Comic book movies. It's the name of this site, so obviously the majority of the news and editorials are dominated by movies that are based on comic books. Although I'd stop short of calling this a "Golden Age" of comic book movies, the genre is exploding in ways that few could have ever predicted...and it's only going to get better from here.
It's arguable that 2012's The Avengers was the pinnacle of comic book movies, at least in recent memory. Aside from ensemble casts such as X-Men, The Avengers was the first attempt at combining several superheroes, each of whom had their own movie established beforehand, into one star-studded summer blockbuster that also happened to be hugely successful. It was unprecedented.
However, this decision to greenlight a shared movie universe also brought along it's own share of difficulties and issues that may or may not be resolved. Only time will tell. So what are these problems that stem from a shared cinematic universe?
1) Why can't the Avengers and other recurring elements get together for every movie?
Now, I definitely understand the so-called "comic book" reason for this. Obviously the comic book universe is immense and almost unimaginably huge, in both DC and Marvel. The same characters can't keep popping up in
every. single. issue. without causing readers to become bored and the story to become predictable. Changing up which heroes happen to join together is a great way of keeping it fresh, exciting, and engaging.
And no explanation is needed for why a certain person didn't show up, because one would have to write tons of long-winded explanations for every single important missing character, and that's time-consuming and unnecessary. It's simply understood that this is something that happens in comics.
However, movies are a completely different animal. In a
cinematic shared universe, there are different 'rules.' One rule that's unique to Marvel's universe (and hopefully, DC/Warner Bro's universe as well) is that there has to be a well-thought-out reason for why solo movies should even exist. Otherwise, that's just poor filmmaking, poor story-telling, and poor explanation of the characters motives. So in other words, why can't
every movie be an Avengers-type of team up?
Take
Iron Man 3, for example:
As we all know, during Phase One Marvel used a series of solo movies in order to establish the main characters, introduce a few recurring roles, and tie a few plot strands together that would all culminate in
The Avengers.
The plan all along was that if the team-up movie was successful, Marvel would roll out Phase Two. This continues the adventures of three of the main Avengers while also introducing the Guardians of the Galaxy, another ensemble film that may crossover into a future Avengers movie. Phase Two will obviously end with
The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The first solo film of Phase Two was
Iron Man 3. Riding high on the success of
The Avengers, Tony Stark faced off against what seemed to be a terrorist mastermind, hordes of Extremis soldiers, and the man behind the curtain, Aldrich Killian.
One glaring question that movie faces is this: Why didn't SHIELD intervene and help Tony out? In this case, the "recurring element" that should've popped up again was SHIELD, the government agency that's been established in several Marvel movies so far, and which had its biggest role yet in
The Avengers. So in a movie where the President is kidnapped, the United States is threatened and attacked repeatedly, what appeared to be a powerful terrorist running around causing chaos, and Tony Stark himself attacked and presumed dead...why didn't SHIELD think this was worth their time?
SHIELD certainly seemed eager to help Tony out with his relatively minor Daddy issues in Iron Man 2. The shady organization didn't even blink when given the opportunity to hunt down a nobody in the
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (really, two relative nobodies if you count Skye as well as Mike Peterson). So those incredibly small problems (compared to the big picture) warranted SHIELD's full attention, but a kidnapped President and matters of national and possibly even global security didn't raise any of SHIELD's alarms?
To be fair, this problem could easily be fixed in the upcoming movie
Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Based on what we know about the movie so far, it would seem that a major upheaval threatens Nick Fury's organization, enough so that SHIELD understandably has its hands full at the moment. It was recently confirmed that the Captain America sequel occurs two years after the events of
The Avengers, so if it turns out that
Iron Man 3 takes place in the same period of time, that would satisfactorily explain SHIELD's absence. We'll have to wait and see if this turns out to be the case.
But this is a perfect example of the kind of in-story explanation that's sorely needed in a cinematic shared universe. However, this could become more of problem in future films if Marvel isn't careful.
Having said that, giving valid reasons for why solo movies should continue to take place without the help of other Avengers is actually something that the studio has gotten right so far, for the most part. Aside from Iron Man, Thor is left on his own in his sequel because, as shown at the end of
The Avengers, he and Loki are transported back to Asgard, a place that the rest of the Avengers obviously can't go. Captain America has been in the employment of SHIELD as a secret agent, which explains why he can't be running around with high profile demi-gods, giant beasts, and genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropists. Bruce Banner, however, has strangely disappeared since the team-up movie, only showing up briefly in a post-credits scene. The same goes for War Machine's notable absence from it too. It's doubtful that we'll have much of an explanation as to either of their whereabouts during
Iron Man 3 and
The Avengers respectively, and that is very unfortunate and disappointing.
Marvel will need to continue to have nice, tidy reasons for why the plots of future movies can't include the rest of the superheroes, but that's just one snag in the cinematic universe.
2) Over-saturation.
The great thing about movies is that...they end. Seriously, a powerful conclusion can have an incredible effect on how a viewer perceives the film as a whole. This principle applies to Marvel's universe, as well.
We know that Marvel is definitely planning a Phase Three that ends with the movie we've all been waiting for: The Avengers 3, with our heroes presumably facing off against Thanos. But from recent comments by executives such as Kevin Feige...are they planning on concluding it there?
From a business point of view, what would be the point of that? Here Marvel has an extremely lucrative product on their hands which, so far, has never failed to deliver enormous amounts of profit and cash, even if the ratings haven't necessarily been all that great for every movie. It would be ridiculous to willingly stop producing these types of movies when both fanboys/fangirls and the general audience have proven that they will eat it up.
But from a fan's perspective, this could very well be too much of a good thing. At some point, the whole allure of a team-up movie will inevitably fade. Eventually it'll lose it's luster and audiences will simply shrug their shoulders when The Avengers 5 is announced in 2025. These movies will undoubtedly still be very profitable, but will it be worth it? The very worst thing that could happen would be for us to collectively look back at The Avengers 3 and sincerely wish that Marvel had stopped there.
This is similar to the problem that another major franchise may be running into soon:
Star Wars.
While it's still to be decided whether or not Episodes 7-9 are really all that necessary, it's the separate standalone movies that should be a concern to us.
In addition to having an explosion of advertising and media coverage connected to Episode 7, we'll have to deal with one or two Star Wars movies
a year chronicling the origins of several popular characters such as Han Solo and Yoda. But at some point, when is enough enough? Flooding the movie industry with constant bombardments of
Star Wars products will tire out the fanbase
very quickly.
Marvel would do well not to follow in their footsteps. When the over-arching story that began with
Iron Man and draws to a satisfying close with The Avengers 3, hopefully Marvel will know to put their hands up, pat themselves on the backs for a job well done, and move on to telling other stories.
Conclusion.
Am I saying that if Marvel doesn't follow these guidelines to the letter, then the entire shared universe that we've seen so far has been a giant waste of time and money? Of course not. But in my opinion, these are two issues that, if resolved, will make for a much higher quality of movie and a much better story overall.
Obviously, we're not even close to seeing what else Marvel has in store for us with the endless possibilities of this universe. But with some great planning and a little bit of luck, maybe one day we can look back and these sorts of issues and be thankful that Marvel solved them, avoided them altogether, and delivered a thoroughly enjoyable, kick-ass cinematic universe for all of us.
Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts in the comments below!