Marvel Phase 1 Revisited – Comparative Opinions S.2 E.4

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! This week hosts Holly and David dive into their re-watch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you watch one movie a week this year, you can watch them all in time for Infinity War. With the first part watched, here are our thoughts looking back at these films!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday, or for our weekly news podcast, Week in Geek.

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Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

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The Nine Alignments of Captain America!

Yesterday’s alignment grid was for the Thor movies – today it’s the Captain America movies. Maybe at some point we’ll be able to figure out One Alignment Grid to Rule Them All, when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe… for now, the Captain America movies come pretty close to including most of the main characters! Civil War will especially make that the case!

Sorry this is a bit later, busy day! Should have tomorrow’s up sooner. We’ll give you a guess as to what it’s going to be…

Verdict: Agent Carter

Last week the new ABC show Agent Carter premiered, the latest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It stars Hayley Atwell, who has been slowly increasing in how often she has been showing up in the movies and shows. She plays Agent Peggy Carter, first seen in Captain America: The First Avenger, a character who has been increased from her comic origins to be a total World War 2 era badass.

I wrote a post on Sourcerer about my misgivings about the show – and then initial reactions – last week. If it isn’t obvious, we were excited for this show and have been thinking about it a while. But I was worried – really worried – that it was going to not be able to pull it off. It’s doing something that no other TV show has done before, as a pre-sequel show where we know everything that eventually happens.

So will we keep watching it? Did they disappoint or succeed? 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier – A LitFlix

Cover from Captain America #11 by Ed Brubaker

Okay, I’m over a month late on getting out a Captain America: The Winter Soldier LitFlix, and for that I am sorry. I can blame the A to Z Challenge and all the things we put off writing about in April, but that’s not it entirely. I think the problem is, there’s just too much to say about this film.

I was also left with a question: what was it about this movie that made me love it so much?

After seeing it another two times, I think the answer is quite simply that it is a good movie. It works internally with itself. It works as a sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger. And it works within the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, the characters and events fitting in with the larger happenings in other films. It did the things it needed to, and did them well.

My goal however is not to present you with a review – though I will provide you with a list of solid reviews to the film. My goal is to compare this film to the comics it is based on, in the full fashion of our LitFlix. So needless to say, all sorts of spoilers to follow!

A to Z with Arnim Zola

So one of the people I was thinking about doing for the A to Z Challenge (I mean, come on, his name starts with a Z, that’s handy…) was Arnim Zola. He’s a Marvel comics character, well known as a long-time villain of Captain America. With the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he seemed particularly relevant. However, I went with Bucky Barnes from the Captain America universe, so I wanted to go with something else.

And yes, I still owe a Captain America: The Winter Soldier LitFlix. Hoping to see the movie a second time this weekend, and then will get that out!

Toby Jones! You might also recognize him from Doctor Who and the Hunger Games!
Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnim_Zola

So meanwhile, Arnim Zola. Scientist. Hydra. Ridiculous head-on-a-screen-in-his-chest from the comics. I don’t really know him from the comics, but in the movie, I mean, he’s Toby Jones! Anyway, spoilers for the films from here – and some meta level, talking about the spoilers from the Captain America film in general!