No secret identities; empowered women; lame villains (except Loki!
(The ‘‘bodyguard’’ explanation worked for decades in the comic books.)
Captain America’s mask is a propaganda tool, quickly discarded.
Zade Rosenthal/Marvel Studios
(What does Black Widow do when she’s not Black Widow?)
(It’s basically Boomerang Excalibur.)
More generally, the Marvel Studios films take place in a world where superpowers are often quite tenuous.
Zade Rosenthal/Marvel Studios
InThe Avengers, Loki uses the Tesseract to mind-control several S.H.I.E.L.D.
agents, and Hawkeye gets cured of mind control via excessive punching.
Cynically, you might suspect that the lack of emphasis on specific superpowers is partiallybecauseof those other franchises.
The company’s films spend more time on character-building than on power-demonstrating.
Every Hero Has a Death and Rebirth Cycle
Again, it all starts withIron Man.
Tony Stark is a high-flying, cocktail-swilling egomaniac.
Thor sacrifices himself inThorand is reborn into godhood (just like Hercules inHercules!)
Captain America ‘‘dies’’ twice in his film.
Avengersfiguratively followed this cycle, with Agent Coulson’s act 2 sacrifice finally giving the Avengers something to avenge.
Zade Rosenthal
(Marvel then literalized that figurative rebirth by bringing Coulson back to life inAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
And there’s another metaphorical death-rebirth inThor: The Dark World, although this time it’s not Thor.
This cycle becomes a bit problematic when it actually becomes a cycle.
TheIron Mansequels demanded that Tony always wipe his slate clean in ever more slate-wipingly over-the-top ways.
InIron Man 3he goes on walkabout to Tennessee after losing everything/his house.
See also:The Dark Knight Rises,The Wolverine.
Marvel
Thor is a god who, when shirtless, looks like hairless android barbarian boxer-brief model.
Again, this is interesting only because this isnotwhat we used to think of when we thought about Marvel.
The future looks more promising.Guardians of the Galaxyis about a team of space misfits.
(Though Marvel did successfullytransform Andy Dwyer into a Hemsworth.)
Thor is next in line for the throne of Asgard.
Tony Stark is in charge of one of the most powerful companies in the world.
Captain America works for a fellow by the name of Uncle Freaking Sam.
And they all become agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
There’s a strain of anti-authoritarianism running through all those films, which is absent from the Marvel movies.
Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesABC
The exception isIron Man 2. is the Glue
S.H.I.E.L.D.
So it is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Much like in the comics, this occasionally puts S.H.I.E.L.D.
in the awkward position of tension-relieving deus ex machina.
to the fore, introducing Fury subordinate Maria Hill and the frequently-falling S.H.I.E.L.D.
has taken the limelight in its own ABC TV show, about whichwe have some opinions.
AndCaptain America: The Winter Soldierlooks like a full-on S.H.I.E.L.D.
spinoff, promising to complicate the organization’s reputation for the post-Snowden age.
(Think Megan Draper.)
Marvel
She later became a doctor.
(Again, think Megan Draper.
It was the ’60s!)
(A TV spin-off is possible/mandatory.)
Now, you could point out that the films still have problematic gender politics.
Which is why we should all pay close attention to Black Widow in Phase 2.
Onscreen, Natasha Romanoff doesn’t bare much resemblance to her comic book incarnation.
But Black Widow had more screen time than Hulk or Thor inAvengersandlooks like a veritable co-lead inWinter Soldier.
The Frost Giants in the firstThorwanted to take over the Nine Realms.
ABC
By comparison, the relatively modest Red Skullmerelywanted to conquer Earth.
The zero sum nature of these villains makes them disappointingly vague, even colorless.
(See also: Dick Tracy, most cop shows.)
Zade Rosenthal
But part of what makes the Marvel Studios films so fun is the character work.
)Captain AmericaandThorboth give their protagonists moments of reflection and inner turmoil, some of it genuinely heartfelt.
From a certain angle, the Marvel films all look like comedies with occasional sad-music montages.
(Avengersin particular suggests a workplace sitcom.)
It’s tough to fit a genuinely villainous figure into that arrangement.
So the movies don’t, really.
The stage seemed set for a real big Big Bad.
Kingsley is an Oscar-winning actor; the Mandarin looked vaguely Bin Laden-esque.
But the hall-of-mirrors twist revealed that was all just a tease.
And who needs a villain?
Tony has wit that needs bantering!
Notably, Villains in the post-Iron Man 2Marvel films all use some variation of Total Ultimate Power.
InCaptain AmericaandAvengers, it’s the Tesseract.
InIron Man 3, it’s Extremis.
InThe Dark World, it’s the Aether.
(He wants power a throne of his own but he also implicitly wants respect.
Or he might just be crazy.)
It also lets him go Full Lecter in a glass-wall prison, a necessity for every memorable modern villain.
Intriguingly, Hiddleston’s Loki is quite different from the character’s typical comic book incarnation.
Comic Loki trends towards being a complete psychopath.
Movie Loki is a bit sadder and, lest we forget, looks like Tom Hiddleston.
Marvel Studios turned the post-credits scene into an event.
InAvengersandDark World, they even added in mid-credits scenes.
(Someday, we’ll refer to movies as ‘‘pre-credits scenes.'')
Other franchises are taking note.Amazing Spider-ManandThe Wolverineboth ended with mid-credits sequel teases.
Iron Man 3was a radical departure, in the sense that it didn’t really point ahead to anything.
Ruffalo’s Banner wakes up as Tony finishes narrating the movie and admits he fell asleep almost immediately.
Can Tony start over?
Or maybe just stop talking?
(This is another reason why we all might retroactively decide thatIron Man 3is Marvel Studios’Gremlins 2.)
The Final 30 Minutes Are about an Army of Things Attacking the World
Frost Giants!
I won’t say if it happens inDark World.
But there are a lot of Dark Elves.
Downey himself seemed game,openly discussing the possibilityof bringing Stark’s alcoholism to the fore.
An alternate opening forIron Man 2began with Tony vomiting through a hangover.
It was scrapped, andIron Man 3director Shane Blackadmittedthat the studio nixed any reference to alcoholism in the threequel.
They can’t even really commit to character death.
Indeed, despite the name, the Thorquel features many of the same goofball beats as the original.
(Put it this way: A Christopher Nolan film will probably never feature Skarsgard-butt humor.)
But evenCapbenefited from Joe Johnston’sRocketeerretro-nostalgia: It’s the lightest World War II movie in decades.
ThoravoidsIron Man’s geopolitical specificity, but the film has a similar kickoff point.
Captain Americaexists firmly in the distant past Nazi bad guys, an arms race, Brooklyn pre-gentrification.
ButAvengersconcludes with an attack on New York City.
The post-Avengersprojects keep on referencing that attack.
It pops up frequently onAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
InAvengers, Fury claims that the events ofThorled S.H.I.E.L.D.
to secretly develop an extraterrestrial deterrent using the power of the Tesseract.
(They don’t want to ruin the fun.)
But Marvel Studios has woven a colorful postmillennial tapestry across several films.
It’s like a decade-later re-examination of the American security state, this time with fancier costumes.
Thor has a relatively smaller closet.
Although sometimes he removes the chainmail from his arms and goes bare-bicep.
You know, for the ladies.
Constant Jokes About the Names of Things
Comic book names are funny.
Many of them were conceived on a caffeinated-or-worse work binge by writers struggling to make a cent.
Thus, the Marvel Studios films constantly poke fun of the names of people or organizations.
Sometimes, it’s handled with sly self-aggrandizement.
When Tony Stark hears what newspapers are calling his alter ego, he riffs: ‘‘Iron Man.
That’s kind of catchy.
It’s got a nice ring to it.
I mean it’s not technically accurate.
The suit’s a gold titanium alloy, but it’s kind of provocative, the imagery anyway.’’
As the series continues, it delves into deeper corners of Marvel lore which means the names get goofier.
So the jokes are getting more pointed.Iron Man 3made merciless mirth of the moniker ‘‘Iron Patriot.’’
And the biggest laugh at Comic-Con 2013 came during the video preview for Marvel’s next spin-off.
His partner Peter Serafinowicz responded, ‘‘What a bunch of a–holes.’’
Rotating Creative Teams, With One Notable Exception
Most major franchises in Hollywood have signature directors.
Steven Spielberg andIndiana Jones.
Sam Raimi and the originalSpider-Men.
Michael Bay andCars That Are Robots.
But, besides Jon Favreau, no director has worked on more than one Marvel film.
Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston gave way to Alan Taylor and the Russo brothers for theThorandCapsequels.
Whedon has a wide-ranging deal with Marvel, which also includesAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.and more.
But it might be more accurate to say that Marvel Studios is the auteur of Marvel Studios.
But it’s also what makes the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe so exciting.
It will be even more exciting to see how it evolves from here.
And if not, they’ll probably merely make a few billion more dollars.
So they have that going for them.
