Five Ways Marvel Can Improve Its Cinematic Universe

It’s a good time to be a comic book fan. With apps bringing new books to your digital devices every week and movie studios clamoring to put new comics and superheroes on the big screen, this once dubious hobby has turned into the hottest movement in entertainment. And in the world of comic books, no company is more successful right now than Marvel.

Sure DC raked in billions of dollars and critical acclaim with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies, but the company has been slow to launch another franchise since. And while Image Comics has the most critically-acclaimed comics on the shelf and The Walking Dead to its credit, it hasn’t gotten anything else into the mainstream recently.

Marvel, on the other hand, is the golden goose. When the studio began producing its own cinematic universe in 2008 with Iron Man, it reached heights that were previously thought to be impossible. After nine movies set in this universe, the House of Ideas has become a juggernaut at the box office and within the geek community. But monetary success doesn’t make you bulletproof, and along the way, Marvel’s output has become uneven.

With a billion-dollar business to take care of, the studio is under pressure to keep the assembly line humming, while putting out four-quadrant movies designed to please everyone. Unfortunately, with so many projects in production, a few haven’t met expectations. While none of these films have rivaled Green Lantern in the land of superhero infamy, Marvel has left a lot of potential on the table. Sometimes just being “entertaining” or “fun” isn’t enough. Fans have come to expect more from these classic, timeless characters.

So before you check out Captain America: The Winter Soldier this weekend, take a look at Five Ways Marvel Can Improve its Cinematic Universe. Remember, we critique because we care.

Written by Jason Serafino (@Serafinoj1)

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The directors attached to the Marvel movies over the years have been a mixed bag of talent, but in the end, the films all tend to have the same look, tone, and feel, no matter who is behind the camera. That’s because these movies are so interconnected and dependent on each other that the studio behind the films tends to have more power and say than the director in charge. The Marvel directors seem to be hired based solely on whether or not they can carry out the company’s established vision, rather than if they can properly bring the character to life.

This robs the movies of having the individual flair of the director in charge. Unfortunately, this is the reason you’ll likely never see powerhouse visionaries like Guillermo del Toro or Neill Blomkamp attached to a Marvel movie.

This might explain why the studio tends to go for either rookie directors or veterans looking for a high profile project, like Alan Taylor, Joe Johnston, and Kenneth Branagh. All of them are talented enough to helm a blockbuster, but they didn’t have the type of sway as a Christopher Nolan or Matthew Vaughn to break off from the Marvel way of doing things to bring a unique look to the films.

There is a reason why Taylor, Johnston, Branagh, and Favreau left the Marvel world behind for other projects. These movies are not driven by directors; they’re driven by the studio. Thankfully, the studio has a solid vision for the future of Marvel, but it would still be nice to get a world-class filmmaker to put a unique cinematic stamp on one of these films.

As entertaining as these Marvel movies are (and we really do love them), the plots are usually the weakest link. Can you honestly remember the plot of Thor: The Dark World? It had something to do with Malekith wanting to unleash cosmic Jell-O on the world, but none of it ever really came together. What about The Avengers? What was Loki’s motivation? Nothing too interesting, other than to unleash an army of aliens on New York so the Avengers could fight them and move merchandise.

The problem is these movies rely too heavily on a formula that involves a villain coming into contact with some ancient/cosmic artifact and using that artifact to unleash hell. It happened in Captain America, Thor: The Dark World, and The Avengers, and it’ll likely happen again, especially in Guardians of the Galaxy. But in the end, we’re never given a reason to care about these artifacts. Their purpose is explained multiple times throughout the course of the movies, at the cost of the character moments that people really want to see.

These Marvel movies need to start giving their heroes more personal conflicts to deal with, like in Iron Man and The Winter Soldier, which are also the studio's best flicks. There is a wealth of brilliant comics to adapt like Demon in a Bottle, Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers, and Avengers: Under Siege—all of which revolve around intimate, personal battles, rather than lame stones, crystals, and other muckety-muck that doesn’t connect with audiences. Let’s start paying attention to those stories, rather than stories revolving around rocks and crystals.

One of the most brilliant decisions behind the Marvel Universe is the fact that these movies are all interconnected in some way, just like their comic book counterparts. However, while that worked in the lead-up to Avengers, we’ve seen some cracks developing in the foundation since.

In short, now these films are almost too connected, leaving each one feeling more like an episode of an ongoing TV show, rather than a standalone cinematic experience. That works in certain cases, but when each movie is just a means to an end to set up the next one, it’s really robbing the full potential of these characters. Look at Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man. Each movie was part of a larger story arc, yet each one survived as a unique piece of cinema. It’s no coincidence that these three are still at the top of the genre.

Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Thor 2, and Iron Man 2, on the other hand, existed solely to set up future movies. These nods to the future take away from the movie at hand. It’s hard to appreciate the present when Marvel keeps trying to sell you on the future.

For example, the first Thor movie shouldn’t have involved him chumming up with Agent Coulson or featured a distracting cameo from Hawkeye just to set up Avengers. It should have been a celebration of the character’s deep mythology, from Jack Kirby’s brilliant ‘60s work to Matt Fraction’s modern tales. In short, it should have been a movie, not a commercial.

One of the trademarks of the Marvel comics over the years has been the brand’s sense of humor. From Silver Age creators like Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas to modern writers like Matt Fraction and Brian Michael Bendis, the Marvel books have always been able to successfully blend superhero action and comedy into a winning formula. And on the page that combination works perfectly; however, the Marvel movies have moved beyond the occasional joke and into full-blown comedy territory.

With characters like Kat Dennings’ snarktastic Darcy and Robert Downey Jr.’s quippy Tony Stark, the Marvel Universe is oftentimes as catty as an E! Red Carpet Special. No one is saying that Marvel needs to go the Christopher Nolan route, but there is also a time and place for humor.

These characters shouldn’t be treating alien invasions of New York or London as a night at the Upright Citizen's Brigade. If you want to see how humor is done right, just look at the original Iron Man. The laughs were used to dampen some of the tension, but when it was time to get serious, the characters all made us believe the stakes were high.

These heroes are only as great as their villains, and after nine movies, the Marvel Universe has only given audiences one legitimate threat with Tom Hiddelston’s brilliant portrayal of Loki. All of the rest—Abomination, Whiplash, Mandarin, the Chitarui, Malekith—have been completely neutered for the big screen. All of their motivations have been thin, their personalities have been two-dimensional and, worst of all, their screentime is usually reduced to a glorified cameo. For a company with such a wealth of psychopaths, criminals, and monsters to choose from, this is an out-and-out embarrassment.

The worst offender is undoubtedly Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull from the first Captain America movie. In the comics, the Red Skull is a ruthless sociopath who was originally one of Hitler’s confidants. In the movie, he is a flimsy caricature more akin to Snidley Whiplash than a fascist mass murderer. This was a missed opportunity on all fronts for the studio.

We understand that Marvel/Disney didn’t want to play up the Nazi angle because, well, you don’t sell Happy Meals that way. Still, this is one of comics’ greatest villains with a world-class actor under the mask, and he was wasted for the sake of political correctness.

After Heath Ledger won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the Joker, there is simply no excuse not to shoot for that gold standard in each new movie. Give us villains to fear; give us villains to hate; and, most importantly, give us villains to secretly cheer.