maybe it's one of those things that are different on Marvel's earth?

[ratcreature]

After watching the first two eps of Marvel Agents of SHIELD I had stopped, because I wasn't impressed and suffered from my embarrassment squick, but since I've seen an increase in more squeeful posts, so I decided to give it another try, but the series keeps tripping my up, like then while watching the third episode...

Did the writers not realize that Malta has actually been part of the EU for a while now? I don't think this is a case like Marvel's fantasy countries like Wakanda that must rearrange either either political of physical geography on Marvel's Earth (or is Marvel's EU different?) At first I wondered why SHIELD was so unwelcome in Malta when it didn't have trouble operating in Europe in the Avengers movie, but then there was that talk where that mining business guy went on about how Malta wasn't interfering into things like the US or the EU, and just... surely it's fairly common knowledge that Malta belongs to the EU, especially since the EU-related news the last years were dominated by financial crisis this, Eurozone trouble that, and Malta has a big banking sector relative to its size and is part of the Eurozone not just the EU.

And even if you didn't know, as soon as you want to write a story and to pick a location that isn't supposed to like too much interference from supranational bodies or big government, you'd do a quick check and pick another island? IDK, maybe Mauritius could have worked...

Comments

[domarzione]

Latveria is apparently tucked into the corner around the intersection of Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. It's landlocked and partially surrounded by some other imaginary Marvel country that I don't know about and consequently ignore.

[ratcreature]

LOL. Marvel squeezes an awful number of extra countries into Europe, considering it's not exactly an uncrowded place to begin with. They should put some of the extras into North America instead -- you have more space to fit them into, especially since it's not used for extra cities like in the DCU... or do you get extra states and additional Canadian provinces instead and only the other continents get additional countries?

[domarzione]

We only get extra states when Obama says that there are 57 of them. ;) And Canada makes their own extra provinces for real, they don't need comics.

The DCU should not be used as an example for anything, not when they have to put Metropolis in Delaware, which is too hilarious for words.

Europe, on the other hand, is chock full of countries that already seem pretend because they're tiny and tucked between two larger ones. Andorra, for instance. If it weren't real, Stan Lee would have made it up.

[ratcreature]

Well, why not Delaware? It doesn't already have a really famous big city everybody would associate with it so it's unlikely any story would miss it if you just split it up between Metropolis and Gotham instead of whatever unremarkable urban east coast sprawl with some boring no-name city is in Delaware for real...

[domarzione]

For the same reason you can't have Paris in Andorra, pretty much. It's a size issue, mostly, but also a cultural thing. Delaware is not built for a metropolis, let alone a Metropolis.