Cinematic Universe

Say what you will about superhero movies and cheesy action polluting the CINEMA, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a wonder to behold. Even if you aren't a comic fan (not to discourage readers, but WHY are you on this blog?), you have to understand that what Marvel Studios has done is kind of revolutionary. That might not be revolutionary in a good way, time will tell. But to have taken distinctly different franchises from an incredibly distinctly different medium and tied them all fluidly together is very new. No, of course it's not new to make a series, 1, 2, 3, 4. It's new to make a series like this where the movies don't directly tie to each other until they do.

Matthew Ferguson's box art for the Avengers. Really
awesome.

There are a lot of things I really like about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Universe 199999. I don't know why they couldn't just do a three digit universe like the 616 or something more natural. Typing 616 is WAY easier than saying the main Marvel Universe but typing 199999 seems WAY harder somehow) and only a handful of things I don't like. Are there some lesser entries? Sure. Do I worry that they'll run out of ideas? You bet. Have they characterized the stars as both accurate to the comics and free enough to enter different plots? Absolutely. As I've said several times, I hate seeing Captain America as uber-patriot, beat down all the commies, I've loved America before you were even born kind of guy, which media outside of comics (aside from the 1950s Cap) tends to shift towards. The most encouraging thing for me about the Marvel Universe to that point was Chris Evans' Captain America. He is everything that I want him to be. It's perfect. Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man both reflects and shapes Tony of today. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is accurate in power and humility and dear lord he is huge. Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, while so far only seen through wider lenses, both seem pretty nicely tuned.

BUT EVEN THAT is not the most brilliant thing to me. Good characterization is obviously very important but it only required someone along the line to read a comic book or two to understand the characters. The most brilliant thing to me is the peppering in of other characters in the movies. Pepperpottsering in of other characters. Because...because Pepper Potts has been... Anyway, the first Iron Man movie saw James Rhodes and Pepper and Happy Hogan throughout the movie, which was kind of cool but all are very strictly relegated to Iron Man's universe so none were a stretch. They're a supporting cast, no matter what any might have gone on to do in the rest of the 616. It was the introduction of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury that really changed the game. Suddenly the whole universe was open. Iron Man 2 introduced Black Widow, who has acted as an Iron Man supporting cast character but is WAY bigger to the extended universe than, say, Rhodes or Pepper. Thor sort of introduced Hawkeye but didn't throw in too much else (a whole ton of not-so-subtle winks) aside from the Asgard crew and Cap couldn't really go beyond people in World War II. They still threw in a young Howard Stark as a somewhat important character. Avengers, then, was the culmination of everything and it was amazing. The movie was good, it was fun, we got to see Cap and Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk on the big screen exactly the way we all would have wanted to see them, the way none of us could have dreamed we'd get to.

So now we enter Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and everything's coming up Milhouse. Iron Man 3 is going to stick mostly to the Iron Man corner of the world but we could certainly see a couple introductions here or there (fingers crossed for Carol Danvers). Thor 2 sounds like it'll likely still keeping itself to the other eight realms that aren't Midgard (though Christopher Eccleston will also be there so THAT's neat). CAP, though, CAP 2 is going to be HUGE. We're likely going to see an extension of Black Widow's role, the introduction of the Falcon, and the Winter Soldier. I can't say how excited I am for this movie so I won't try here. What I will say is that this sprinkling in of characters here and there, few enough so as not to overwhelm but more than enough to create a bigger universe, is  being handled PERFECTLY. It's reason enough to be excited by all this, even if you're not really a comic fan. If you're a fan of movies and of stories and of characters, this universe should excite you. This doesn't even get INTO Guardians of the Galaxy, which could easily incorporate others like Nova or whoever else (not Silver Surfer, Fox has the rights to that guy). It's a tragedy they don't have the rights to the X-Men or to Spider-Man because this universe would have even THAT much more depth. So if you take anything away from this post, take away the fact that Sony should give back Spider-Man and that Fox should give back X-Men, or at least that they should all work out some kind of deal where Marvel gets to borrow them. Guys, I'm all for that. For the good of the art.