[Quora Answer] Tony Stark vs Bruce Wayne (Compare and Contrast)

I swear I occasionally write about things that aren't comic books. Trust me. It happens. Very, very rarely, but it does happen.

Some spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War ahead.

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Is Iron Man Now a More Depressing Character than Batman?

While Tony’s certainly lost a lot (his parents, his mentor figure, the closest thing he had to a son, etc), he still has had a much better support network than Batman tends to have. Tony’s closer to the remaining members of the Avengers than Batman tends to be to the Justice League, or even the Bat Family.

Now, as of Infinity War, you could make an argument either way. I think a lot of it will revolve around how Tony reacts to these losses. Typically, when Tony loses something, he attempts to fix things, not break things.

This could be pretty important, because Batman, as we’ve seen, tends to deal with loss by punching it away.

He’s got a lot more anger in his system than Tony’s really ever had (with the possible exception of that one scene in Civil War). While Batman focuses on destroying and intimidating the criminal element in Gotham, Tony tends to focus on building suits, designing drones, AI, armor, support equipment, what have you. Batman needs to take out his anger and guilt issues on the criminal element. Tony needs to atone for his mistakes by building something better.

With Spider-Man, we see this take another form. He essentially views Peter Parker as his next project, as well as a surrogate son. He wants to make Peter a better version of himself, so Peter won’t make the same mistake, but also so that Peter will be able to do the job better than Tony ever could.

Batman cannot rest as long as there is crime, because he feels he is needed. Tony is trying to create a world where he, himself, is no longer needed.

With Peter gone, Tony could very well sink into a mire of depression and misery.

Or.

He could try to fix things.

Build something better.

Make it so no one will ever have to go through what he just endured.

Batman’s character is, to a certain extent, based around pessimism. Batman can’t really win. Not finally. He can’t rest or retire. It’s heavily implied that Batman is a destructive force, not only to crime in Gotham, but to Bruce Wayne as well, and everyone he cares about. Because Batman is working out his anger and guilt on all the individual petty criminals in his path, as well as the supervillains. And each act of violence he commits tends to create or inspire a new antagonist. Most of Batman’s villains exist because of Batman’s own obsessions. He essentially creates his own monsters. And so the cycle continues.

While Tony has created his own fair share of monsters, I think he’s got a hopeful streak that Bruce never really had. He believes he can make something better, so long as he just keeps trying.

As long as he keeps trying in Avengers 4, I don’t think Tony will ever be quite as depressing as Batman. Because Batman knows he’s going to die alone, having either driven away or ruined the lives of the people that he cares about. But Iron Man truly believes he can fix anything.

[Quora Answer] Thanos on Xandar

Spoilers ahead...

Someone on Quora was asking how various Quorans would write a scene of Thanos's arrival on Xandar. Given that this involves writing, writing villains specifically, and Marvel, I figured this fit pretty perfectly in my wheelhouse.

Very minor spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War ahead, but this is how I would have handled such a scene.

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The Fall of Xandar

If such a thing had to be done (presumably as a Marvel one-shot), I’d do it from the perspective of an ordinary Xandarian on the ground. Have it open with Thanos’s ship having just appeared overhead. Panic in the streets. What remains of the Nova Corps fleet rushing to meet the enemy head-on, but the end is clear. Everyone knows those pilots won’t be coming back.

A PA drones in the background, echoing hauntingly through the streets, notifying residents not to panic, to retreat to their designated shelters in an orderly fashion, that the Nova Corps is prepared. The Nova Corps will save them.

No one listens. The PA fades further and further into the background the longer the film goes on. We see civilians fleeing in every direction. Even a few Nova Corps soldiers are joining them, looking terrified. Our POV character is rooted in place, staring up at the massive warship overhead. Just in time, we see Cull Obsidian kicking a Nova Corps tank away with a lazy push of his foot, seemingly unaffected by the blaster fire striking him repeatedly from all sides. He notices us. A Nova Corps fighter swings by overhead, distracting Cull Obsidian just long enough for our POV character to scramble away, but before the fighter can do anything, there is a flash of blue light as Proxima Midnight’s spear tears the fighter in half.

From our hiding place, we see Ebony Maw tearing open a set of heavy security doors from a distance, using only the power of his mind, as he gleefully announces to Xandar that the Savior of the Universe has come.

“Thanos is here, dear children! Worry not! For the Titan shall set you free!”

We get distracted by Nova Corps reinforcements arriving, but Corvus Glaive appears and makes short work of them, dispatching them with ruthless efficiency and ease. Once, he comes within inches of discovering our hiding spot, but he, too, has his attention drawn.

As we see Thanos emerging from the smoke. A terrified Nova Corpsman, just a kid, maybe a cadet, is clutching the orb, trying desperately to keep it from the Mad Titan’s grasp. The city around him is burning, and his uniform is in tatters. He must have barely escaped some sort of slaughter in the vault where the Orb was being kept. Only for Thanos to pursue him.

The Children of Thanos form up behind their leader. Corvus Glaive makes a move towards the Corpsman, but Thanos holds up a hand. His expression is soft, almost gentle. He moves slowly towards the kid.

“There now, child,” he says softly. “I don’t want to hurt you. All I want is the Orb.”

“You can’t have it! Y-you can’t! You…killed…”

“I want to save you, boy,” whispers Thanos, getting down on one knee to look the boy in the eye. “I want to save all of you.”

He reaches out, stretching forth his hand to take the Orb. For a second, it looks like the boy will relent and give it to him. But at the last second, the boy scrambles back, tears streaking down his face. He can’t back away far. There’s a wall behind him that impedes his progress. He’s trapped.

Thanos’s expression is one of regret. Mixed with respect.

“I understand,” says Thanos, reaching for the Orb. “You are a brave man.”

He crushes the boy’s head in his fist with hardly an effort, and the body crumples to the ground as Thanos scoops up the orb. As he turns, he sees us. But his expression remains soft.

“I want to save you all,” whispers Thanos. “And I promise you, I will. No matter the cost.”

As Thanos and the Children of Thanos vanish into the smoke, the camera zooms in on our terrified POV character, and pans around to show the scope of the destruction.

The screen slowly fades to black, taking all the background sound with it.

Only the endless loop of the PA remains.

“Please remain calm…The Nova Corps is on the way…the situation will be resolved soon…please remain calm…”

[Quora Answer] Was Rasputin Real?

Someone on Quora wanted to know whether Rasputin was real or fictional. Given that I am mildly obsessed with Rasputin and the Romanov family, I gave this answer a shot.

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Was Rasputin Real? Or Was He Fictional?

Rasputin was a real person, though his tale grew greatly in the telling.

Rasputin was a self-proclaimed monk (or, perhaps more accurately, pilgrim, as he had no official position in the church) active in Russia in the years leading to the Bolshevik Revolution (arriving somewhere between 1903 and 1905). Due to sheer charisma, he became a popular figure in Russia at the time, popular enough, in fact, to meet with Tsar Nicholas II. After this meeting, he became a “healer” for Empress Alexandra’s ailing son, Alexei.

Alexandra was extremely worried about her son. Alexei had a condition known as hemophilia (which could be very dangerous) and he was Nicholas’s only heir. No matter what they did, nothing seemed to help the boy. But, through unknown means, Rasputin managed to convince her that he could help. In so doing, he soothed her worried heart and managed to earn her trust.

He had a reputation as something of a charlatan, but a popular one, which irked the church greatly. So when Nicholas left the capital, leaving his wife in charge (and thus increasing Rasputin’s influence over the country, due to his influence over her), many people were understandably a bit concerned.

There is some evidence to suggest that Rasputin did whatever he could to increase his own influence. At the very least, most of his contemporaries seemed to think so, including Grand Duke Nicholas (different guy from Tsar Nicholas), who once threatened Rasputin with death if he ever dared to go to the front to bless the Russian troops.

In 1916, several nobles had had enough of Rasputin’s influence over Alexandra. They assassinated him by luring him to one of their homes and shooting him three times (one of these shots was to the head). Many legends and reports state that there were…oddities, shall we say…around his death. He had apparently been poisoned with cyanide, but seemed to be unaffected by it. He was given poisoned wine, but again was unaffected. After they had shot him once and left for dead, he apparently sprang to his feet and attacked them when they came back to make sure he was actually dead. They then threw him in a river to dispose of the body.

When the police found his body, they found evidence of the gunshot wounds, as well as several traces of trauma. But no trace of poison.

Since most of what we know about him is hearsay and rumor anyway, and this man generated many rumors, fantasy writers tend to go nuts with Rasputin’s life story. He seems to have said some deeply creepy stuff over the course of his life, and just look at him. Give that man magic powers and he could terrify anyone. Add to that the fact that he’s always been surrounded by mystery, and again, fantasy writers go wild.

We do know that Rasputin had a talent for attaining power and influence, that his hold over Empress Alexandra was incredibly strong (perhaps supernaturally so), that he apparently survived things no man should be able to survive, and that very strange things seemed to happen around him.

Coincidence? Perhaps.

Either way, it makes for a good story.

[Quora Answer] Vision's Powers in Infinity War

Another day, another Quora answer in place of an actual post. This one has some spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, so read at your own risk.

Spoilers...

Seriously, don't even read the title if you haven't seen the movie.

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Why Do Vision's Powers Fluctuate in Infinity War?

I believe the in-universe answer is that Corvus Glaive’s…well…glaive, was designed to pierce anything. The glaive “disrupts my phasing” he says. Since Vision’s powers mostly revolve around “hardening” or “softening” his body, the glaive effectively makes the bulk of Vision’s abilities unreliable at best. He’s still got the space laser thing going for him, but that’s pretty much always had a slightcollateral damage issue.

In a crowded city, like at the beginning, he probably didn’t want to risk it, even at the cost of his own life, until it was absolutely necessary.

Most likely, Corvus’s attempts to remove the stone directly with his glaive interfered even with that. I’m guessing Thanos didn’t send Corvus specifically after Vision just because he thought it would be a fun match-up. Pretty much all the Children of Thanos have some sort of advantage during their initial showing. Maw can hold his own against Strange. Corvus can overpower Vision.

Towards the end of the movie, Vision seems like he still hasn’t fully recovered from Corvus’s attack on him. He acts like he’s injured pretty consistently. It’s also possible, too, that whatever Shuri was doing to attempt to remove the stone from him was also weakening him, as it effectively would involve slowly cutting off his access to the source of his powers.

The out-of-universe reason is that Vision and Wanda needed to be in danger, and Thanos and the Children of Thanos needed to seem like a credible threat. Hard to threaten a guy who can make himself intangible at will. So give Corvus the ability to cancel out that power.

Problem solved.

[Quora Answer] Why Marvel's Films Do Better than DC's

I was pretty active on Quora a few weeks back, and I thought it might be fun to share a few of my answers here, starting with a question of "Why Marvel's Films Do Better Than DC's".

https://www.quora.com/profile/Joseph-Rose-33

Why Do Marvel's Films Do Better than DC's?

A couple reasons.

First, Marvel was working from a position of weakness, whereas DC has been working from a position of strength. At least as far as characters go. When the MCU started, they didn’t have the movie rights to any of their top-tier characters. What they had were the B- and C-listers (as far as popularity goes, at least…Cap will always be #1 for me). This is actually pretty similar to the position Marvel was in when they created the Avengers way back in the day. Rather than choosing to take their bestsellers and stick them on a team together (like DC did with the Justice League), Marvel chose to revitalize some of their less popular characters by teaming them up. It worked like a dream back in the day.

But anyway, back to the movies. Marvel knew they wouldn’t be able to bank on brand recognition alone. They had to think, they had to plan, they had to get it right on the first try. So that’s what they did.

DC, on the other hand, had all their characters. Especially the best ones. Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman. They had the rights to everyone. They had the brand recognition that Marvel could only dream about. This meant that when it came time to make each movie, they banked a lot more on “Everyone knows Superman!” than Marvel could. Look at it this way, if you’ve got a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons, you probably won’t feel a burning need to spend time lining up your shot before you push the big red button. But if all you’ve got is a bow and a handful of arrows, you’d better make sure you make your shots count.

The only thing they didn’t have was time. Marvel had beaten them to the punch with the whole “cinematic universe” idea, and now whatever DC did, they would get compared to Marvel. So they decided to distance themselves from Marvel tonally, with…mixed success, shall we say.

However, this created another problem. DC didn’t want to risk Marvel getting further ahead of them than they already were, so they rushed a few things. Whereas Marvel released The Avengers as the sixth movie in a series, DC only really had three movies leading up to Justice League (Suicide Squad was in there too, but didn’t really contribute much to the mix).

The other main issue is that Marvel hires fans. Kevin Feige won’t bring on a director or a writer if they don’t love the source material. Look at Winter Soldier. Look at how cool the Russo brothers clearly think Captain America is. And they give him a lot of moments to show it off. Look at how cool Favreau thinks Iron Man is. Or how much James Gunn cares about the Guardians. They love these characters and want to share that love with the audience. As a result, we love them too. Even more impressive is the fact that Marvel tends to hire up-and-coming directors who love comics. The Russos, for example, had hardly done anything big budget before Winter Soldier.

DC hires people with pedigree. Zack Snyder has done some visually impressive movies before, but he clearly doesn’t get Superman. In my personal opinion, I think Snyder doesn’t even like Superman, not because of his character, but because Snyder has a hard time with what Superman stands for. This becomes pretty evident in Batman v. Superman when everyone but Superman gets to tell the audience their side of the story. But that’s another conversation for another day.

Yet another reason is more deeply ingrained in the characters. There’s a meme that goes “DC heroes are gods trying to be men; Marvel heroes are men trying to be gods.” It’s pretty close to true. Your average member of the Justice League could probably take down most of the Avengers on their best day, but this cosmic level of power tends to make DC heroes a bit harder to relate to. Effectively, DC tends to go for the power fantasy route (even Batman and Catwoman can somehow take out three Flashes at the same time nowadays), while Marvel tends to make more down-to-earth heroes (the “anyone can be a hero” route). This is a lot of the reason why DC’s big three (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) are two godlike immortals and one supergenius, while Marvel’s main heroes (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Spidey) are three mortals (one scrawny kid turned Super Soldier, one messed up recovering alcoholic supergenius, and a kid from Queens who got bit by a spider) and one godlike immortal. As a result, it’s slightly easier for Marvel to get us to relate to these characters on the big screen. I have friends who still have a hard time relating to Wonder Woman or Superman, even after seeing the movies.

Another reason is the visual effects (this is a tiny one, but it contributes). Marvel is owned by Disney, and Disney owned Industrial Light and Magic, one of the best visual effects companies in the world. As a result, Marvel and Disney get first dibs on ILM, and it shows. DC, unfortunately, tends to have to find someone else to be their main VFX company.

But the main reason, the #1 reason for Marvel finding greater success than DC…

Is this guy.

Kevin Feige. Perhaps the greatest superhero of them all.

If the MCU were a TV show, Feige would be the showrunner, the lead writer, the head honcho. He created a plan for the MCU early on (most likely he planned out Phase 1 by itself, with a few dangling plot threads, and then planned phases 2 and 3 together), and Marvel gave him the power to enforce that plan. Various directors have mentioned that Marvel gives them 2 or 3 mandates (this event needs to happen, this character needs to be introduced, this character absolutely cannot die, etc). These mandates all come from Feige. From his plan for the universe. And on top of everything else he does, he hires people who get along, so that James Gunn can work with the Russo Brothers just fine, without egos getting in the way.

After Infinity War, people are still finding bits of foreshadowing in previous Marvel movies (especially Age of Ultron). While some of this is probably the usual comics thing of one writer leaving a hint of things to come, and the next trying desperately to work out a plot that fits that hint later, but a lot of this is definitely Feige. He’s a master planner, and he’s a superfan to boot.

DC doesn’t have anyone to match Feige. Snyder was their best bet, initially, but we know how that turned out. And, later in his run, DC lost faith in Snyder and started undercutting him (again, with mixed results). Marvel has pretty much always backed Feige 100%.