business and instead be primarily focused on its Video-On-Demand service Blockbuster@Home. As it is wont to do, The A.V. Club perhaps summarizes the story best with the simple headline “Blockbuster Video closing all the stores it still apparently had.”