I should start off by saying I am a long time Marvel comic reader and fan, and what I have noticed more than anything in regard to the comics, is a clear downward trajectory in regard to writing. In the last 15 years, the writing has gone downhill, to the point where I am not even sure downhill is a strong enough term. New characters are largely copies of older characters with young, bright eyed and often flawless kids taking on copycat roles of established characters. They tend not to have any depth, they tend to be politically motivated and stereotypical, cliches. Not good characters, but representative characters. Instead of being individually unique they tend to be broadly "representative" which makes them quite dull and 1 dimensional. There is no qualitative standard. The writing is amateurish at best. In reality, this is closer to fan fiction. In fact, it's much worse than a lot of fan fiction.
The Marvel Rising series is everything that's bad about the recent run of comics, shoved in to one awful animated series. I want to make it clear, it's not a problem that the series is aimed at children, it's not a problem they use new characters. It's a problem that they use terribly fleshed out and written characters, without depth and who come off more like Sex In the City characters than real human beings. And personally, I think that makes this awful for kids. If you want your kids learning stereotypes, perceiving lack of human depth as a positive character trait, or if you want children to feel the need to fit into one of these stereotypes, rather than being complete and individual human beings, I guess this is the show for you.
The writing is, even for a children's show, awful. The dialogue is poor, the character development is non existent and they largely deal with extremely superficial and vain problems. It really feels like the show was written by 17 year olds for shallow 15 year olds rather than growing and maturing children. Their lives are largely based around getting coffee and complaining about how hard it is to balance being a superhero and doing your schoolwork. Not exactly the ideal role models.
Really, this show is the epitome of everything that's sent comic sales into a downward spiral. The Disney aspect shines through in the worst corporate and shallow way. Have I said 'shallow' enough? Because this series is beyond shallow. And it's not just light, pop-centric fun with good writing, like say the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. It's probably not even as well written as a show like 90210 or an animation like Teen Titans GO! Which does everything right that Marvel Rising does wrong.
If this is the future of Marvel animated products, Marvel animation might not have much of a future at all. I would keep this show away from my children. Not because it covers topics that are to mature or content that isn't appropriate, but because it will make your children dumber and teach them that poor writing and seeing human beings as stereotypes and representative archetypes is a positive thing. And those are really, really not positive things. Their names and individual identities are completely secondary to their cliched personas. They could have just as easily named their characters "red haired and friendly teen male" or "hot tempered Latina". If that's what you think will help your kids grow and mature and become confident in who they are, then by all means.......but god help the future of our species. Have all the talented writers retired? Or do they just hire complete amateurs now?
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