The Marvel Thread (Spoilers, and language!)

Looking about, I don't know whether they kept it in the MCU, but wiki says:
The Abomination is similar to the Hulk in terms of strength, stamina, speed, durability, and ability to regenerate. In contrast with the Hulk, he retains his intellect after transforming, and cannot change back into human form. He also possesses gills, enabling underwater breathing; and, he can enter a state of suspended animation when bereft of oxygen for long periods. Originally, the Abomination is twice as strong as the Hulk, but unlike the Hulk his strength does not increase/decrease in proportion to level of anger, with the result that the Hulk is able to gain an advantage over Blonsky if the fight takes a sufficient amount of time for his anger to increase.

That was something that I found odd with the Avengers actually. I like that Hulk had some character development and was shown as a hero by will rather than by accident or anything... but when he initially transforms on the hellicarrier he is somewhat angry and attacks anything he can (Romanov, Thor, the Jet) without any concern, then begins to take instructions (even simple ones "Smash") from 'Cap and clearly knows which side he's fighting for as he doesn't attack any civilians or other members of the team outside of a punch to Thor.
 
I believe that it depends on to whom Bruce's rage was pointed. But don't forget there is the simple fact that Cap is Cap. He has the ability to lead that even a raging fury monster reacts to.
 
The rage direction makes sense, as he only transformed to attack the Chitauri after all, it just seemed a bit weird that once they were down he didn't have even slight aggression to the others. In TIH he is clearly shown to retain SOME of his personality from Banner by way of his protection of Betty, but obviously not all. It didn't in any way affect my enjoyment of the movie or anything, it was more that it wasn't quite to how I had (probably poorly) interpreted the character previously.

On subject of Cap, his costume is something I've seen commented on occasionally on other boards, personally I liked the one he wore in First Avenger, it looked a little bulkier and functional imo. Looked fine in The Avengers once he had his cowl pulled off, but when it was on it looked a little too comic-y for me. I wasn't such a fan of First Avenger at first but it has grown on me, and the trailers for Winter Soldier look fantastic.
 
New trailers for CA:TWS for those who haven't seen them.

(UK version, very slight differences but mostly the same footage)

Film looks awesome!! I wasn't such a fan of the First Avenger, but this should be fantastic! One thing I was wondering when I saw the trailers though, isn't SHIELD meant to be fairly secret (hence the invisibility for the Hellicarrier in Avengers)... that fleet of carriers doesn't look particularly covert!
 
I definitely can't wait for this one! It looks so good!

Also, the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm excited for this one too.
 
New shield episode was good, but before going into that... "New episode March 4th" WHAT. THE. FUCK.

What's that, a 4 week break (more?) then 2 eps, 3 week break then 1 ep, then 4 week break!? Come on ffs. This is why shows get lower viewers - when you're trying to compete with shows showing all in 1 go on Netflix can they really afford to take massive breaks after 1 episode ¬.¬
 
The hiatuses are getting ridiculous. A hiatus after a hiatus and one episode will kill this show. What a bunch of idiots. They know this show is struggling in the ratings, but yet they're shuffling it around like a foster care kid. I guarantee this returns to its worst ratings yet.
 
Personally I don't think the ratings are struggling that much, but I guess it depends on the budget. The main complaint I've read are the "it's not got enough supers in it" (which isn't what it was ever stated to be anyway), some people think the character reveals weren't good enough.

Personally, it's not like there's some sort of limit on how many shows I am capable of watching, so as long as I get some sense of entertainment from it I'll watch, it doesn't have to be the best thing in the world, as long as it isn't the worst. It's not the most amazing show ever, but the only thing that I actively dislike is the hiatuses, the actual show itself I don't really have fault with - I admit it's not got the OMGWOW factor all the time, but I am still finding myself immersed in it so who cares!
 
The ratings are definitely struggling, at least compared to expectations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agents_of_S.H.I.E.L.D.#Ratings

Minus one fluke, the ratings have dropped for each subsequent episode in both the US and UK. Specifically in the US, there is a trend of at least 1 million viewers abandoning the show every 2-3 episodes. People are losing interest, and they're losing it fast. For a show that debuted to 17 million less than six months ago to be aiming for half that target is a huge letdown. SHIELD is hemorrhaging viewers like crazy and multiple hiatuses will only kill interest in the show even more.

Granted, 9 million viewers is nothing to shake a stick at, but more is expected from Marvel's big event series. The ratings aren't in for last night's episode yet, it'll be interesting to see what happened after 3 weeks off the air.
 
Competing with shows available on Netflix in entire series, and taking these monster breaks, it really is no surprise. I'd prefer a longer mid-season break followed by an uninterupted second half, but that won't happen.

Part of the issue is there is two distinct fanbases - the comic fans, and the general audience. The comic fans are frequently unhappy if anything is even remotely different (the rantings from some people about Deathlok not having the proper costume, not being dead, etc etc), whereas for the general audience you have things like let's say revealing the clairvoyant. If he comes onto screen and says "my name is blahblah", comic fans will go nuts, whereas everyone else will just be like "okay? so?" so in that instance the reveal would have to be someone who had either previously appeared in the show or at most in the movies if it was to have any impact on the general audience.

Things like dropping in blonsky's name to last nights episode was good, as it is a reference comic fans can pick up but it didn't occupy huge amounts of time or anything to distract for everyone else. Finding the balances to retain maximum number of both parties will be difficult for them.
 
The breaks can't be anything other than bad for business - it speaks to issues behind the scenes.
Which is sad because the show is improving every week. Very good episode last night.

The show continues to be a top 10 show here in Canada, and relatively to other shows seems to be doing well in all markets, but the declining interest has to be worrisome and the breaks are only going to intensify that.
 
I knew nothing about that show, before I discovered it on netflix.
I thought it was excellent and it's too bad it was canceled.
 
This is the Winter Olympics hiatus. Most shows end in May, and considering S1 has 9 episodes left, when it returns in March it should air every week till the end with maybe one week gap or so.
 
Figures. Damn you Olympics for messing with our show! :p

I enjoyed the episode overall but to be honest, I wasn't really all that upset about Skye. It wasn't a "Oh my god! I can't believe that happened!" jaw dropping moment for me like I'm sure it was meant to be. I mean, I like her character and she definitely has come along way from the beginning of the show but I don't know. I actually felt more sad seeing the rest of the crew react to what happened. Maybe it would have affected me more if it were one of those cases where you knew the character for a much longer period.
 
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