Hi! I'm not sure if this is a good post for this subreddit, but I made my own subreddit for an AU where Marvel had the film rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four from the beginning, but lost the rights to the Avengers. It's called r/ReverseMCU. I don't if stuff like that fits in Earth-2, so that's why I made it. Join if you're interested!
After the deathlike disappearance of Spider-Man and the rise of superhuman threats across the globe, Earth faces its first invasion from the future. Kang the Conqueror, an armored warlord from the 31st century, arrives to recover three ancient Chronal Cores hidden on Earth after his first defeat by Asgard and early human champions.
Captain America, recently thawed from ice, is recruited by SHIELD to help form a response team. Tony Stark, already operating as Iron Man, has been tracking temporal anomalies through his own technology. Thor recognizes Kang’s arrival as the fulfillment of an Asgardian warning. Black Widow and Hawkeye are assigned to the mission as elite human operatives. Bruce Banner is reluctantly brought in for his knowledge of gamma energy, which proves connected to Kang’s time technology.
After Kang defeats the incomplete team and steals a Chronal Core, Tony discovers that Spider-Man’s body is trapped in temporal stasis after absorbing Kang-derived energy during the Rhino battle. Against Bruce’s objections, the team uses one of the Cores to bring Peter Parker back. Peter awakens confused and fights the Avengers before Aunt May reaches him and restores his sense of self.
With Kang preparing to activate the Convergence Engine and transform the present into his conquered future, the newly united Avengers launch a final assault. Captain America leads the team, Iron Man and Bruce disrupt the machine, Thor battles Kang, Hulk smashes the engine’s supports, Black Widow and Hawkeye disable Kang’s soldiers, and Spider-Man saves civilians while helping stabilize the collapsing time field.
Together, they defeat Kang and send him back into the timestream. Before vanishing, Kang warns that he is only one of many. The Avengers stand united, and the world finally sees a team of heroes rather than isolated gods, monsters, vigilantes, and weapons.
The movie opens in Asgard, bright and grand. Thor is beloved, brave, and reckless. Loki is clever, charming, and quietly bitter. Odin prepares Thor for eventual kingship, but Thor is impatient. After Frost Giants infiltrate Asgard’s vault, Thor leads an unauthorized attack on Jotunheim. The sequence is exciting but clearly irresponsible. Thor wins the fight physically but loses morally. Odin banishes him to Earth and places an enchantment on Mjolnir: “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." Thor falls to Earth.
Thor lands in World War I-era Europe and is found by Jane Foster. Thor misunderstands human customs, challenges soldiers to duels, smashes things, and insists he is the prince of Asgard. But gradually, he sees the war. Jane is investigating impossible storms and energy signatures. Thor realizes Loki may be involved. Together, they follow the trail across the front. Thor tries to retrieve Mjolnir, but fails. He is not worthy because he still wants the hammer as proof of identity, not as a tool of service.
Thor and Jane discover that Loki’s agents are helping deploy a realm-powered weapon capable of tearing open a permanent wound between Earth and the Nine Realms. Thor wants to go straight for Loki. Jane insists they save a trapped village first. This leads to the battlefield sequence where Thor chooses to protect civilians without his full power. His courage inspires others. Afterward, Thor begins to understand humanity. He shares quiet scenes with Jane, wounded soldiers, children, and civilians. This is where he becomes worthy internally before the hammer returns externally.
Thor confronts the human commander he believes is behind the war weapon, only to discover Loki has been guiding events. Loki reveals his thesis: humans are violent, petty, and doomed. The war is not his creation. It is his evidence. Thor argues that humans are more than their worst impulses. Loki mortally wounds or endangers Jane, forcing Thor to choose between stopping Loki and saving her. Thor chooses Jane. That choice makes him worthy. Mjolnir returns.
Thor regains his power, but now he fights differently. At the beginning, he fought to dominate. Now he fights to protect. He battles Loki as the realm weapon opens above the battlefield. Sif and the Warriors Three arrive to help evacuate civilians and contain the damage. Thor defeats Loki, but refuses to kill him. Loki, furious, says mercy is just weakness dressed as nobility. Thor replies: “No. Mercy is strength that has learned restraint.” The realm wound closes. Loki escapes or is taken back to Asgard in chains. Thor is allowed to return home, but he is changed. He has learned to love Earth not because it is innocent, but because it is alive, fragile, and still capable of goodness.
Jane cannot come to Asgard permanently. Thor cannot remain on Earth forever. They part knowing they changed each other. Thor wants to believe defeating Loki will end the war. But it does not immediately end all human conflict. Even after Loki is beaten, mankind remains complicated. The war eventually ends, but not because one god punched the right villain. Thor learns that saving the world is not one act. It is a promise renewed again and again.
The final present-day framing device could show Thor in the modern era receiving the old photograph/file from Hulk v Spider-Man’s Avengers recruitment database. He sees Jane’s old journal, or a restored photo of himself with Jane and her team. Then he looks toward a storm gathering in the sky. He says: “I once believed mankind needed gods to save it. Jane Foster taught me the better truth: even gods must learn from mankind.”
After the apparent death and resurrection of Spider-Man, the public knows one thing for certain: superhumans are real, and no one is in control. Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Rhino, the Leader, Ghost Rider sightings, Oscorp experiments, gamma disasters, and rumors of gods and future conquerors have shaken the world. Dallas Riordan appears before a closed government committee and argues that waiting for “heroes” is naive. Her pitch: “We do not need symbols. We need leverage.” She proposes the Thunderbolts Initiative: a team of imprisoned criminals, monsters, and enhanced assets sent on missions too dirty for the Avengers candidates. The committee objects. Dallas shows them footage of Hulk and Spider-Man fighting, Rhino nearly destroying a city, and unexplained temporal energy linked to Kang. Then she reveals her trump card: Moonstone, a controllable superhuman asset. Naturally, Moonstone is not actually controllable.
He kills three armed guards using a paperclip, a tooth, and a ricocheted bullet. Dallas calls him “the most accurate killer alive.”
She performs in a prison talent show or underground club before using a sonic scream to shatter reinforced glass. Her introduction is colorful, chaotic, and obviously designed to sell posters.
He is caught after trying to steal Stark prototype tech. He claims he is only in prison because his armor “had a software issue.”
He is held in a supernatural containment cell covered with sigils and gamma-dampening technology. He refuses to look Dallas in the eye. When she says she needs his power, he replies: “No. You need my curse.”
He is chained in a wet, dark containment pit because the symbiote keeps trying to eat the walls. The movie gives him one sad line about Spider-Man ruining his life, then mostly uses him as a monster.
She is introduced as the one person on the team who may actually want to do good.
He brags that no prison can hold him.
Frank Castle is introduced separately. Dallas recruits him not from prison, but from a black-site interrogation room after he has massacred a weapons ring connected to the Leader’s leftover network. Dallas says: “You want criminals pointed in the right direction. I’m giving you a whole squad of them.” Frank does not trust the team. The team does not trust Frank. Bullseye especially hates him because Bullseye sees Frank as a hypocrite: “You kill for a skull on your chest. I kill because I’m honest.”
Moonstone is supposed to be the team’s first field asset, but she manipulates her handlers, disables her control implant, and escapes into a major city. Moonstone creates a giant gravitational/cosmic anomaly above the city. She starts transforming people’s fears and ambitions into physical constructs, or she uses the moonstone to control minds.
Dallas claims Moonstone wants to build an army. Moonstone says she wants to free people. Later she says she wants to punish the powerful. Then she says she wants to become a god.
Dallas sends the Thunderbolts into the quarantined city to extract a “high-value target.” The team thinks they are there to stop Moonstone. Halfway through, they discover the target is actually Dallas Riordan herself, who was trapped in the city after trying to personally secure Moonstone’s files. The team is not saving the city. They are saving the person who caused the mess.
Bullseye keeps needling Frank about the thin line between vigilante and murderer. Frank wants an excuse to kill him. Dallas forbids it because Bullseye is too useful.
Songbird treats Bullseye like a creepy older brother figure she does not trust. Bullseye finds her amusing because she pretends not to care, but clearly does.
Jolt believes cursed people can still choose good. Ghost Rider believes some sins cannot be burned away.
Beetle is terrified of Gargan and keeps making jokes about the symbiote smell. Gargan threatens to eat him.
Techno dies early trying to escape. Dallas detonates his implant. Everyone realizes the bombs are real.
Baron Zemo appears in flashbacks as the former architect of an earlier Thunderbolts concept: villains posing as heroes to manipulate public trust. He appears to Songbird in memory, to Moonstone in old recordings, and maybe to Dallas through intercepted files. The trailers heavily imply Zemo is the Joker-like wild card who will disrupt the mission. But in the finished movie, he has maybe eight minutes of screen time. He says ominous things like: “The world does not need heroes. It needs better lies.”
The Wizard is Moonstone’s accomplice: a disgraced genius who helps stabilize her power field with anti-gravity tech. The problem is that Wizard is much less powerful than Moonstone, so the movie awkwardly turns him into a giant armored gravity-channeling monster in the third act.
The Thunderbolts reach the center of the city, where Moonstone has created a swirling gravitational vortex. Civilians float in suspended rubble. Buildings twist toward the sky. The visuals are huge, muddy, and strangely generic. Dallas wants Moonstone captured alive because the government still wants the asset. Frank wants to kill her. Jolt wants to save her. Ghost Rider says her soul is almost gone. Bullseye just wants the bomb out of his neck. Songbird is the one who finally challenges Moonstone emotionally, because Moonstone sees through everyone’s lies and tells Songbird that she is not a hero, just a weapon with better lighting.
Moonstone and Wizard become too powerful. Ghost Rider finally unleashes the full Spirit of Vengeance, turning into a massive flaming skeletal rider, maybe with a hellfire motorcycle racing up falling debris. He drags Wizard/Graviton into the vortex or burns away the power stabilizer. Everyone thinks he dies.
Songbird uses her sonic constructs to shatter Moonstone’s gravitational field. Jolt helps stabilize the civilians. Bullseye makes an impossible shot that cracks Moonstone’s gem. Punisher refuses to execute Moonstone after Jolt gets through to him. Moonstone is defeated but not killed. Dallas secretly takes custody of her again, proving she has learned nothing.
The Thunderbolts survive, barely. Dallas offers them reduced sentences, privileges, and continued use as Task Force T. Bullseye asks for better food and target practice. Beetle asks for his armor back. Songbird asks for a record player or something equally forced and quirky. Mac Gargan asks to be moved somewhere with less light. Jolt asks if they saved anyone. Frank says: “Don’t confuse surviving with redemption.” Ghost Rider is presumed dead, but the final shot shows tire tracks burning across a desert road.
Dallas meets with Thunderbolt Ross. They discuss the “public-facing team” being assembled elsewhere: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, maybe Spider-Man if he is alive and trusted enough. Dallas says: “Let them have the heroes. We’ll keep the monsters.” This sets up the Thunderbolts as the dark mirror of the Avengers.
The movie opens with Bruce Banner witnessing the Spider-Slayer disaster from the previous film. Years of guilt and fear crystallize into one belief: Spider-Man is too dangerous to go unchecked.
Eighteen months later, Peter is trying to be Spider-Man, but the city remains divided. J. Jonah Jameson calls him a menace. Government hearings question whether masked enhanced people should be legal. The Leader, now a famous scientist and policy advisor, publicly argues for “rational oversight” while secretly manipulating events.
Bruce investigates Spider-Man. Peter investigates gamma-linked crimes. Wolverine quietly tracks stolen Weapon Plus material.
The Leader begins feeding each hero evidence against the other.
A Senate hearing meant to address Spider-Man’s accountability is destroyed in a gamma-biological attack. Spider-Man survives, making him look suspicious. Bruce believes this proves Spider-Man is connected to a growing superhuman threat.
Peter discovers evidence suggesting Hulk was involved in the attack. He also learns Aunt May has been kidnapped. The Leader ensures Peter believes Bruce knows where she is.
Meanwhile, Bruce has visions of a Kang-conquered future after exposure to strange technology. He becomes convinced that if he does not act now, the world will fall to monsters and false heroes.
Wolverine discovers the Leader is combining gamma research, Oscorp bioengineering, and future technology.
Hulk lures Spider-Man to the ruins of the old Spider-Slayer battle. Armed with anti-spider venom and sonic weapons, Hulk beats Spider-Man down. Peter uses gamma-suppression tech to weaken Hulk.
The fight is brutal, visually spectacular, and emotionally excessive. Peter finally begs Bruce to save May, causing Bruce to realize Peter is not the threat he imagined. Their reconciliation is rushed but sincere.
They rescue May, but the Leader reveals that their fight gave him the biological data he needed.
He creates Rhino.
Rhino rampages through the city. Wolverine joins Hulk and Spider-Man, revealing that he has been hunting the same conspiracy. The three fight Rhino together.
Spider-Man sacrifices himself to stop Rhino’s Kang-tech core from detonating. Hulk and Wolverine survive. Rhino is destroyed or left comatose. The Leader is arrested, but he warns of a coming war across time.
At the end, Bruce and Wolverine review files on other potential heroes: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Bruce says they will need to find them.
Peter survives, barely, but the world believes Spider-Man died saving the city. The final shot shows his hand twitching or his spider-sense activating.
Stars Andrew Garfield. Most of the cast is the same as the real-world TASM films, but of course JK Simmons plays JJJ. Shailene Woodley plays MJ.
Peter Parker is a lonely, brilliant high school senior in Queens, haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his parents and raised by Ben and May Parker. During a field trip to Oscorp, he is bitten by a genetically engineered spider connected to Richard Parker’s secret research. His powers manifest violently, making him feel less like a superhero and more like a mutation.
Uncle Ben, fearing what the world would do to Peter if it discovered him, urges him to hide. Peter takes this lesson too far and refuses to intervene during a robbery, leading indirectly to Ben’s death. Overcome by guilt, Peter begins hunting criminals in a homemade mask, not as a friendly neighborhood hero, but as a grim act of penance.
His actions attract the attention of Spencer Smythe, a former colleague of Richard Parker who believes enhanced humans will destabilize civilization. Smythe launches the Spider-Slayer program, publicly framing it as a necessary defense against masked superhuman threats. J. Jonah Jameson becomes the loudest media voice supporting Smythe, calling Spider-Man the first sign of a dangerous new age.
As Peter investigates Oscorp and his father’s work, he discovers that his transformation was not random: his DNA was uniquely compatible with the spider because of Richard’s experiments. This makes Peter feel chosen, but not comforted. Meanwhile, the Spider-Slayers escalate from capture drones to full military machines, eventually turning Manhattan into a battlefield.
In the climax, Smythe unleashes the central Slayer network after concluding that Spider-Man’s existence proves humanity must either control superhumans or be replaced by them. Peter fights through massive destruction, trying to save civilians but often being visually lost amid collapsing buildings and exploding machines. To stop the final Slayer core, Peter makes a desperate choice that kills or permanently maims Alistair Smythe, saving innocent lives but violating his own moral instincts.
The film ends with Peter accepting that he must be Spider-Man, but New York is divided. Some see a hero. Many see a menace. Jonah declares that the age of masks has begun, and that ordinary people should be afraid. Peter swings into the skyline, framed not as a neighborhood protector, but as a lonely symbol of a dangerous future.
In 2019, Fox decided, as they were promoting their last Avengers film, Infinity Gauntlet, that May 13 would be “International Avengers Day”. Of course, the movie ended up being bad, but people still celebrate this day 7 years later.
OoC: I know it’s a MCU/non-MCU swap and not a Marvel/DC swap, but I thought it would be funny to talk about this. Did anyone else not know “International X-Men Day” was a thing?
Anyway, the pic and concept are from https://youtu.be/NQcCVO3LuW4?t=4412&si=6vZKRxUwdZawS5a\_
They started off with such a limited roster of characters and ended up managing to make such a good story that led up to the final battle against Parallax.
In this movie, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) wakes up powerless in a world in which his mother is alive, but the lives of many others have changed for the worse. As a war between the Thanagarians and the Atlanteans threatens to destroy the world, Barry must navigate this strange new reality to bring together a new Justice League and save the day.
In addition to greatly changing the DCU forever, this film finally introduced the DCU's Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) now that DC and Sony made a deal for Superman to be used in the DCU.
What do you guys think of this film?
OoC: This is the counterpart to Captain America: Civil War. From https://youtu.be/CgOfHBuy2PM?si=y4reFygq07QGL6CG&t=2368
This movie brought together Green Lantern (Chris Pine), the Flash (Grant Gustin), Green Arrow (Stephen Amell, previously played by Justin Hartley), Black Canary (Caity Lotz, previously played by Katie Cassidy), Aquaman (Alan Ritchson), and Martian Manhunter (David Harewood) for the first time to fight against Despero and his army of Dominators. It cemented the team as the backbone of the DCU going forward and made them more popular than they'd ever been.
What do you guys think of this movie? Did it stand the test of time?
OoC: From https://youtu.be/CgOfHBuy2PM?si=6fxZ1e0FDVEr-nz0&t=866
The first three pics are from https://youtu.be/45pAreic0zI?si=sdBswcVYnf4yBku7 . The first two pics are of the known movies and TV shows in the MCU. The third is of all the movies and the TV show in the MEU, and the fourth is from https://youtu.be/muMftkKPTok?si=XbGKDNQuw1m0pHfw and shows all the seasons of TV in the Hawkverse. Not sure if that part is necessary but I figured I’d include it just in case.
Here’s what I’ve guessed for all the MCU projects:
Legion of Monsters = Creature Commandos
Captain America = Superman
U.S. Agent S2 = Peacemaker S2
Spider-Man = Supergirl
Hulk = Lanterns
??? = Clayface
??? = Man of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy = The Authority
The Invincible Iron Man = The Brave and the Bold
The Punisher = Swamp Thing
??? = Untitled Wonder Woman film
Iron Fist = Booster Gold
Fury = Waller
Eyes of Wakanda = Paradise Lost
X-Men = Untitled Teen Titans film
??? = Untitled Bane and Deathstroke film
??? = Untitled Blue Beetle series
??? = Mister Miracle
??? = Untitled Jimmy Olsen series
Brotherhood of Mutants = ???
Imo the best part was Lady Shiva, she was such a cool villain.
OoC: Taken from https://youtu.be/3v6hkR34qJ8?si=bfIEutX2CiwK2kO-&t=1314 . It's the counterpart to Black Panther because this version of the DCEU is based entirely on the real-world version but made better, and after assigning spots for all the other franchises, this was the only place Batgirl/Birds of Prey could go.
Option A: DCEU but better
The Apokolips Saga = The Infinity Saga
The Batman = Iron Man
The Flash = The Incredible Hulk
The Batman Part 2 = Iron Man 2
Wonder Woman = Thor
Superman: The Man of Steel = Captain America: The First Avenger
Justice League = The Avengers
The Batman Part 3 = Iron Man 3
Wonder Woman: Godwatch = Thor: The Dark World
Superman: Bulletproof = Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Suicide Squad = Guardians of the Galaxy
Justice League: Legion of Doom = Avengers: Age of Ultron
Aquaman = Ant-Man
Superman: Warworld = Captain America: Civil War
Doctor Fate = Doctor Strange
Suicide Squad Vol. 2 = Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Shazam! = Spider-Man: Homecoming
Wonder Woman: Paradise Lost = Thor: The Dark World
Batgirl: Birds of Prey = Black Panther
Aquaman and the Relics of Atlantis = Ant-Man and the Wasp (but released before the Infinity War equivalent)
Justice League: Apokolips War = Avengers: Infinity War
Blue Beetle = Captain Marvel
Justice League: Final Crisis = Avengers: Endgame
Shazam! And the Wrath of Black Adam = Spider-Man: Far From Home
Agents of A.R.G.U.S. = Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Krypton = Agent Carter
Creature Commandos = Inhumans
Constantine = Daredevil
Vixen = Jessica Jones
Black Lightning = Luke Cage
Firestorm = Iron Fist
The Outsiders = The Defenders
Swamp Thing = The Punisher
Doom Patrol = Runaways
Hawk & Dove = Cloak & Dagger
Option B: DCU with limited rights
The Hypertime Saga = The Infinity Saga
Green Lantern = Iron Man
Green Arrow = The Incredible Hulk
Green Lantern 2 = Iron Man 2
Aquaman = Thor
The Flash: Criminal Justice = Captain America: The First Avenger
Justice League = The Avengers
Green Lantern 3 = Iron Man 3
Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom = Thor: The Dark World
The Flash: Out of Time = Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Justice Society of America = Guardians of the Galaxy
Justice League: Doom = Avengers: Age of Ultron
Hawkman = Ant-Man
The Flashpoint Paradox = Captain America: Civil War
Zatanna = Doctor Strange
Justice Society of America Vol. 2 = Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Superman: Rebirth = Spider-Man: Homecoming
Aquaman: The Drowning = Thor: Ragnarok
Shazam! = Black Panther
Justice League: Zero Hour = Avengers: Infinity War
Hawkman and Hawkgirl = Ant-Man and the Wasp
Blue Beetle = Captain Marvel
Justice League: The Final Night = Avengers: Endgame
Superman: Legacy = Spider-Man: Far From Home
Agents of A.R.G.U.S. = Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Black Canary = Agent Carter
The Authority = Inhumans
The Atom = Daredevil
Vixen = Jessica Jones
Black Lightning = Luke Cage
Firestorm = Iron Fist
The Outsiders = The Defenders
Peacemaker = The Punisher
Doom Patrol = Runaways
Hawk & Dove = Cloak & Dagger
Option C: Something else (explain in comments)
The beginning with the Knightmare timeline before Barry goes back in time to save Superman is great, and the whole army of heroes fighting Darkseid's forces is incredible. It was so sad seeing Bruce and Barry die to defeat Darkseid.
OoC: Taken from https://youtu.be/3v6hkR34qJ8?si=VPwB6LNMqOLnVnDn&t=1632
OoC: This is from another Black Lion video, this time its a video about the DCEU but restructured like the MCU: https://youtu.be/3v6hkR34qJ8?si=pegk_tTTG8qyqMDS