While Marvel is often credited for revitalizing the superhero genre in the early 1960s, in truth they were simply following DC’s lead. It was in the 1950s that DC came out with new versions of the Flash and Green Lantern, created characters like the Martian Manhunter, and revived World War II heroes Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, including bringing them all together into a team known as the Justice League of America.
The JLA in particular was hugely popular, taking the various solo heroes and putting them together into their own team title. So in 1963, Marvel followed suit, as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp together into a team book that they called The Avengers.
The Hulk didn’t last long in the book, departing in issue #2, and in issue #4, Lee and Kirby brought back Kirby and Joe Simon’s hero of WWII, Captain America. In addition, reflecting the change in his own sub-series in Tales to Astonish, Ant-Man transformed into Giant-Man.
And then the big change happened: in issue #16, all the remaining founders resigned, and Captain America was left with a new team that included himself and three former villains: Hawkeye (a dupe of the Black Widow, who had fought Iron Man), Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch (the latter former members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who’d fought the X-Men).
That proved a harbinger of things to come, as the one thing that remained consistent about the Avengers was that its lineup would never be consistent. In the 1980s, a west coast branch was formed, and for quite some time there were two titles: Avengers and West Coast Avengers (or Avengers West Coast, as it was changed to in order to keep both books in the same spot in alphabetically sorted comic store racks). After the team disbanded following the “Disassembled” storyline in the early 2000s, several new Avengers teams popped up: the New Avengers, the Secret Avengers, the Dark Avengers, and so on, not to mention the Great Lakes Avengers that has appeared periodically since the 1990s.
While the core of the team has often been founding members Iron Man, Thor, the Wasp, and Henry Pym in his various identities (Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, etc.), as well as almost-founder Captain America, the lineup has been in a constant state of flux.
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It has also been one of Marvel’s standbys, the central team that’s at the heart of the Marvel superheroic universe. Where the Fantastic Four were a specific family, the X-Men were always outcasts to some degree, and all the other teams were far more fleeting, the Avengers have always endured in one form or other.
Kevin Feige’s design for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s early days all was structured to lead to a big Avengers film, starting with Nick Fury’s mention of “the Avengers Initiative” in the post-credits scene at the end of Iron Man. In 2012, that all came together. Zak Penn, fresh off The Incredible Hulk, wrote a screenplay, which was rewritten by Joss Whedon when he was hired to direct. Whedon was an ideal choice: his long tenure as co-creator and show-runner of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse gave him tremendous geek cred on screen, and his comics fandom was long-established, and he had experience writing comics with an acclaimed run on Astonishing X-Men (much of which was mined for X-Men: The Last Stand, though I suppose one shouldn’t hold that against it). Whedon also did some uncredited script work on Captain America: The First Avenger, designed to help set this movie up.
The story took its inspiration from both Avengers #1—in which Loki manipulated events that wound up bringing the various heroes together—and The Ultimates series, which introduced the “Ultimate” line’s version of the Avengers, inexplicably called the Ultimates in that timeline—in which the team is a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., and in which they fight the Chitauri.
The only character who was re-cast was the Hulk, with Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton from The Incredible Hulk, who was unable to come to terms with Marvel Studios. Back from Iron Man 2 are Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, and Paul Bettany as J.A.R.V.I.S. Back from Thor are Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Stellan Skarsgård as Eric Selvig, and Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell. Back from Captain America: The First Avenger are Chris Evans as Steve Rogers and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. First seen in this film are Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Alexis Denisof as the Other, Daimion Poitier as Thanos, and Powers Boothe and Jenny Agutter as members of the World Security Council that supervises S.H.I.E.L.D.
Downey Jr., Paltrow, Ruffalo, and Bettany will next be seen in Iron Man 3. Jackson, Gregg, Boothe, Hernández, and Smulders will next be seen on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. Evans, Johansson, and Agutter will next be seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Hemsworth, Hiddleston, and Skarsgård will next be seen in Thor: The Dark World. Renner will next be seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Denisof will next be seen in Guardians of the Galaxy, ditto the character of Thanos, played by Josh Brolin.
“An ant has no quarrel with a boot”
The Avengers
Written by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
Produced by Kevin Feige
Original release date: April 11, 2012
The Tesseract is active on Earth, and an alien being known only as the Other—who serves another master—has sent Loki, whom he rescued from the abyss at the end of Thor, to capture the Tesseract. Then Loki will lead the Chitauri soldiers to an invasion of Earth, which Loki will then rule.
Dr. Edward Selvig is in charge of investigating the Tesseract at a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Agent Clint Barton is observing. Agent Phil Coulson reports to Director Nick Fury that the Tesseract is active—they have no idea why. Fury has Agent Maria Hill remove all the Phase 2 material off the base.
The Tesseract opens a portal, through which comes Loki, holding a scepter that seems to be powered by the same energy as the Tesseract. He uses the scepter to put both Selvig and Barton under his thrall. Unfortunately, the portal is unstable and it starts to collapse. Fury orders an evacuation after both he and Hill try and fail to stop Loki and Barton.
The base is destroyed by the collapsing portal, though Coulson leads an evacuation that gets most, though not all, of the agents out. While Loki conscripts Selvig, Barton, and a bunch of other scientists Loki subsumes the wills of with the scepter in order to construct a more stable portal, Fury plans for war.
He has Coulson call Agent Natasha Romanoff, who is in the midst of an interrogation—which in her case means she’s tied to a chair being questioned and using the questioning to gain intelligence. The tableau is interrupted by Coulson calling one of the agents, threatening the bad guy with an F-22 if he doesn’t put Romanoff on. She’s unwilling to end the op until Coulson says that Barton’s been compromised and captured, at which point she kicks fifteen kinds of ass (while still tied to the chair) and comes in.
Her first task is to approach Dr. Bruce Banner in Calcutta, where he works as a doctor to the poor folks and has not turned into the Hulk in a year. Romanoff assures him that Fury doesn’t want the monster, they want Banner—the Tesseract gives off a faint gamma signature, and Banner knows more about gamma radiation than anyone. Banner agrees, but not until after he tests Romanoff, snapping at her, which causes her to whip out a gun and look impressively frightened.
Coulson, meanwhile, brings all the material on the Tesseract, as well as the files on the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and Loki, to Stark Tower, a new edifice in New York City that is completely powered by the clean energy of an ARC reactor. Coulson asks Stark, in his role as a consultant for S.H.I.E.L.D., to go over the material.
Fury, meanwhile, approaches Captain Steve Rogers, who is getting himself into fighting shape, mostly by destroying a series of punching bags. Fury explains that Howard Stark found the Tesseract when he was looking for Rogers in the Arctic. Now they need to get it back from Loki. When Fury asks if there’s any intelligence about the Tesseract Rogers can provide, he says only that they should have left it in the ocean.
Coulson accompanies Rogers to what looks like an aircraft carrier. It turns out that Coulson is a huge fan of Captain America—he even has a complete set of trading cards from the 1940s. Rogers meets Banner and Romanoff; the latter suggests they get inside, as it’ll be hard to breathe. Rogers thinks that means it’s a submarine, which worries Banner, as putting him in a pressurized underwater tin can isn’t the hottest idea—then the turbines unfurl and it quickly becomes obvious that it’s a helicarrier that’s about to become airborne. Banner smiles ruefully and says, “Oh no, this is much worse.”
Banner gets started on trying to track the Tesseract. Meanwhile, Agent Jasper Sitwell has been running facial recognition to try to find Loki or Selvig or Barton, and he finds Loki in Stuttgart.
Loki is there to obtain iridium, which Selvig needs for his portal stabilizer. Even as Barton makes off with it, Loki orders a crowd to kneel before him—but one person, an older gentleman, refuses to kneel to “men like you.” Loki says that there are no men like him, and the old man says, “There are always men like you.”
And then Rogers and Romanoff show up in a quinjet, Rogers commenting that the last time he was in Germany and someone tried to lord it over the people, it didn’t go so well for him. They fight, joined soon by Stark in the full Iron Man armor (even taking over the quinjet’s PA to play heavy metal entrance music). Loki surrenders a bit too easily, and they take him prisoner on the quinjet.
As they fly back to the helicarrier, there is a sudden lightning storm, which heralds the arrival of Thor, who breaks into the quinjet and takes Loki to a mountaintop. Thor had thought Loki dead—they mourned him and everything—and now he has taken the Tesseract and will subjugate Earth, something Thor can’t allow. But before he can do anything about it, Stark attacks Thor, saying he can have Loki once he gives them the Tesseract back. They get into it, Rogers joining them, and finally putting a stop to it. (Romanoff stays the hell out of it, advising Rogers to do likewise, but he doesn’t listen.)
They return to the helicarrier. Thor says that Loki has an army called the Chitauri, from a world unknown to Asgard or Earth. Thor is also upset to learn that Loki has Selvig in thrall. Stark—after surreptitiously putting a tiny piece of tech on a console while distracting everyone with his smartassery—agrees to help Banner find the Tesseract. Loki, meanwhile, is put in a large cage that was designed to hold the Hulk—if he tries to break out, it will fall to the earth.
Stark is concerned with what S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiding. Rogers thinks they need to follow orders, but he’s also suspicious, and so investigates on his own. Meanwhile, Romanoff goes to Loki, and pretends to be emotionally manipulated by him in order to find out his endgame: to unleash the Hulk on the helicarrier.
Romanoff goes to the lab, where Banner and Stark are still trying to find the Tesseract. Rogers has found Phase 2, and is appalled to learn that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to re-create the Tesseract-powered weapons Hydra used during World War II. Fury explains that they did so because of what happened in New Mexico when Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three fought the Destroyer and pretty much leveled an entire town. They needed to defend themselves.
The entire conversation devolves into an argument—and then Barton shows up with some turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and attacks the helicarrier with an explosive arrow. Banner transforms into the Hulk and goes after Romanoff, but is stopped by Thor. They fight, destroying large chunks of the helicarrier while doing so, though eventually the Hulk falls to Earth after jumping on a plane that (rather stupidly) fired on him.
Loki tricks Thor into his cage and sends him plummeting to Earth as well, but not before killing Coulson right in front of a devastated Thor. Romanoff takes on Barton and manages to knock him unconscious after a nasty, protracted fight.
Rogers and Stark have been too busy fixing one of the engines to get involved in the fight, but they do prevent the helicarrier from crashing.
The survivors are demoralized. Coulson is dead, Thor and Banner are missing, and Loki has been freed. The helicarrier is pretty much dead in the air. Fury tosses the bloody Captain America trading cards onto the table where a grief-stricken Stark and Rogers are sitting, saying they were in Coulson’s jacket. (Later, Hill comments that the cards were actually in Coulson’s locker. Fury apparently removed the cards and smeared Coulson’s blood on them to light a fire under Rogers and Stark’s asses, which is pretty hardcore.) Fury says that Phase 2 was a backup plan—his real hope was that extraordinary people could come together and deal with the threats that nobody else could. Later, Stark and Rogers try to figure out Loki’s plan—it was obviously divide and conquer, and it worked, but they need to come together and stop him. The one thing Loki still needs is an energy source powerful enough for what Selvig has built—but one possible source is the ARC reactor at Stark Tower.
Stark flies off in his armor to New York. Romanoff, Rogers, and a recovered Barton do likewise in a quinjet, while Thor and Banner get there on their own. Stark arrives first, confronting Loki in the penthouse of his tower. He threatens Loki, saying that all he’s done is piss off Earth’s mightiest heroes. Unfortunately, he’s unable to stop Selvig from opening the portal, and a whole bunch of Chitauri warriors pour through and attack midtown Manhattan.
The Chitauri take out the quinjet, but Rogers, Romanoff, and Barton get out alive. They fight the Chitauri on the ground while Stark handles them in the air—joined soon by Thor, who tries to get Loki to call the invasion off. Loki refuses and runs away on a Chitauri air skimmer.
Then a gigunda leviathan comes through the portal. It flies through the air, destroying buildings.
Quickly, Rogers formulates a strategy. Barton is to go high, looking for patterns and strays while taking out as many as he can with his arrows. (At one point, Barton notices that the flyers don’t bank very well, and Stark takes out a bunch after taking Barton’s advice to make sharp turns.) Stark handles the airborne ones, keeping them contained, Thor is to try to cut them off at the portal with lightning strikes, while Rogers and Romanoff take care of the ones on the ground. Then he turns to Banner: “Hulk—smash.” Banner smiles and proceeds to do just that.
They keep the battle contained in the area near Grand Central Terminal, though the property damage and death toll is considerable. At one point, Rogers rescues a bunch of people from a bank, while Barton tries to take out Loki with an exploding arrow. It doesn’t kill Loki, but it sends him careening back into the Stark Tower penthouse, where Banner smashes him into the floor over and over and over again.
Romanoff volunteers to go up to the roof of Stark Tower to try to close the portal. She hops on one of the skimmers and flies up there to find that Selvig is himself again. He theorizes that the scepter can close the portal, and it’s lying near Loki’s prone form. Romanoff goes to retrieve it.
The World Council that S.H.I.E.L.D. reports to has overridden Fury and ordered a nuclear missile strike on the portal, which will destroy Manhattan. Fury tells Stark about it, and Stark intercepts it and flies it into the portal. It destroys the Chitauri ship, which in turn deactivates the Chitauri people and equipment, and they all collapse.
Stark falls through the portal just as it closes, his armor depowered. Thor moves to rescue him, but Banner beats him to it.
They’ve won. A somewhat delirious Stark says he’d like to try shawarma.
The World Council is pissed at Fury, even though the results weren’t bad considering it was an alien invasion. Thor takes a bound Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Stark and Banner drive off together, Romanoff and Barton drive off together, and Rogers drives off on a motorcycle. Fury tells Hill that he’s confident that, should another threat arise, they’ll come together again. We also see a montage of news clips that range from celebration (including little kids dressing up as various Avengers) to mourning (folks putting flowers on the graves of people who died in the attack) to vituperation (a senator saying the Avengers should be held responsible) to disbelief (a person who looks just like Stan Lee saying that the notion of superheroes in New York City is ridiculous).
In the middle of the credits we see that the Other’s (and Loki’s) overlord is none other than Thanos. (Which is meaningless if you’re not a comics fan, but whatever.) And after the credits we see the Avengers all eating shawarma.
“I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it”
This is, in many ways, the perfect superhero movie. Specifically, it’s the perfect Marvel superhero movie.
One of the things Marvel did particularly well in the 1960s and have continued to do since was create a cohesive, coherent universe. These weren’t just standalone adventures of heroes fighting villains, but characters who progressed and changed—Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl/Woman married each other, Peter Parker graduated high school and went to college, and so on. Plus they all existed in the same universe and teamed up regularly.
Kevin Feige followed that blueprint with the MCU, creating a unity, a sense of history, and several storylines that build into a single movie—and also set the stage for future movies.
With all that, though, each movie has worked on its own terms, while still being part of the greater whole, and no movie did that better than the first Avengers film. The amazing accomplishment of this movie is that it’s, at once, a strong introduction to the Avengers but is also the next Iron Man movie, the next Hulk movie, the next Thor movie, and the next Captain America movie.
Stark furthers his relationship with Pepper Potts, doubles down on his commitment in his first movie to developing clean energy rather than weapons, and also shows his spectacular inability to play well with others (though he does come through in the end). Banner is still trying to keep the other guy in check. Thor is still trying to save his brother but willing to fight him when he refuses to be saved—and is also aware of the larger picture of the cosmos beyond Earth. Rogers tries to adjust to the modern world, and sees how much has changed—and how much hasn’t.
On top of that, we get hints of what a great S.H.I.E.L.D. movie could be like. Fury masterfully manipulates events to get the best possible result, even if it means going against the council, even if it means pulling the Captain America trading cards from Coulson’s locker and smearing his blood on them to make a point.
Coulson is the perfect character to force our heroes to avenge in this movie, because he has a connection to everyone but Banner: he’s a huge Captain America fangoober, he’s established friendships with both Thor and Stark, and Fury, Romanoff, Barton, and Hill are his comrades and coworkers. And his final scene is tremendous, his deadpan snark at Loki even in the face of death just a magnificent bit of acting by Clark Gregg. (Of course, his sacrifice got reversed by bringing the character back for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, but still…) In that, it’s in keeping with the rest of the movie, as Gregg’s calm professionalism remains intact, from his calm waiting on the phone while Romanoff kicks all the ass to his “oh, that’s what it does” after shooting Loki with the Destroyer-derived big fucking gun.
Gregg is but one of dozens of great performances—indeed, there isn’t a bad one in the bunch, starting with the one replacement. Mark Ruffalo gives us the Bruce Banner that neither Eric Bana nor Ed Norton were able to manage, providing a combination of cynicism, resignation, anguish, torment, and pathos, and he works with Joss Whedon’s script to give us, in essence, the best Hulk movie yet, starting Ruffalo on a fascinating arc as a supporting character through several movies (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Infinity War). In particular, Whedon deserves huge credit for his delightful turning of the now-overused “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” line from 1977’s The Incredible Hulk on its ear with, “That’s my secret, Cap—I’m always angry.”
Another magnificent marriage of great scripting and superlative acting is the fleshing out of the Black Widow, as played by Scarlett Johansson. We get plenty of hints about her background—including her affirmative response to Barton asking if she knows what it’s like to have your identity ripped from you—and also an example of her primary super-power, which isn’t the ability to kick ass (even while tied to a chair), but rather her ability to interrogate someone from a position of seeming submission, whether it’s the Russian arms dealer at the top of the movie or Loki later on. (Seriously, Marvel, giving this great character and this amazing actor her own movie is absurdly fucking overdue!)
The whole thing comes together thanks to Samuel L. Jackson’s Fury, who is stellar, working both as a badass action star and as the manipulator of events at the top of everything. I said in my rewatch of The Spirit that Jackson has two modes, and in this movie it’s the scary-calm mode that suits Fury perfectly. There’s no question that Fury is manipulating everybody—Stark, Rogers, the World Council, even Coulson posthumously—but it’s in the service of the greater good, and if that means people think (rightly) that he’s an asshole, he can live with it. Especially since his actions are directly responsible for a lot of people not dying.
One of the best conceits of the script is that, while there’s plenty of excellent action, there’s also superlative dialogue and characterization. My favorite is that every main character gets a one-on-one with Loki at some point in the film. Some are brief, like Rogers and Loki trading pointed barbs in Stuttgart, or Hulk cutting Loki’s rant off by smashing him into the floor over and over again (a scene that never fails to be hilarious, and which will be beautifully called back to in Thor: Ragnarok), or Loki giving instructions to the suborned Barton. Some are hilarious, like Stark’s threatening Loki while offering him a drink, or Fury throwing the ant-boot metaphor back in his face. (“Let me know if ‘real power’ wants a magazine or something.”) And some are poignant, like Thor’s plea to Loki to come home that falls on uninterested ears, and Romanoff’s expert manipulation of the god of mischief. Tom Hiddleston proves himself again to be the rock star of the MCU, giving us a complex, anguished, furious villain, one who refuses to remain in his brother’s shadow, and it has led him down an awful path.
The climax is one of the finest superhero battles ever committed to film. Everyone uses their powers intelligently, Cap’s strategy is sound, and I particularly like that the Avengers work constantly to save lives and keep the fight contained. (The location shooting plays to that, as every single place we see in the battle is within about a ten-block radius of Grand Central Terminal, a touch this native New Yorker appreciated.)
So many boxes are checked in this movie, yet it never feels constructed, everything actually flows naturally from one bit to the other. Thor, Rogers, and Stark fighting over Loki—the classic heroes-meet-and-fight-then-team-up cliché, but dammit, it works here. (It helps that it’s brief, and that Downey Jr. leavens it with his snark and pop-culture references.) The arguing among the team members. The defeat that should destroy them but instead brings them together.
The one team member who gets short shrift is Jeremy Renner’s Barton. In the comics, Hawkeye is the devil-may-care smartass, but in the MCU, Downey Jr. has taken over that role, so it leaves Barton to merely be a hardened sniper. Renner makes it work in his limited screentime, but it’s frustrating, especially since we get hints of what could be an entertaining character. Leaning into his marksmanship to make him a lookout/sniper in the climactic battle is excellent (I love his noticing that the alien skimmers can’t bank worth a damn), and he has some great lines (“You and I remember Budapest very differently”).
And in fact, this movie is full of great lines. One of Whedon’s hallmarks has been his snappy dialogue, and this movie is crackling with it. I could use up my entire allotted word count on this rewatch just quoting lines from it, which I won’t do, but I will in particular sing the praises of all the callbacks, whether it’s the ant-boot conversations between Fury and Loki, the payoff of Fury’s “ten bucks says you’re wrong” line to Rogers when the latter says nothing can surprise him anymore, the constant exhortations of Rogers to Stark to “put on the suit,” going from macho posturing to an instruction to help save the helicarrier, or my favorite: early on, Pepper Potts refers to Coulson as Phil, and Stark jokes, “‘Phil’? His first name is ‘Agent'”; then, later in the movie, when as Iron Man he confronts Loki, he mentions the final person Loki has pissed off: “His name is Phil.”
I haven’t even covered half of what makes this movie so amazing. It’s a perfect storm of acting, directing, scripting, and superheroing. It remains the central jewel in the crown of the MCU, and best of all, it would continue to have reverberations. A hallmark of the MCU has been that actions have consequences, with major events continuing to have ripple effects: Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. all are influenced and affected by the events of this movie.
But even without it, it would be a great superhero movie. Possibly the greatest. Just a tremendous, complex, effective movie that ultimately is what all superhero stories should be: a fun tale about good guys fighting bad guys.
Next week, we take a look at another 2012 film, the reboot of the web-slinger, as Andrew Garfield takes on the title role in The Amazing Spider-Man.
Keith R.A. DeCandido was particularly amused to see that Pershing Square, one of his favorite restaurants, is one of the locations seen in the climactic battle.
Oh yeah, LOVE this movie! And I’m not really in to comic books or superheroes.
the Hulk falls to Earth after jumping on a plane that (rather stupidly) fired on him
That wasn’t stupid–it was tactical. The Hulk was out of control and his fight with Thor was wrecking the interior of the Helicarrier; they needed to get him out. Fast. So they got his attention and pulled him out of the action.
Yeah, I rewatched this one last night and it’s really great pretty much from start to finish. My one, relatively minor, complaint is that the Chitauri were pretty weak as villains (yes, Loki (well, Thanos) was the real mover & shaker), being just another faceless invading army who don’t even have any real screen time until the invasion gets underway.
And yes, please, to a Black Widow movie, and if they wanted to include Hawkeye, well, I wouldn’t complain — he’s always seemed like the character who’s gotten shortest shrift in the Marvel films.
Before The Avengers I hadn’t really paid much attention to the MCU. I hadn’t seen any in the theatres, and caught a few on TV in a casual sort of way. I’d heard others rave about how good the early movies were, but wasn’t interested enough to care. Besides, my superhero team was the Defenders (and not even the classic line-up, but the B-team of Hulk, Hellcat, Nighthawk, and Valkyrie).
Then came this movie, and I was hooked.
I’ll spare the praises for what I loved about this movie since Keith has done a far better job covering them. It’s a movie you can watch and pick out little things every time, yet wait expectantly for the big moments and still enjoy the payoff (and, yes, “Puny god” works every time).
Perhaps that’s why reception to Infinity War has been more subdued, because the MCU is now trying to do multi-part epics and we still appreciate the stand-alone movie. You can watch The Avengers and be satisfied; you won’t be able to watch Infinity War without needed to see how it all turns out in Avengers IV.
Whedon’s approach to dialogue is not a strength, it is a series of quips which do little to expose or explore character and more just to show what sort of shallow quips the writer can think of. And the less said about the creepy way Black Widow is shown, the better. The Avengers is the quintessential Whedon movies. Shallow and focused on “cool” moments and waif fu over story. I’d be happy if he never wrote or directed anything ever again.
“Loki is there to obtain uridium” — That should be iridium. Uridium is an imaginary mineral from Deep Space Nine.
This was an amazing achievement, a multi-superhero epic like we’d never seen in live action before, and it did a great job feeling like a continuation of all the previous films and serving nearly all its characters well. I haven’t ever been a reader of these heroes’ comics specifically or of The Avengers, but as a fan of superheroes in general, it filled me with glee to finally see a live-action movie that embraced the concept of a whole world of superheroes and let them interact.
One thing I particularly admired was how, although Whedon gave us the inevitable “heroes fight each other before teaming up” sequence, he actually provided a valid justification for it. It wasn’t just kneejerk, testosterone-fuelled hostility; Cap and Tony needed Loki in their custody and couldn’t let Thor take him away, while Thor naturally considered Loki his responsibility. (Although Loki’s failure to slink away while they were fighting should’ve made it obvious that he let himself be captured.)
I also found it really cool that so much of Banner’s presence in the film focused more on the potential threat buried beneath the surface and how afraid everyone was of it than on the actual presence of the rampaging Hulk. One wouldn’t think the concept of the Hulk could be handled with subtlety, but Whedon found a way. I particularly loved how Whedon set up Black Widow as this unstoppable badass fighter and then showed her utterly terrified the moment Banner showed signs of anger. That single moment conveyed the power and danger of the Hulk more effectively than two previous movies’ worth of multimillion-dollar CGI.
Best of all, Whedon remembered something too many superhero films forget: that a superhero’s job isn’t just about fighting the bad guys, it’s most importantly about protecting the innocent. That’s what made the big climactic urban battle successful here where it failed badly in other movies (which we’ll get to in due course).
The shawarma scene was a hilarious subversion of post-credit scenes, but I like the bit in the other tag scene, when the Other tells Thanos that to attack Earth again would be “to court Death” and Thanos smiles. That’s a lovely bit of wordplay and a wink to viewers who knew Thanos’s deal from the comics.
@4/David: “(and, yes, “Puny god” works every time)”
For me, it didn’t work the first time, since everyone in the theater was laughing so hard at the Hulk’s beatdown of Loki that I couldn’t make out what Hulk actually said. I didn’t find out it was “Puny god” until someone told me online later.
It does seem kinda obvious in hindsight that Whedon would script a character death. Coulson joins Wash and Terra (sp?) and Cordelia (I think) on the gut-punch corpse pile.
random22: I could not possibly disagree with you more. Starting with Fury saying they have no quarrel with Loki, and Loki comes back with “an ant has no quarrel with a boot,” and the later callback — that very much illuminates character, both that of Fury and of Loki. Not to mention the exchange that ended with “there are always men like you.” True, some of the quips were just word blather, but most of those were Robert Downey Jr. ad-libs and were also 100% in character with the Stark we’d seen in three previous movies (counting his Incredible Hulk cameo). Another example: Barton and Romanoff’s exchange about Budapest, which illuminated quite a bit about both their characters while also being funny.
Christopher: Derp. Being a Trekkie ruins my spelling again. *laughs* The typo has been fixed to “iridium.”
JasonD: It’s Tara, not Terra.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I think this was the first movie that I ever saw multiple times in the theater (3, at least, possibly more), and what really makes it special are the little things. Tony wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt. The Ten Bucks payoff between Rogers and Fury. Hulk and Thor atop a defeated Leviathan, when Hulk, seemingly as payback for the helicarrier fight, punches Thor out of nowhere. Hawkeye shooting an arrow behind him and hitting a Chitauri. Black Widow stabbing a Chitauri, then using the knives to steer the flying scooter.
A question for the native New Yorkers: Where is Stark Tower supposed to be? What building is it supposed to replace?
LazerWulf: Stark Tower is where the Met Life building behind Grand Central (formerly the Pan Am building) is.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Nice review Keith – fyi, I don’t think you have an author name listed as usual at the top of the piece or in the “Latest Posts” listing at the top of the web page. Keith or Mods – best to fix it.
A few quick things, I believe Joss Whedon’s 4th series was just Dollhouse, not The Dollhouse, and the Budapest quote is actually “You and I remember Budapest very differently.” (pulled directly from the imdb quotes page)
I have particular appreciation for the inclusion of the (heavily implied) Holocaust survivor staring down Loki.
I will again point people to the brilliant “unbiased review” of this movie by Ada Palmer: https://www.exurbe.com/an-unbiased-review-of-the-marvel-avengers-movie/.
She explains why Loki’s real plan (which is brilliant) is not the plan we see here.
@9&10: I believe I read that the in-universe thinking of the FX team is that Stark bought the MetLife Building and transformed/expanded its upper levels into Stark Tower, so the lower part of it is still the original building, or something like that.
Annoyingly, the MetLife Building is frequently visible in skyline shots in the Netflix Marvel shows, even though they’re supposed to take place in the MCU and make recurring references to “the incident,” i.e. the Battle of New York in this film. A newpaper headline in Ben Urich’s office in Daredevil is headlined “Battle of New York,” and the whole premise of DD season 1 is that the damage inflicted on Manhattan in the battle caused extensive damage to Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen, undoing its real-world gentrification and regressing it to the poor, crime-ridden area it had been in the ’70s and in DD comics. Although that doesn’t quite mesh with the movie’s portrayal of the battle being concentrated around Grand Central on the other side of town. Maybe it was more the economic impact of the battle that hurt Hell’s Kitchen and Manhattan as a whole.
@12/LazerWulf: You’re right, it’s just Dollhouse.
Great review Keith. Yes, this is the one. I hadn’t really watched the other movies with a whole lot of interest – I’d always been an X-Men and Spider-Man fan as opposed to the Avengers – but once I saw this one I decided I needed to own and rewatch the entire Phase 1 collection (except the Incredible Hulk – I did watch it, which I hadn’t prior to the Avengers, but I felt no need after doing so to buy it).
It really is just about perfect. As someone mentioned, the Chitauri “powering down” due to the nuke hitting their mother ship or whatever was a little too easy of an out (ala Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) but it needed to be or we’d need another hour of film to show the Avengers/National Guard/NYPD rounding up all of the rampant Chitauri forces. It worked for me, in the end, but I know it was a bit of a sticking point for some folks.
It’s worth pointing out that one of Jeremy Renner’s earliest on-screen roles was that of a vampire antagonist on Angel season 1. So there’s a nice bit of symmetry due to having this previous association with Joss Whedon.
This movie is as perfect as it gets. It surpassed everything I expected and delivered the most cohesive on-screen depiction of a superhero team actually fighting an outside threat as an actual team, with actual strategy and cohesion. All captured on film. The X-Men films would finally manage this a couple of years later with Days of Future Past and the team’s sensational battle against the Sentinels.
Good point bringing up Cap’s sincere attempts at protecting the civilians and containing the fight. And this came out a year before Man of Steel.
Alan Silvestri’s Avengers score is the first Marvel Studios score that actually sticks to my mind and creates a strong impression. The scene where the Avengers assemble in unison is already a classic, thanks in no small part to the score (and Hulk’s bellowing). That was the comic book team up moment I always dreamed of seeing on the big screen. I can only imagine how Stan Lee must have felt seeing this for the first time (there are stories of his early impressions of Raimi’s Spider-Man, as well).
Character-wise, everyone gets to shine. Ruffalo brings more to the Hulk than Norton ever did. I do wonder what it would have been like had Edward Norton remained. It would have changed the group dynamic significantly, which in retrospect makes me glad he decided to part ways with Marvel. Rufallo nails the dynamic.
We finally get some welcome insight into the Black Widow, making good use of Scarlett’s take and establishing a great rapport with Banner.
I can only imagine the logistical nightmare it must have been for Whedon, Feige and the whole crew to juggle the busy schedules of all these movie stars. Thank Marvel Studios for iron contracts, pun intended.
I don’t think I have anything to add that hasn’t already been brought up and beaten to death.
I do want to call attention to the visual effects, however. I tend to assign specific moments in film history where a movie/series of movies represent a shift in visual fidelity. The early X-Men films didn’t come across as living depictions of comic books on-screen. To me, the first movie that was able to carry that visual translation to the big screen was the first Raimi Spider-Man in 2002. That was the first superhero movie that actually looked like a product of the 21st century. I actually consider 2002 to be a pivotal year in terms of evolving visual effects and production values. It was the year that had Spider-Man, The Two Towers, Chamber of Secrets and Attack of the Clones. All represented significant leaps in displaying fantasy worlds on the big screen.
While the Potter films kept slowly showing the gradual evolution, it wasn’t until 2012 that I could tell filmmaking had taken yet another leap in visual effects. 2012 not only had The Avengers, but also had Prometheus as well as the first Hobbit adaptation. That to me, marked the true beginning of the 2010s. And those are movies that would have looked very differently had they been made in 2002.
@6: (Although Loki’s failure to slink away while they were fighting should’ve made it obvious that he let himself be captured.)
To fans, yes, and that’s probably intended to be a hint; possibly also to Thor. But Cap and Stark don’t really know much about Loki at that point, so they wouldn’t know his modus operandi.
Much like our host, I could go on all day about the little perfect moments and brilliant lines of dialog, but I’ll just focus on one: Everybody loves the “puny god” smackdown, but it’s not the line that cracks me up, but the pause. Look at the scene — Hulk slams Loki three times, then briefly checks on him, sees he’s still conscious, then slams him twice more for good measure, almost carelessly, before dropping him. That pause is the funniest thing about the sequence. The Hulk isn’t desperate here, and he’s not completely mindless in his rage. He’s just standard-Hulk-level angry, and he’s tired of listening to this guy rant at him, so he shuts Loki up, checks, then finishes the job. “Puny god” indeed.
@18/Keith Rose: They shouldn’t have needed to know Loki’s modus operandi. If any bad guy whatsoever just sat there and waited to be captured while his captors fought with each other for several minutes, that should immediately make his captors suspicious. If anything, it’s far too blatant a move for a supposed master manipulator like Loki. It would make any remotely intelligent person suspicious if it were an ordinary car thief or convenience store burglar who just sat there waiting patiently for the police to get back to arresting them. It’s a pretty major plot hole.
I think one of the more impressive to me bits of the movie is the fight choreography for the end sequence. In prior movies with a chaotic situation and multiple character cast (let’s say the first Transformers movie for example) it is exceedingly hard to keep track of what each character is doing, to actually get enough eyeball time to recognize what action is taking place, and to also get a coherent sense of the entire sequence. This movie was the first that I can recall where the sense of chaos was retained and yet each ensemble member got a coherent and recognizable place in that action. There was no dizzying shaky-cam, any scene cuts made sense, the entire sequence was treated almost like a full story with swells and ebbs and climax and resolution. I really appreciated that.
One other thing I wanted to put out there for discussion – I don’t think ANY time you saw fear on Black Widow’s face was real.
Not just when she’s manipulating the Russians at the beginning or Loki. When she’s sent to recruit Banner and he “scares her” and she grabs the gun – she’s not scared at all, there. She’s manipulating Banner. She knows if she doesn’t act scared and go for her gun, he’ll be suspicious (“Why is she not scared of me?”) So she gives him the vulnerable person that he feels sorry for scaring.
Later, when she’s running from him, she’s not running scared or screaming or anything like that – she’s leading him away from innocents and toward Thor and the exterior of the helicarrier.
I even think that the romance they have from Age of Ultron is the spy Natasha continuing to manipulate a mark – for the greater good – because she can calm Hulk down and have him turn into Banner. I won’t go into that much – I’ll save that dicussion for when Keith covers AoU.
But I do feel that everything we’ve seen of Black Widow is a front – anytime she’s been “vulnerable” with anyone.
@21: The “One-Shot” sequence in the middle of the battle (not a true one shot, due to the heavy use of CG) is a great example, because every character has a distinct part in that sequence, like the part where Cap reflects IM’s Unibeam into the Chitauri using his shield. While not my absolute favorite scene in the movie, it is the one scene I actively look forward to whenever I rewatch this (and not just because it ends with the aforementioned Hulk-punching-Thor moment… I still consider that part of the sequence even if it comes after a brief cut when they bust through the wall).
Gotta disagree with your opening line, krad. DC brought back the superheroes after WWII, but Marvel did revitalize it with the kind of characters and scripts they had. Just like you mention it later on.
The movie, though, is wonderful, and thrilling from the start to the end. We finally get a team movie that’s pretty close to comics (the X-Men ones so far had fallen short) in spirit and execution (if not exact line-up and story), and it was glorious. Not only that, but Cap got to do a lot of shield and acrobatics fighting, and they nailed the Hulk. Plus, Hawkeye rocks in this film, even if he’s not regular 616 Hawkeye but Ultimate Clint.
I freaking squeed at the Helicarrier, and the Battle of New York is peak superhero action. Oh, I’d never noticed before that the shawarma restaurant is an A grade one. Could have easily been a B, but no, it’s an A. :)
The “puny god” moment made quite a mark on my kid: http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/240/
Anyone think we should see Coulson and Loki meet again?
@6 – Chris: That “to court Death” bit was cute, even if they ultimately didn’t go that way.
@17 – Eduardo: I had never made the connection between that Angel character and Renner, but of course. Now that I look at his pictures, it’s fun to see a “15-year old” Renner, so fresh faced. As for Whedon and Feige wrangling these stars… well, except for Johansson and Downey, none of them were actually big stars back then. And whatever the fame they’ve gotten from the MCU, Evans and Hemsworth are still not big A listers, not like Downey.
@19 – Yes, that’s just Hulk being normal angry manchild Hulk instead of RAGEBEASTHULK!!!!!, it’s the Hulk from the early comics. Not only in personality, but in shape. This is not a ginormous green beast, it’s more of a large, apish green man, Kirbyesque. I really appreciated that about the Hulk when this movie came out.
@21 – Remillard: That sequence is pure magic.
@22 – Kalvin: I don’t think it’s not a front when she’s vulnerable in Age Of Ultron.
Looking back, not only does this movie do a great job picking up plot threads and characters from previous movies, it also does a great job setting up future movies. In particular, Cap’s suspicions about SHIELD, and the shadowy Council that guides it, will flow directly into the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie. The movie does a great job putting a lot of balls in the air without dropping a single one of them. And it does a great job of balancing action and humor, with the end result being a very enjoyable movie.
@22: I’ve heard that before and while I think it’s believable to an extant, I think that’s a move for a more cynical film series. I also think that making Widow the ultimate spy that never stops spying is a bit much. Exploring the character of a spy who is struggling to be vulnerable and trust people creates a better story and is also easier for the writers to do with ALL the stuff they’re putting into the movies. Honestly, it makes total sense she would fear the Hulk: she can’t talk to him to manipulate him, he’s too strong to fight one-on-one and he’ll just destroy anywhere she hides. On a more personal level, there likely hadn’t been anyone that she knew she couldn’t overpower in some way since she was a child in the Red Room. So Hulk would be almost a nightmarish version of the adults that trained and brainwashed her as a girl. While I wasn’t a fan of their romance in Ultron, getting to know and care about Banner likely alleviated her fears and she liked him the more for it.
MaGnUs: Yeah, but the only reason why Marvel started doing superheroes was in order to cash in on what DC was doing successfully.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Natasha has every right to be afraid of the Hulk. Everybody is afraid of him, including David Banner.
Thor: I don’t understand.
Cap: I do! I got that reference!
Tony: And I’m a huge fan of the way you turn into a giant green rage monster.
Old Man: Son you got problems.
Cap:It seems to run on some kind of electricity.
Tony: You’re not wrong.
I like the part where they’re getting ready to fight the Chitauri and Stark looks at Rogers and says, “You call it, Cap,” and then follows his advice. Stark is the egotistical “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” jerk, but he’s smart enough to listen to smart people.
‘A living legend that kind of lives up to the legend.’
I do have one nit I can pick: They never said “Avengers Assemble!” at any point. I’ve heard the story that they filmed the 360-degree rotation shot, and then realized that they were assembled, so there was no reason to say it, and I agree with that, but I’m still waiting. Given the way Avengers 4 is likely to go, I think there’s a golden opportunity to say it there, and if they don’t, I’ll be crushed.
I think Natasha was genuinely terrified in that scene with Banner. It’s backed up by the scene right after they fall in the Helicarrier, she’s frantically waving away other people and her attempts to find out if Banner is okay & trying to calm him seemed genuine.
One thing I liked about the team as represented was the way they broke up into pairs, by strength level:
* Human: Clint and Natasha
* Enhanced: Cap and Iron Man
* Transcendent: Hulk and Thor
I noticed it particularly in the helicarrier.
@31 – Brian: If Cap doesn’t say it in the climax battle, I will set fire to the theater.
@31/Brian: The movie was titled Avengers Assemble in the UK, to avoid confusion with the Patrick Macnee spy series The Avengers.
Which is why I hate Hawkeye in the movies. He was one of my favorites growing up – I was big on West Coast Avengers when I was getting into comics as a kid, and Hawkeye was great. The MCU doesn’t have a Hawkeye, it has a guy with a bow and arrow.
I’m not one to say that movie characters need to be 100% like their comics counterparts – far from it. But when the only resemblance is superficial, I do have a problem with the character.
As 16. KalvinKingsley said, the fact that all the Chitauri shut down after the nuke is a big cop-out that I believe even Whedon has agreed with, but as said, it needed a way for the audience to see this was a definitive win, without the mopup reality would have required.
Also, I agree with the music being the first really definitive theme in the Marvel movies. I still love the theme that plays over the helicarrier reveal and how it’s repeated in Ultron during the “This is what SHIELD is supposed to be” moment. Also, I think there is a theme from Captain America’s first appearance in Infinity War that originated here, but I can’t recall where it is in the film. Still gives me chills to hear it. (I’ve taken to listening to the audio from the movies on my way to work and back instead of listening to the news).
@9&10: There’s a deleted scene, found on the DVD, where Steve is sitting at an outdoor cafe on the viaduct, looking past Grand Central at Stark Tower, and sketching it (I love when the movies remember that Steve is an artist). It’s clear he doesn’t think much of the architecture, as he says later. He’s served by the waitress who later appears in the bank during the battle. Both of them talk about Stark Tower, but the VFX aren’t finished, because it’s a deleted scene, so the MetLife Building is there in the shot, looking all huge and monolithic, which makes the scene kind of funny. Stan Lee also has a cameo in that scene, making me think that was his original cameo, and one at the end of the movie was added later.
@29,
I noticed that part of the scene with Cap too. Cap was the only one of the team who was a soldier who studied tactics and leadership. He’s the natural leader of the group even if he doesn’t have the power others have. (yes, Thor has experience in fights, but there’s no evidence that he’s any kind of tactician. Thor is a warrior, Cap is a soldier. Quite a big difference, and part of the reason the Roman legions won against “barbarians” consistently for nearly 500 years.)
I read through all the comments to see if my favorite line was quoted and am happy to see it was not. After Stark and Thor fight and they are back on the helicarrier, Stark approaches from behind Thor and says “No hard feelings, Point Break.” I laughed and laughed at that one.
@40: I find it equally funny when he addresses Loki as “Reindeer Games.” Who does he expect to get these jokes? He’s basically doing it for himself.
CLB@20
Concerning “ordinary thieves”, I give you the Criminal Masterminds of the Week So Far, via Dave Barry.
https://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2018/10/criminal-masterminds-of-the-week-so-far.html
@29, @39: This is pretty much how and why Cap ended up as the de facto leader of the Silver Age Avengers.
The thing that struck me most rewatching this after Age of Ultron is that Loki putting the mind-whammy on people at the start jumps out as glaring. Loki’s got illusions in Thor & Thor 2, not brain-washing, so sure it’s the staff. But the staff is primarily for manipulating the Tesseract, why would it also, as an unrelated power, let you mentally manipulate people? When they crack it open and find the mind stone, not only does it justify that power from the first movie, it’s a second instance of Thanos hoping that someone else, in this case Loki, would start their own stone-hunt if prodded.
I remember I was completely impressed when I first watched it on cinema, but was less impressed the times I have rewatched it. Maybe because it was such an achievement and new when it first arrived, now Marvel itself has done the assembly film four times and counting.
Having said that, except of some pace issues, this is their best assembly film. It works as a film itself, as a culmination of the themes from the solo films and as a building for the next films. Ultron, Civil War and Infinity War (as far as we now, it has half film missing) aren’t as cohesive as the first Avengers film.
I agree that the best part is that it manages to have a lot of action and many wonderful character moments.
I feel Coulson’s death was convenient and it works. Even if Coulson has been revived for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they have explored the emotional consequences of his death and the implications for the world and S.H.I.E.L.D. actions itself. So, it isn’t gratitous.
the constant exhortations of Rogers to Stark to “put on the suit,
Plus, Stark tells Banner- in the lab (can I have one of those air computers?), ‘You’ll be suiting up with the rest of us.’
@38,
Oh, that’s why she recognizes Cap! I expected her to show up in Winter Soldier as someone Cap knows and likes.
My favourite line (lines) in the film is: when Nick Fury says “Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys” and Thor doesn’t get it (understandably) and then Steve Rogers, who has clearly been living for too many hours with Tony Stark’s pattern of making cultural references that Rogers will not get, suddenly looks up and says “I do! I understood that reference!”
This is the movie that got me interested in watching the MCU films at all – I had previously just been mostly ignoring them, but Avengers Assemble had enough good recs that I decided I wanted to go see it … and I loved it. (I had gone to see the first Thor movie and the first new-era Hulk movie, both times because friends wanted to go: enjoyed the first, but had no impulse to see any more of him: loathed the Hulk movie big-time.)
Terrific, fantastic film. I like Civil War even better, but it couldn’t have existed without this one.
Something I particularly appreciate is the way Stark riding the bomb through the portal functions as a callback to Steve jumping on the dummy grenade in First Avenger. Just like Steve, Tony throws himself on an explosive, in so doing learning to make the sacrifice play Steve has challenged him to.
I wouldn’t call this movie my favorite of the MCU but it’s definitely one of the best and an important movie in the genre all the same.
@6 – I, too, was struck by the movie’s treatment of the Hulk. We spend much of the movie getting to know Banner, and his transformation is put off as long as possible; at the same time, it is made abundantly clear just how dangerous the Hulk is.
For me, the key example of this (repeating, I admit, from memory) is when Romanoff first meets with Banner and assures her that their conversation is “just you and me”; once she is sure that he’ll cooperate, she raises her wrist communicator and says, “Stand down,” and only then do we see the entire battalion of soldiers that have been standing outside with weapons raised the entire time. (Cut back inside, where Banner just looks at her with a weary smile and responds wryly, “Just you and me, huh?”)
A few of you have mention the waitress, she is played by Ashley Johnson, who has worked with Whedon before in Dollhouse. She is a great actress and great DnD player(YAY Critical Role). I had hoped they would bring her back but no such luck as like Jaime Alexander she can not always get away from Blindspot.
Yes, this was a great movie. There’s decent roles for everyone: Hawkeye probably gets the shortest shrift, thanks to spending a good chunk of the movie brainwashed. And as has been said, having the Avengers do their best to save as many lives as possible during the climax increases their heroism. Loki isn’t exactly a major Avengers villain, but he was the first threat they faced so it’s a nice callback. (That said, way back when we saw Stark meeting Ross, I thought the debut of the Avengers was going to be another callback with them tracking the Hulk. I gather there’s an alternative explanation out there somewhere in the MCU Expanded Universe, but that’s still the reason he was there in my head canon.) And the Hulk responding to his grandiose speech by beating him up was a cool ending for the character.
I agree though that Loki being left unguarded while the Avengers have their heroes-fight-each-other moment was a weakness, putting a cool moment that someone wanted to include over coherent plotting. And yes, the mid-credits reveal of Evil Smiling Purple Guy. I’m reasonably conversant with comics but I had no idea who he was, had to look him up on Wikipedia and had still never heard of him. Ironic as that might seem these days!
I’m curious: In what way did DC “revive” Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in the 50s? They’d been in constant publication since their debuts.
I’d agree that it’s an achievement, I love the some of lines and I really like seeing aliens invading New York but I’m not as enthusiastic about this film as I once was, possibly not least because I’ve got pretty tired of Joss Whedon’s whole thing. I enjoyed Infinity War more than I now enjoy either of the two previous Avengers films, though I suppose I haven’t had time to go off IW.
Also I’ve always found the whole Coulson think to be utterly unconvincing. I’d buy that Stark would be pissed off and maybe Romanov and Barton but as far as I know there is absolutely no connection between him and any of the others. JW seems to think it’s impossible to create any kind of drama without killing characters and it seems that in this case we lost a great supporting character for an utterly daft reason. And while I love a lot of the lines it does seem very, very scripted in such was as you are in no way convinced that these people are talking the way real people talk. I’ve often felt the same way about a lot of Tarantino’s films.
@53/cap-mjb: “I’m curious: In what way did DC “revive” Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in the 50s? They’d been in constant publication since their debuts.”
Yes, but readership had waned. Superhero comics on the whole weren’t popular anymore, and those three (and maybe Aquaman) were the only Golden Age superheroes who’d managed to stay in publication. I think what Keith meant was that the birth of the Silver Age, with the introduction of new versions of the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, etc. and the creation of the Justice League, revived audience interest in Superman, Batman, and WW as well, and created a new burst of popularity for the superhero genre, which was why Marvel got back into superhero comics to capitalize on the trend. Although, of course, Lee, Kirby, Ditko, et al. brought a greater degree of character depth, serial plotting, and sophistication to the genre.
scimarad: Thor and Coulson became friends in Thor, and Cap and Coulson bonded right there in this movie. So there was a connection to everyone except Banner.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I find it odd that with all the comments on no one in the movie wondering why loki didn’t bolt in the IM Thor cap fight, that Fury later angrily asked, “why do i get the feeling the only one who wants to be here is the currently locked up!” ( I know that isn’t the specific line, but my memory is only so good), I believe Natasha takes initiative off because of that.
@57/kasiki: Yes, that’s just the point. Fury does begin to suspect something’s up eventually, but my point is, it’s far too obvious a ploy for it to have taken that long to figure out. Fury — or Cap or Tony — should’ve gotten immediately suspicious that Loki waited to be captured, rather than taking it at face value for a fair portion of the movie before finally beginning to question it. It annoys me when something screamingly obvious and simple is portrayed as a devious secret that only an ultra-smart character can eventually figure out.
I assumed Loki was too entertained and left it too late. Or maybe figured bolting would just attract everybody’s attention but frankly I didn’t think too much about it.
I always figured that they probably did know Loki wanted to be captured but just didn’t really have any other choice for what to do about it. I mean what are they supposed to do, *not* capture him and let him wander around Earth definitely doing bad stuff? They do immediately start trying to figure out what his plan is while Tony and Bruce keep working on finding the Tesseract. It probably should have been pointed out a little clearer in the movie that they were onto Loki but I don’t think they really could’ve actually done anything differently.
I also figured that Loki had some low-level mind control stuff going on — not actively puppeteering like Hawkeye and Selvig, but creating vibes that amped up the tension between the Avengers and kept them from thinking too closely about why he had let himself be taken so easily.
Um, Rogers and Stark both said right there on the quinjet before Thor showed up that it was way too easy to capture him, but, as Rachel said, what’s the alternative? Let him go?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
My first first thought when watching this, was that if they wanted to capture Loki, why the heck did Iron Man carry Thor away from Loki instead of the other way round, and spend about ten minutes fighting him, thereby giving Loki the opportunity to escape? I thought it was so obvious that he would have escaped that I was left scratching my head when it suddenly cut to Fury locking Loki up as if the last scene never happened, and wondered if a scene of him being recaptured had cut. The only way they don’t look like complete idiots is if it was an elaborate triple-bluff where they knew Loki wanted to be brought there but did it anyway to see what he’d do. If so, that pretty much backfired since it got Coulson and probably quite a few others killed and the helicarrier wrecked (although it did probably save Hawkeye). As for alternatives…I guess their best Plan B would be to hold Loki prisoner somewhere where there was less opportunity for him doing damage.
@55/CLB: “Superhero comics on the whole weren’t popular anymore, and those three (and maybe Aquaman) were the only Golden Age superheroes who’d managed to stay in publication.”
Don’t forget Green Arrow!
@63/cap-mjb: “Don’t forget Green Arrow!”
(hangs head in shame) I have failed this rewatch.
I just watched this one last night with my daughters, who both appreciated the fact that Black Widow was treated as an equal to the boys from the get-go. My eldest loved the interrogation between her and Loki, catching on pretty quickly how massively she’d just played him.
I also am genuinely impressed with how the filmmakers are able to se the audience on the idea of a global spy agency recruiting a World War II soldier, a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, a technology-based knight in shining armor and others to battle an alien invasion led by a Norse god and make it feel in any way grounded in “reality.” Hats off to Mr. Whedon , and especially to Mr. Feige, who has kept right on creating similar miracles.
One thing that I have to say about the Marvel Phase One films is how excellent the scores are. From Ramin Djawadi’s superb Iron Man score to Patrick Doyle’s Thor score, they were nearly all fantastic. With that said, the series’ high point. Musically was definitely the one-two punch of Alan Silvestri scoring Captain America and Avengers. To this day, the scene in Captain America: First Avenger where Steve marches the POWs back to camp puts a lump in my throat and the music has everything to do with that. Similarly, the music when the Helicarrier takes off in Avengers is sheer perfection. To me, the biggest letdown in Phase Two of the MCU was that many of the scores (especially Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron) were nowhere near as good.
I’m not sure if this is still my favourite Marvel film, but it’s definitely top three. I love it for all the reasons people have mentioned but one thing that really stands out is that this film felt climactic in a way that none of the other films since have managed. Ultron and even Infinity War feel like they’re setting up the next film/ phase, a comma in a sentence, but this was the exclamation mark that paid off everything to date and it was glorious. Maybe Avengers 4 will do the same but I’m not sure anything will feel as thrilling for me as the shot where the team is finally assembled.
Loved this movie, for reasons that are very obvious; the pacing, the characters, the action, the dialogue (mostly) and the overall sense of scale this film has, as the culmination of 5 others of setup. Superhero movies, and some would argue cinema in general, would never be the same again.
Looking forward to Amazing Spider Man. Can we assume ASM2 will be done the week after?
Let it be known that there are certain lines from both movies that I love and will be very disappointed if they don’t make an appearance.
”Don’t you know… I’m Electro!”
“Is that a real knife?” “Yes, it’s a real knife.” “That’s my weakness, it’s small knives.”
“Somebody’s been a bad lizard.”
”You’re a fraud, Spider Man!”
”Last time you did the laundry, you turned everything red and blue.” “I was washing the American flag.”
And, of course, the Academy Award winning Paul Giamatti’s delivery of the line…
”I am the Rhino!”
Something else to point out, before the Thor Loki talk, right before the IM thor fight, 2 black birds are shown flying. Odin is famous i mythology for his ravens Hugin and Munin. In Myth, they are/can be his eyes and ears. Many took this brief image that Odin was watching.
SO much that could be said, but already has been, and way better than I could, so all I will add is *insert fangirl squeal here*
Lets face it, we didn’t expect it to be this good. The premise of the film sounded terrible (There is a college humor (sic) video about “too many heroes” which came out before this film which captured why this film was going to suck very well) and its still amazing that you could overstuff a film this much and still make it coherent (Age of Ultron shows the difficulties ensembles can bring, as did Infinity War to a lesser extent). Great film, even greater achievement.
This film has very few flaws, but one that I don’t recall seeing noted in the comments above is how spectacularly bad the Captain America costume is. It comes off very poorly compared to everyone else’s outfits in the film. Yes, it’s more accurate to the comics than the First Avenger version, but honestly, it’s also not to far removed from Reb Brown and Matt Salinger (though thankfully no rubber ears)
Twels: I liked the First Avenger Cap costume better, and the costume in future movies would be even better, but this one didn’t bother me that much. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it didn’t bother me enough for me to single it out as a flaw. *shrug*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@71 Twels re: Cap’s costume yeah it was pretty bad. I kinda took that to be somewhat on purpose though – Coulson’s (otherwise throwaway) line about how he “Had some input on the uniform.” makes me think of it as something that was designed by people who were trying to recreate how Cap looked on his trading cards and not really thinking about practicality or modern sensibility. That’s why the next time we see him in Winter Soldier, he’s in a whole new uniform that definitely looks like something that SHIELD would outfit someone in, with no “fanboy” touches.
While talking about costuming, this reminds me of a comment I had been wanting to make on the first Iron Man recap but kept forgetting. I don’t think enough credit for the success of Iron Man specifically and the MCU (because the success of the first Iron Man film was so integral to the MCU) in general is given to whoever came up with the idea to show us RDJ’s Stark INSIDE the helmet.
As a thought exercise, try imagining how cheesy Iron Man would have been if every time Stark says something while wearing the armor, it’s just a shot of the exterior of the helmet with his voice sounding metallic.
By coming up with the idea of showing RDJ as he’s snarking/grunting/shouting/telling JARVIS to do something, we get to see him emote and connect with him so much better.
@73
Or, if every time we wanted to see him emote he had to lift the face plate- like how often Spider-Man has his mask removed in big fights to better see his reactions. I agree that the solution they came up with worked very well.
Kalvin: Agreed. It helped not only with RDJ, but also Jeff Bridges, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, and Mark Ruffalo at various points…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I remember a time before this movie came out that people were very skeptical that a superhero-team-up movie could be made. The reasoning was that the costs don’t scale at the same rate as the revenue. So picking a lot of stars to create a superhero team movie wouldn’t translate to a lot of dollars in box office.
The movies with lots of superheroes that came before Avengers (like X-Men) didn’t have many stars. Actually even Avengers doesn’t have that many known stars. RDJ, Johansson, Jackson and Paltrow were recognizably stars before it, but most of the main cast were not, so this helped with the costs not being that prohibitive.
But these naysayers were proven wrong with a box office in the billions!
And it’s a good thing! Now everyone wants to make cinematic universes and team-up movies are what studios desire (like WB trying Batman v Superman and Justice League before they even had two ordinary superhero movies in their cinematic universe).
@41 – Brian: Yeah, he loves to hear himself talk. And usually, there’s audience too.
@65 – Twels: It’s not that they managed to make the Avengers seem grounded in “reality”, but rather the other way around: through the previous films, they have eased in the (non comic reader) audience into fantasy, albeit one that takes place in a world much like our own. It’s the gradual introduction of even more fantastical tech and enemies, and flashier costumes and powers, both in Phase I leading to Avengers, and Phase II onwards, that made the trick, and we ended up with a superhero smash fest of Infinity War proportions.
@73 – Kalvin: I’m pretty sure that visual had been used in the comics before.
Quoth MaGnUs: “@73 – Kalvin: I’m pretty sure that visual had been used in the comics before.”
Nope. Never needed to be, because comics are a series of static images, so the fact that Iron Man’s face doesn’t move isn’t an issue — the word balloon pointing at his head is just as effective as the one pointing at Captain America or the Hulk. But it’s more of an issue with live-action, and I’m fairly certain that the inside-the-helmet shot was never used (or if it was, hardly ever used regularly) in the comics prior to 2008.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@78/krad: It’s not so much about movement or knowing who’s talking as it is about emotional expressiveness. In comics and animation, the advantage is that artists can distort theoretically static masks in order to give them an expressiveness they can’t have in live action, which is why comics/cartoon superheroes don’t take their masks off as often as live-action ones. (A classic example is Spidey’s eye lenses changing shape, an effect that Marvel’s figured out a way to replicate in “live action” with the mechanical irises, but I’m sure it’s been done with Iron Man’s eye and mouth holes in various comics over the decades.)
I agree the in-suit view was a good move and the visual design they used for those shots works well. But isn’t it a pretty direct descendant of any number of Mecha animes (or, for that matter, WWII movies that cut between cockpit and exterior views of airplanes)?
I didn’t say it was used regularly, just that it was not invented for these films.
I definitely agree that the inside the helmet POV was a great idea. It’s only been after multiple, multiple viewings of these movies that I started questioning little details like the fact that the HUD seems to be projected from awfully far away and that Downey seems to move his head around an awful lot – especially considering that when a portion of the helmet is torn off, it appears to be nearly skintight. Still, if the trade off would be either having an emotionless iron man or having his helmet torn off every five minutes, those are very minor quibbles.
@twels: We’re not actually seeing the inside of the helmet, it’s just a representation of the VR/AR system Stark has to operate the suit.
Yes, the in-helmet view is symbolic. It’s a representation of the way the virtual environment looks to Stark.
I have seen similar things done in anime, and in live-action tokusatsu shows like Super Sentai (the basis for Power Rangers) and Kamen Rider. Sometimes it’s just a close-up on the head as if the helmet went away, but sometimes we see the whole armored/transformed character standing or floating in their natural form (or even naked) in a symbolic empty space. There were some episodes of the extremely impressive 2017-18 Kamen Rider Build — a really smart, well-written show in which all the action scenes developed the characters and their conflicts and never felt gratuitous — where two rival Kamen Riders were facing each other in full armor as they argued, but then the image would fade to a symbolic shot of them facing each other un-armored in an empty space, so that we could see the actors’ performances and reactions even though their characters were still fully armored in-story.
It’s been mentioned up above a few times, but it’s worth pointing out again that one of the best things about the climactic battle at the end of this film is that Cap and the gang actually seem to care about evacuating the civilians from the battle zone and there are a couple of moments where they actually show them rescuing people from the Chitauri shock troops. Watching Man of Steel the next year and seeing Superman and Zod bring down buildings on top of each other – seemingly with no regard at all for the people inside – illustrated for me the difference between the DC films and the Marvel ones. Other than Wonder Woman, every one of the DC films have prized spectacle over feeling (and provided neither very well). Marvel, on the other hand, has placed characterization on a more equal footing with spectacle
Twels: One of the things I love about the MCU in general is that — with some exceptions — they’re heroes primarily concerned with saving lives. One of the reasons why I love Age of Ultron more than most is because they spend the entire climax working to save the people of Sokovia, which was a particular relief after the disaster porn of Man of Steel. My favorite moments are the ones that remind us that these people are in the business of protecting people and saving lives — as another example, Luke Cage’s insistence in The Defenders that he’ll only go along with the plan if no innocent bystanders get hurt.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
KRAD: I’m in total agreement with you on the end of Age of Ultron. That said, even this film’s ultimate defeat of the Chitauri is predicated on saving the people of New York from the incoming nuke.
Not long ago, i had the pleasure of rereading Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s superb JLA/Avengers team-up, and there was a great deal of time spent in one issue with the DC heroes talking about how dark and grim the Marvel Universe was. It made me chuckle because a decade later, the DCU on screen is the incredibly grim world, with the Marvel Universe feeling positively jaunty by comparison.
I actually did not really care for this movie when it first came out – I’d heard everybody talking and raving about it after it came out (on Tor, Facebook, etc) and so my husband and I rented it and I remember feeling distinctly underwhelmed. At this point the only other MCU movie I’d seen was the first Iron Man, and in fact I didn’t even really know there WAS an MCU. Also, we were just watching it on our normal TV and I think something was off with our color/brightness (which we found out later – one of the kids probably messed up a setting) so there were definitely times we couldn’t figure out what was going on. Lastly, I remember rolling my eyes big time at the Thor-Iron Man-Cap fight since – without really having any other context – it just seemed like one of those fanservice ‘Who Would Win?’ type of things even if the dialogue was funny (Shakespeare in the Park is probably one of my favorite lines).
Eventually I did come around for a few reasons – during a trial of some streaming service (don’t even remember which one anymore) we watched a bunch of the phase I movies which provided a ton of other context. And then the next time we watched it, we had friends over and watched in our basement, where we have a projected movie screen and the experience in general was just much better.
Now of course I can totally appreciate it for all the reasons that have been listed here (my favorite set up has to be ‘Puny God’ if for no other reason that its callback on Thor: Ragnarok – several movies later – is just PERFECT) and especially now seeing how it both pulled together all the previous movies, and then set the stage for so many things to come is really a triumph. And now I wait for the next MCU movie along with everybody else ;)
I won’t even pretend to be unbiased here, this is my favorite movie ever. Yes, there are objectively better films. Yes, this film is light on themes and character growth. Yes, its frequently shot like a TV show. But you know what? No movie has ever ticked as many boxes of things I love and want to see than this one. It’s just a fantastic ride from beginning to end. It’s a showstopper of a finale to Phase 1, and it set the stage for more great superhero movies to follow. It really felt like the sky was the limit after this movie came out. Even with how bloated the MCU has become, this movie still holds up. I can’t sing its praises enough, but I’ll stop here because anything else I have to say would just be repeating things others have said already.
I know I’m late to the party here, but there’s someone who I’ve seen no mention of in the MCU reviews so far who I feel has been critical to their success. The great casting has been pointed out, but the casting director for the MCU, Sarah Halley Finn, hasn’t been named as t6key part of that process that she is. Just felt like she should get a shout-out somewhere in here.
Also, a few of these posts (so far, I’ve noticed this one, The Incredible Hulk, and the Blade trilogy) don’t seem to show up in the archive list or tags, and I was only able to find them via links back from later posts referring to them. Might want to have your IT folks look into that.