Haha, really? That’s pretty dumb, although I guess it’s a cute nod in the direction of the Clone Saga?
Wasn’t at least one of the Spider Women a mutant? As you say, it all depends on how they sliced the rights, but I tend to agree that it’s unlikely that we’ll see any of them in an Avengers movie, if for no other reason than it’s already packed enough, and why bother possible confusion with Black Widow.
Yes it is. She first appears in a story with many Peter Parkers, and she’s the only clone to survive. She then adopts the name Jessica Drew, in a nod to the normal Marvel universe, and has since outlived Peter Parker and remains one of the Ultimate Universe’s most interesting characters.
That universe has been such a bizarre segue away from its initial concept - it’s now the exact opposite of what it was designed to be (not continuity-heavy, more accessible and modern, grounded, movie-friendly versions of well known characters). Now it has extremely convoluted continuity, almost all recognizable marvel characters are dead, and it features lots of aliens/gods/magic (all of which were initially verboten or at least obfuscated in a more grounded, updated realization of the Marvel universe).
Looks like they made the Scarlet Witch to be particularly gothy…
— Alan
Not a fan of the look of either of them at the moment.
They look fine to me. They both look a lot weirder Days of Future Past.
Saw the Scarlet Witch “costume.” Seriously? Filmmakers finally figure out that you can be fairly faithful to the look of comic-book hero(in)es and he reverts back to the grungy 90’s Nirvana look? Looking heroic is part of the cool Avengers vibe. She looks like she might heroically extol about how life is pain, but doesn’t look up for much else. I cringe to think what they’ll do to Ms. Marvel.
There were a lot of people in The Avengers, with barely enough screen time to go around. I just saw some news story that AoU will in some way give a larger role to Hawkeye and Hulk, or catch us up on what they’ve been doing since the first movie since the rest of the main cast will have all been in sequels post-Avengers (it was understandably vague news). And of course we’ve got Ultron to introduce, obviously, and maybe the Vision as well, apparently.
So this is going to be a pretty busy movie already, and on top of all that, they’re adding Wanda and Pietro, who bring a whole new set of specific challenges related to their origins. Are they still mutants? What’s Marvel allowed to do with them or say about them as it relates to Fox’s rights to the X-Men movies? As far as I’ve seen, no one has offered a clear explanation of how that’s going to be handled (if they’re mutants, they’re the first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I know of, and that seems like the biggest can of worms when it comes to Fox. If they’re not, then all bets are off about their characters anyway). And of course we don’t even know how big their roles will be, if it’s just their introduction, if they’ll be good or bad, etc.
I think getting worried that they’re not wearing ridiculous costumes (that we know of) is jumping the gun a little bit, and the outfits they’ve shown them in look totally fine. I think if you want to be worried about Wanda and Pietro, you should be focusing on Days of Future Past.
And while I’m rambling, The Avengers has (in my opinion) been successful in demonstrating that we can watch big flashy costumed heroes without laughing them off the screen, but that has a lot to do with the characters they’re dealing with. Hulk doesn’t have a costume. Thor looks basically medieval, because he’s basically from a space-medieval world. That’s silly to say, but there’s context for it in the movie—if you’re going to accept his character at all, the costume itself makes sense. Iron-Man is wearing the Iron-Man suit, duh. Captain America was specifically designed to be wearing a costume as part of his origin. Black Widow doesn’t really have a flashy costume.
But look at Hawkeye. He’s definitely been toned down from his comic version, because there’s no good reason at all for Hawkeye to be wearing bright purple and a mask and whatnot. The X-Men movies have struggled on this front because there’s not a great reason for them to be costumed either.* So I’m pretty sure there’s no really plausible reason for Wanda to ever dress up in that crazy mask, and I’m hardly going to hold that against Age of Ultron if she never does.
*The beginning of The Astonishing X-Men comic took a stab at them wanting to be big flashy super-heroes in the public eye, and maybe that’s happened earlier in the comics as well, but that’s worlds apart from the stories they’ve been telling in the movies
Well, characters like Hawkeye and The Falcon are basically wearing (one of) the Ultimates version of their costumes.
And who knows, maybe Quicksilver and Wanda will be by the end of the movie.
edit: I did get sort of rambly and focused on my own take on how these characters look in the movies, and it reads a little like I’m saying no one has a valid reason to criticize how Wanda looks. I guess I’m saying I have no expectation of her being in costume from what little we know of the movie so far, and as far as the “civilian” outfit she’s wearing, I’m indifferent. To those of you who don’t like the fact that her normal outfit is a little gothy, it doesn’t bother me, but I don’t have a defense for that either. I will tolerate your skepticism!
On paper, Scarlet Witch’s red costume looks great. That’s on the body of an idealized, illustrated character. It looks ridiculous in RL. Just google Scarlet Witch to see how terribly silly it looks on all the cosplay ladies.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I say I don’t like the way they look, it isn’t because it’s not true to their character. I really don’t like that approach at all. I am fine with them playing around with costumers or outfits until it fits but seeing her in a goth outfit… no that’s not exciting me.
Winter Soldier spoilery comment:
Spoiler
Unless I’m going insane, the post-credits scene on the end of the Winter Soldier (which I watched last weekend) reveals where Quicksilver & Scarlett Witch are coming from. They’re not mutants.
And here I must re-iterate my perennial theme of: you can’t judge original costumes by how they look on cosplay people. Cosplay people don’t have superpowers, and they’re usually not terribly fit.
Look at Spidey’s costume in the current film. All wrinkly and spandexy; not too different from any cosplayer’s cozzie.
But does it look silly? Not when he’s flying through the air doing super acrobatics, or doing superhero stuff.
Same with Alex Ross’ artwork - here the wrinkles and costume-ey nature of the cozzies is super-clear and even highlighted. But does it look silly? Not on someone who can shoot lazer beams from his eyes.
Context.
I still think it’s a real failure of courage for most modern superhero films to go the grimdark/kevlar route (possibly combined with concession to make-work for costume departments and the requrements of lazy cinematographers). Just a bit more care with costumes and cinematography and CGI could have made the spandex scary, precisely as it would be on someone who could actually shoot lazer beams from their eyes. And colourful.
That’s what’s lost when everything’s slathered in kevlar and grimdark: the statement of uniqueness, of standing out from the background, of one-of-a-kindness that a superhero costume represents. Fuck you, I’ve got superpowers.
Not only that, but the people wearing these costumes are supposed to be heroes. Yes, it might take a very fit woman to look good in the Scarlet Witch’s costume, but this is supposed to be someone who goes and smashes bad guys. Even if she mostly strikes a pose and points, she’s still trained and in good shape. A waif in a goth dress? Not seeing it.
As far as the costumes go, Schmidt, we are going to disagree. I don’t think it’s silly when you have a visual medium like comics and build an image over decades for characters that become very popular. Appearance is a big part of their image. I will agree it --feels-- like it would be tremendously awkward to try and translate a not-very-practical-looking Scarlet Witch outfit to the screen. But it felt the same way for the men, to the point where they even mocked the spandex look in the original X-Men movie and dressed them all in leather. We’re talking readily-identified, well-established brands here. Putting the Witch in a goth dress is kind of like putting a Coke in a purple can. I could see modifying the costume to an extent to make it more practical, but they just threw the image out the window, it appears.
Scarlett Witch is pretty much unknown outside of comic nerddom, though, so losing the image only risks offending hard core fans. Keeping it would risk laughter/contempt/whatever from the much broader fan base the Avengers sequel hopes for.
That’s certainly possible, but I don’t think there’s any evidence to back it up. The 1970’s Wonder Woman and 1960’s Batman (Batgirl, Catwoman, etc.) and the 2000’s Batman (Catwoman), for instance, featured women in pretty true-to-the-book costumes. It was all part of the comic, and people seemed fine with it. On the other hand, shows like Birds of Prey, where everyone just dresses in shades of black, don’t seem to grab audiences. It’s true not everyone likes it, but if it works in the comics, it’ll probably work on the screen, so long as it isn’t TOO over the top.
So far as the Witch herself goes, I hadn’t picked up a comic in years. I checked Wikipedia and did a quick image search to see what was up lately. It looks like she’s had an array of wardrobes over the last decade, some of which seemed to be fairly practical yet still kept her identifiable.
It’s not an argument I’m looking to have, over the clothes of fictitious people. I’m more just of the mind that if I’m seeing a movie about comic book characters, I want to see the comic book characters. In the recent Batman movies I got to do that. The Marvel Avengers movies (and the “cast” movies, Thor, Cap, etc.)gave me that. It’s a personal thing of mine, a thing I enjoy. Judging from the success of these movies I’m not alone.
spoiler discussion
I thought I read somewhere that Marvel Studios movies cannot use the word mutant, as that is wholly owned by whichever studio is producing the X-Men movies (Fox I think?).
Winter Soldier
It’s not just a matter of terminology, though. They have a new, specific origin.
Scarlet Witch one of two ‘heroes’ I can never forgive. Who cares what she wears. She will betray you all- crazy as some of my old girlfriends. Lucky for us they couldn’t change reality.
Hank Pym is the other. Glad Pym is pushed out of the Avengers Movie world.