I admit it. I'm getting annoyed with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The
whole concept of filming Marvel characters is flawed. The idea is as follows:
Take a character from Marvel comics. Put him (or her) in a film. Keep the
name, but give him a new costume. Give him a different background. Change
everything. Then say it's the same character from a different part of the
Multiverse.
This concept is most obvious in the recent film
"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings". Shang-Chi in the film has nothing to do with Shang-Chi in the comics.
Nothing at all. At least the MCU's Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, could be
associated with the comics book character while her background remained vague.
Now this film, the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has made the
mistake of giving us information about her early life, emphasising that it's a
completely different character.
In the early years of Marvel, from 1961 until the late 1970's, everything was
simple. It was a consistent universe, carefully crafted by Stan Lee, and
continued by other writers. It wasn't even an alternate universe. Stan Lee
wrote everything as if it were happening in our own world. There were
occasional references to current political events and world leaders. This was
in contrast to DC Comics, in which the characters lived in fictional cities,
such as Gotham, Metropolis and Star City. Marvel's heroes (with the exception
of the Hulk) were based in New York City, so there were frequent landmarks to
give the reader an anchor to the real world. Later on the catchphrase "Marvel
Universe" was invented to name the alternate place where the Marvel heroes
live. Even later, this universe was numbered. The Marvel Universe is
Earth-616.
Marvel itself (the comics company) justifies the deviations in the MCU by
saying that they take place in a different part of the Multiverse. This is a
list of the relevant alternate universes.
Earth-1218 -- the real world where you and I live.
Earth-616 -- the world where the Marvel heroes live in the comics.
Earth-199999 -- the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Do the numbers look as random to you as they do to me? The rest of the Marvel
films have other designations:
Earth-730911 – "Spider-Man" (1977)
Earth-96173 – "Doctor Strange" (1978)
Earth-58470 –
"Howard the Duck"
(1986)
Earth-58627 – "The Punisher" (1989)
Earth-697064 – "Captain America" (1990)
Earth-94000 –
"Fantastic Four"
(1994)
Earth-26320 – the Blade films and TV series (1998-2006)
Earth-10005 – the first five X-Men films and the first two Wolverine films
(2000-2016)
Earth-96283 – Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films (2002-2007)
Earth-701306 –
"Daredevil"
(2003) and
"Elektra"
(2005)
Earth-400083 –
"Hulk"
(2003)
Earth-58460 –
"Man-Thing"
(2005)
Earth-121698 – the Fantastic Four films (2005-2007)
Earth-121347 – the Ghost Rider films (2007-2012)
Earth-120703 – the Amazing Spider-Man films (2012-2014)
Earth-TRN554 –
"Fantastic Four"
(2015)
Earth-TRN404 –
"X-Men: Apocalypse"
(2016) and
"Dark Phoenix"
(2019)
Earth-TRN414 – the Deadpool films and
"New Mutants"
(2016-2020)
Earth-17315 –
"Logan", the third Wolverine film (2017)
Earth-TRN688 –
"Venom"
(2018)
I've listed all of those, even though I consider them nonsensical. The
proliferation of universe numbers is only intended to be a justification of
the lack of continuity in the films.
As for the Black Widow film, I might write something about it next time I
watch it. For now I'll just say that it's a good film.
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