"The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe that is centered on a series of superhero films, independently produced by Marvel Studios and based on characters that appear in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The franchise has expanded to include comic books, short films, television series, and digital series. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters."
First of all, let me tell you that I have never read any Marvel Comics in my life, except for the novel Civil War some 15 years ago. I knew about some of the characters from general pop culture (especially the Hulk) but that's all. So my point of view is really the one of a cinema geek, not a comics book geek. I do own a few graphic novels which format I prefer to the never-ending comics book stories. My favorite is not a Marvel but a DC: Watchmen, itself adapted into a movie by Zack Snyder in 2009.
When the Marvel Studios were created and started thinking about a Universe shared between several movies, they divided their release into Phases, which I am going to follow now. Note that even if I don't go into details in this broad study, I will spoil the ending or major events taking place in those movies so don't read any further if you don't want to know. You've been warned.
SPOILERS ahead
Phase 1
Iron Man is the movie that started it all. At the time it was just another super-hero movie, back when they were Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy or (gulp) Fantastic Four and its sequel: Rise of the Silver Surfer. At that time those movies were made fun of in parodies like Superhero Movie.
But Iron Man changed the tone, or rather imposed a tone to which they would stick for the decade to come. When I think of it, in fact that tone - a mix of action but not too serious - is not far from what Sam Raimi did in his Spider-Man trilogy (adapted from a Marvel comics but whose rights were owned by Fox at that time).
In retrospect it is funny to watch that first movie for its relative simplicity.
Only one month later was released The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, one of the most noticeable re-cast of the Universe (nowadays Mark Ruffalo plays the green beast) with Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2. Maybe because of that, one often forgets that this movie is part of the MCU. Its events are only referenced once in the rest of the MCU (but the Hulk bears a scar of that first battle) and his girlfriend is forgotten.
What doesn't help is that it is a reboot of a previous attempt simply entitles Hulk with Eric Bana in 2003. I would love to see that one again for fun but it is hard to find (i.e. not on Netflix) as it is not canon to (not part of) the MCU and Marvel may just want us to forget about it.
Anyway, the 2009 second attempt is OK to watch.
Following the success of the first, Iron Man 2 came next. At that time sequels still had numbers and not a secondary title. It is not a great movie but gave us more of what we liked. And in passing showed the debut of two future Avengers: Black Widow and War Machine a.k.a. The Iron Patriot, as well as a good introduction to Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Now that the studio had a solid base of fans it could start to go wild, with Thor. The mythology around the same-name character grounds it to Earth (via Nordic legends) but it does take place in a Fantasy world.. at least at the beginning, then it is stuck in New Mexico, a place I didn't find very adapted. Like I heard a reviewer say online: it is fine for Breaking Bad but not for Thor.
The characters and actors are not very interesting, in particular not Nathalie Portman, and the whole costume / kingdom / space knights fighting with swords thing is hard to swallow. They have tuned it down one notch in the next movies (or ten in the case of Ragnarok!).
The future Avenger Hawkeye has a short introduction in that movie.
At some point Captain America: The First Avenger was my favorite MCU movie, maybe thanks to the originality of taking place in a different time period. This original story is still pleasant to watch, an let's not forget that it introduced another future (debatable) Avenger with Bucky, and a device called the Tesseract which is a very important plot point in the following.
Finally in 2012 came Marvel's The Avengers, which was definitely awaited at the time. The cross-over had been teased in the format of post-credit scenes in all of the above movies. The Avengers was directed Josh Whedon (the Buffy the Vampire Hunter and Firefly TV-series) who knew what he was doing, an it culminates with the gathering of all our heroes for a battle of New-York of epic proportions. The MCU was born and there to stay.
Note that the movie includes an unexpected Avenger already seen is previous movies: Agent Colson played by Carl Gregg, as well as scenes teasing Thanos, the antagonist in Infinity War.
Phase 2
Iron Man 3 takes place soon after the events of The Avengers, and it is funny to think that it will be the last solo Iron Man movie of the first three Phases, maybe the last ever (!) although the character appears in solo movies of others (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Captain America: Civil War). The story is alright, and I like the two Action scenes framing the movie (the destruction of Tony's house at the beginning and the final battle).
But the interest of the movie for me resides in the fact that it cements the character that Tony has become, his relationship with Pepper, and the path to his evolution in the next movies.
Next came Thor: The Dark World, a forgettable adventure which only interests are to show the evolution (redemption) of Loki's character and to introduce the Reality Stone.
I find multiple interests to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It is very personal with its main character and looks from up close at his relationships with Black Widow (for fun) and with Bucky a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, a very important storyline that will lead to the events of Captain America: Civil War. But at the same time the movie depicts the fall of a major entity in the MCU: S.H.I.E.L.D., while its arch-enemy organization H.Y.D.R.A. suffers some losses but will fall only later on (as shown in the TV-series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). I am always impressed by how Marvel doesn't hesitate cutting off bridges like that, killing off characters, destroying artifacts or depicting irreversible events.
Also the movie introduces Falcon as an Avenger.
As I have read in a review, Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't link straight to the rest of the stories but is very important because it opens up the MCU to the Space pages from the Marvel catalog. Moreover its colorful settings and humor made it an instant success among all age categories. This is mostly due to director James Gunn's vision. He came a long way since his days in the Troma independent studio, but they will catch up with him as we will see later. The movie also introduces the Power Stone and characters close to Thanos, the antagonist in Infinity War.
During this Phase 2, Marvel started to introduce TV-series to the canon MCU storyline, of which Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the most linked to the bulk of the Cinematic Universe: the events in the series are influenced by the ones in the movies and the loop is closed when towards the end of the second season, its events are said to impact on the next Avengers movie. Unfortunately the movie doesn't return the favor. I really dived into the first seasons of the series and watched them twice.
Jessica Jones and Daredevil started around that time as well but are linked to the films by just a few nods. I loved the first season of Daredevil.
Like sometimes the case for the second movie in a pre-programmed trilogy, Avengers: Age of Ultron is not loved (the case for The Two Towers but not for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), because they have the reputation to just be a bridge between the introductory first movie and the climactic third one. It does play this role of bridge by introducing new Avengers: Scarlett Witch, Quicksilver and Vision as well as the Mind Stone, which will almost all play a great role in the third Avengers. And as a reviewer said online: it is the closest we will ever get from a Hawkeye solo movie.
But I like to watch it as stand-alone movie as well: it has enough action, conflict and the now-mandatory teaming-up scenes that we loved in the first Avengers movie. Only the final solution proposed by Ultron disturbs me as it doesn't make much sense.
After that, Ant-Man is a bit of an outsider, and not a great movie. It is only interesting as an introduction to a character that may play a bigger role in future events (Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Endgame maybe?).
Phase 3
This Phase starts cleverly by deconstructing our team of heroes in Captain America: Civil War. We see so many of them in it that some people think it is an Avengers, not a Captain America movie. It plays a big role in confronting the opposite characters of Iron Man and Captain America with each other, and introduces Black Panther. The events of this movie will reward the audience with callbacks in Infinity War. The mandatory big battle in this civil war is nice although you know that the heroes won't kill each other.
After that, the MCU movies are pretty independent from one another until Infinity War, while the small screen spits out season after season of its most successful shows, which I didn't follow all but selected what I watched:
- 1 more season of Jessica Jones (didn't watch)
- 2 of Luke Cage (watching one was enough)
- 2 of Iron Fist (I may watch the second)
- 2 more of Daredevil (currently watching the latest)
- The very exciting cross-over of the four characters above: The Defenders with a worthy villain played accordingly by Sigourney Weaver.
- 3 more seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and associated webisodes, which explore many SF themes with always (or almost) as much originality
- 2 of The Punisher (watching one was enough)
- 2 of Agent Carter (cancelled, that was enough)
- 1 of Inhumans, immediately cancelled (I only started to watch)
After Ant-Man, Marvel found it was time to bring yet another addition to the MCU with a Doctor Strange solo movie. Besides being a pleasant movie to watch (especially if you like Benedict Cumberbatch), its main interest is that it opens the MCU to the possibility of different dimensions and realities, like Guardians of the Galaxy opened it to Space. It also introduces the Time Stone and the possibility of time travel (Avengers: Endgame, maybe?).
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is quite as fun as the first one, plus it has some more feelings (nice ending) and Kurt Russel in it! It was as big a success, but unfortunately soon after its visionary director James Gunn was caught up by a scandal around Tweets he shared when he was young and stupid. The new mother company of Marvel, Disney, had to fire himfrom the production of a third movie, which release ifs now postponed indefinitely.
After Sam Raimi's quite classic trilogy, and two Amazing Spider-Man movies made only to capitalize on cash, one could have thought the character needed a break. But Marvel, after recuperating the rights, surprised us by introducing the character in Captain America: Civil War and giving him his own move soon after: Spider-Man: Homecoming.Like Ant-Man I am not a big fan of it, but like Ant-Man it takes more value when knowing where the characters goes.
I don't like much the style of the movie, but this may be where Marvel needs to go to please the younger audience. Even though I love the actor, the cast of Michael Keaton is wrong and there is no excuse to that.
Then came Black Panther which I can watch only for the colorful costumes and sets and even then not to the end. I don't find justified its title of biggest grossing MCU movie to date.
Thor: Ragnarok is another story. Who came up with the idea to give the control of this multi-100-million dollars movie to the Kiwi responsible for the hilarious comedy What we do in the Shadows Taika Waititi? Another bold move from Marvel that paid up, while it could have ruined the set-up of the next movie. Ragnarok is fresh and funny and has the excellent idea to team-up Thor with the Hulk. If Spider-Man: Homecoming is where Marvel should go to please the youngsters, Ragnarok is where it should stay to please me. It has been described as a reboot to the Thor franchise, which is not far from true when you see how different is the movie (and its main character) from its two previous adventures. The scenes on Sakaar especially crack me up. The ones with Hela not that much.
And then came what may be the most awaited movie in the history of cinema: Avengers: Infinity War. Well at least until Avengers: Endgame. OK that may be exaggerated when you know the Star Wars saga story, but the release of Infinity War was an event, the epic conclusion of the three first Phases of the MCU, what Marvel has been building up to for more than ten years. I for one was not disappointed, and have seen the movie many times. I believe that this movie, even more than the two previous Avengers, benefits from knowing the 10-year background of all its main characters. I don't know whether it has a value in itself, and what do people who haven't seen many MCU movies think of it.
It starts no more than a few hours after Ragnarok, and slowly unravels its relentless story. A story (and an antagonist) that has been criticized a lot but that I find just fitting to the MCU. The only problem with this movie is: where to go next?
Again out of sync came the second Ant-Man solo movie: Ant-Man and the Wasp, in line with the first, quickly forgotten (especially its poorly written bad guys) and which best value is the post-credit scene that links it to the rest to the MCU and opens up some possibilities.
At the time of writing this article I am about to go watch Captain Marvel, the before-last movie of Phase 3 and a must-watch before Endgame to understand who the character is, given the post-credits scenes of Infinity War.
Phase 4 and beyond
Speculations are flourishing about what will take place in Avengers: Endgame, like in the YouTube channel New Rockstars. I can't hear enough about it, and I have to admit I was hit by the craze around the title release of the movie. I think such anticipation is unheard of, even at the time of Star Wars sequels (or prequels) people were not getting so crazy about a fuzzy photo that may or may not even reveal the movie title, not even a minor plot point: just the title for Gosh's sake (like Cap would say).
What I am sure of is that it will be a success. One of the reason is that, again as Cap says in the Endgame trailer, Marvel wouldn't know what to do if it didn't work. Unlike other studios, they capitalize solely on the MCU movies (and series just a little) and can't rely on other sources of revenue. OK the situation is a little more relaxed now that they are owned by Disney. Smart move by the way and good timing from the Marvel folks, not so sure for Disney.
Speaking of which, it is to me unknown how much the studio with the big ears will influence on the MCU products. Will it saturate us with poor quality products and ruin a saga like it is doing with Star Wars (the failure of Solo made them rethink a little their plans), or will Marvel keep on prospering in peace.
What is sure also is that the merger facilitates the gathering of all the Marvel comics adaptation rights under one roof, as crudely explained on the chart below. So it is probable that they will try to incorporate X-men in their Future plans, however unlikely it seems today given how the characters of that franchise are well established through 11 movies (and two timelines). But they could repeat the positive surprise of Spider-Man: Homecoming...
The Fantastic 4 would be much easier to incorporate given that the movies of the 2000's are a bit out of fashion and forgotten and that the 2015 reboot is plain bad. Then there is also the possibility that Marvel goes on in tapping into its vast set of characters present in Space and other Dimensions/Realities. Note that it is called the MCU not the Avengers Cinematic Universe, so not every movie has to feature possible future Avengers.
I just don't know how they can start all anew after Infinity War / Endgame, and still give audience the motivation to want to see more. It is pretty sure that some at least of the original Avengers will not continue their adventures, so that the "new Avengers" will have to recenter on characters that do (i.e. that have planned sequels): Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther and the unknown new ones.
Maybe they have to go a different direction, target a different audience like they attempt with the TV-show Runaways or the animated movie Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Also which stakes do you propose after defeating "the strongest being on the Universe" (Thanos), which MacGuffin do you find better than the Infinity Stones?
Back to Endgame: do you want to hear my prediction about the movie? It is more based on logical assumptions around actors contracts, the need to undo some events and what Marvel has to do to be able to move forward, rather than on what would be the best sequel to Infinity War.
Rumors and a few hints in the movies point towards Time Travel which our heroes would use to undo Thanos' snap. Now that Thanos has done what he has done, I don't see the need for a physical battle to revert it but a moral one. So going back to the past for our heroes to re-live their battles (like some rumors have it) would be a way to show Action in that framework.
Then for our ageing actors to get free, they don't need to necessarily die but time travel could just make that they never became those heroes (Tony Stark was never kidnapped, Steve Rogers never injected with the serum etc) and they could still appear as cameos in future movies, in their non-hero role.
To free the franchise from having to do better than Thanos and the Stones, he should be defeated before he gets any of them, and the Stones should be if not destroyed, at least not accessible for the foreseeable future of the franchise (10 years or so).
Finally to prompt the apparition of heroes from the rest of the Marvel comics, the actions of Endgame could have as side effect to open the door to a different reality, send ripples through space-time that generate the mutations of the Fantastic Four, or the dawn of mutants and Xmen (remember that one of the oldest mutants is Magneto who discovered his power at about the same time Steve Rogers got his...).
The only "prediction" that I would make that doesn't involve the future of the MCU is that I would love to see characters from the TV-series appear in Endgame, like Quake from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or Daredevil. That would be an awesome payoff for those who follow the MCU on other media than cinema.
But maybe there will be no time travel, the Avengers will just manage to free all the souls trapped in the mind stone, although this wouldn't help Marvel's future.
We can keep on speculating, the answer will be given on April 24.
More links
I just wanted to add here some more info pertinent to Marvel and its Cinematic Universe, in fact on two topics.
1) Adaptations of Marvel comics stories didn't start in 2008, there were many in recent history but they are not part of the MCU, just to quote the ones I know:
- the poor Daredevil with Ben Affleck (the TV-series is much better)
- the even poorer Elektra (her role in the TV-series is also much better)
- Hulk was mentioned
- Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy as well
- The useless Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel
- Ghost Rider and its sequel Spirit of Vengeance with Nicolas Cage. Note that the character is also shown in the season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- The Punisher from 1989 with Dolph Lundgren, also adapted in 2004 and 2008, and shown in the second season of Daredevil and after that on two seasons of his own series.
- the whole X-men franchise: X-men, X2, X-men 3: The Last Stand, X-men Origins: Wolverine, X-men: First Class, The Wolverine, X-men: Days of Future Past, X-men: Apocalypse, Logan, the upcoming Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants.
- Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are technically part of the X-men Universe but they are hard to mix.
- Fantastic 4 and Rise of the Silver Surfer as well as the reboot Fantastic Four.
2) I have to mention Marvel comics' long-time rival DC, which has also started his own shared Universe with the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), featuring:
- Man of Steel
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
- Suicide Squad
- Wonder Woman
- Justice League (I talk about the DCEU in that review)
- Aquaman
- and the upcoming Shazam!, Birds of Prey etc... (note that the 2019 Joker film is not part of the DCEU)
- plus a bunch of TV-series than may of may not be part of the DCEU and often have different actors as the movies, like Supergirl, Gotham, The Arrow...
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