u/SunshineAZ25

It's wild to think that, because in the MCU's heyday, this would be unheard of, but now it's really hard to argue against.

For context, Marvel Comics is currently in a really poor state both commercially and creatively. Very few of the books are really getting traction, and Marvel has lost its place as the publisher with the biggest share of the market to DC.

Now, is it only the MCU's fault for this? Not really; it's more a combination of problems like the editorial team and Disney's lack of interest on the comics side. Still, everything tracks down to it, even if not directly.

A good example of what I'm referring to was this year's San Diego Comic-Con. For comparison's sake, let's look at DC. In that event, they announced three black-led ongoing series, two miniseries of lesser-known characters for their next level initiative, three one-shots (one in the main universe and two in the Absolute universe), a new Batman ongoing by the team behind the critically and commercially acclaimed Absolute Martian Manhunter, and the reveal of two designs that, from what I've seen, have been very well received.

Marvel, on the other hand? Well, they announced a new Editor-in-Chief, some Sneak Peeks for their new Midnight Universe, a new Venom Ongoing, a new Mary Jane miniseries, an outline of The Marvel Universe after the Armageddon event ends, and the announcement that Marvel will dip their toes in the world of webtoons.

Tastes may vary, but most would agree that DC has the more interesting/original announcements. At the same time, Marvel mostly stuck to the basics, safe picks, but that wasn't what people were talking about after the event finished. No, what people were discussing was the announcement of the next phase of MCU movies and the casting of David Jonsson as the new Black Panther and Ryan Gosling as the new Ghost Rider.

Now, is the MCU's success the problem? No, and if you like the movies, good for you. But it shows how the MCU has become the get-out-of-jail-free card for anything Marvel does.

Is the MCU's success the problem? No, and if you like the movies, good for you. But it shows how the MCU has become the get-out-of-jail-free card for anything Marvel does. There isn't any move to change the status quo in any meaningful way from the directors; we are seeing Marvel doing the same mistakes that led to their bankruptcy in the 1990's with stuff like Blind Bags. The comics feel more like an advertisement for the MCU than their own thing, and why would they change it? The MCU is making billions at the box office, and who cares about comics in the year 2026 when you can have movies and games for those same characters?

But, is Marvel still capable of turning things around? Absolutely. The Midnight universe, even if currently getting lukewarm reactions from fans after what happened to the Ultimate Universe, has really good creative teams linked to it; books like Moon Knight, Daredevil, Thor, Iron Man, and others have been very well received, and they still have really great talent at their disposal like Al Ewing, Jonathan Hickman, and Jed Mackay. But the question is still the same: will they change?

Right now, the best comparison to make with Marvel's current state is with Pokemon. Both are billion dollar empires that have been called out for their drop in quality, but while Pokemon has formula that no matter how outdated it gets it still brings capital and I only see Nintendo stepping up and actually forcing Gamefreak to change their formula significally if they shit the bed so badly that would force their hands, and this is the same company that released Scarlet and Violet, two games that while enjoyable were not in a state were they should have been released (bt hey, from what I've seen they seem to start to change the developing formula for the Gen 10 games, so they may be able to turn things around). Marvel is on the same wavelength, where they've gotten comfortable with what they are doing and don't seem interested in changing the status quo, as you can see in Amazing Spider-Man and in how the story seems stagnated for what feels like an eternity by this point.

Now, before ending the rant, the MCU did bring a lot of good stuff for Marvel; heck, their current stronghold on Pop Culture mostly comes from it. I  doubt they would reach even half of it by just doing comics and games. It did introduce the Marvel Universe to multiple people who have never read a comic in their lives. Still, at the same time, as someone who doesn't care for the MCU that much, sometimes it really feels like the medium that created so many iconic characters and stories for so many generations has been treated as an afterthought by the higher-ups simply because it doesn't make as much money as the movies.

So, I recently finished Crônica dos Bons Malandros by Mario Zambujal, and I realized that this book would not work at all in any other language than Portuguese.

For people who don't know this book, it's basically a crime/heist book about a group of criminals planning to rob valuable jewels from a museum in Lisbon, with the chapters in between being about the criminals' pasts and how they all ended up meeting each other. It's not the most complex story, but it's a ton of fun to read, and I feel a lot of it comes down to the prose.

The book is written with a lot of local slang that wouldn't really work in any language other than Portuguese. The fun of the book is in reading the narrator talk about the misadventures the characters live through (like seriously, Zambujal could have written his grocery list and it still would be an entertaining list).

Are there other examples of this you can remember?

When you boil down the story to its core elements, it's actually a pretty simple cop movie. Two detectives (a younger and more fiery cop teaming up with a more cynical older one) partner to catch a serial killer who is basing his crimes on the Seven Deadly Sins.

Nothing here is truly original, but elements like its characters and the philosophy it conveys elevate it from a simple movie to an all-time great. The dynamic between Mills and Somerset instantly draws us into their story. We want Mills to live a happy life with his wife and become a father; we want Somerset to enjoy a happy retirement and gain a more optimistic view of the world, but unfortunately things are never that simple.

Now, bleak and dark themes aren't exclusive to this movie; heck it's the basis of the noir and later Neo-Noir genres but Sev7n takes this thesis of an unfair and cruel world and cracks it up to eleven. The victims of Doe shouldn't have suffered those fates, but at the same time you can't really say they are good; heck, no one in that city is shown to be truly altruistic.

And finally there is the ending. Mills learns what's inside the box and kills John Doe in rage with his pistol and gets arrested, finally completing Doe's Magnum Opus is so bleak to the point that it never feels cheap, it's a genuine heartbreaking scene watching Mills destroy his own life and being manipulated by a man who also saw himself as a sinner and someone who believed to doing the work of an higher power in exposing the Sin in the scene.

I think the last line by Somerset describes the movie perfectly: "Ernest Hemingway once wrote: 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part." The world is indeed a cruel place filled to the brim with horrible people, but that shouldn't make you stop fighting for a better tomorrow and stop people like Doe from reappearing in the future, because even in the middle of all that darkness there are still people who deserve to live a good life.