The popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (frequently shortened to “MCU”) has brought superheroes and many other genres of comic books to mainstream attention more than ever. The recent 2019 blockbuster Avengers: Endgame took the title of highest grossing film of all time, and the past few years have had the highest grossing film of its respective year consecutive MCU flicks. With such great success came criticism and cynics. After Endgame, many MCU fans felt the ending was conclusive enough to their satisfaction. In the minds of these fans, no more films were needed. Many filmmakers and directors have frowned upon the continuous success of the MCU, such as James Cameron and Martin Scorsese, expressing their belief that other films need a chance in cinema or that these films frequently lack the same soul needed to be considered cinema in their eyes. After ten years of continuity and over twenty films, the MCU has gone under a massive recollection of what exactly attracted people to these films in the first place.
I, personally, only watched the MCU sporadically in its beginning, but became invested around the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming. I watched many of the recent films, was wowed and saddened by Avengers: Infinity War, and then was impressed again for its second part and thrilling conclusion in Endgame. However, just prior to Endgame, two films were released: Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel.
By word of mouth and online reviews, I was informed Ant-Man and the Wasp was mediocre and decided to skip it. When controversy surrounding Captain Marvel star Brie Larson erupted full force (involving the bias of film critics, particularly old and white ones, for films Larson reasonably claimed were not intended for them), I was intrigued to watch the film to see what might have caused such an uproar. I understood fairly easily that the controversy surrounding the film was by a vocal nerdy and white minority, but I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the film. Something about the experience was missing.
Prior to the pandemic, I watched Spider-Man: Far From Home, and felt somewhat underwhelmed again. From there, my interest was less in comic book movies and more in comic books themselves. Creators, their inspirations, thought processes, art, poignant stories, everything that inspired what the masses enjoy today. This is where I discovered the problem that, on some level, I always already had recognized: Marvel movies are watered down military propaganda made marketable to the masses.
This statement may sound either brave, stupid, exaggerated, or some combination of those three, but I am not using these words with the most scathing intent possible. A good deal of famous American media is American-centric in nature, and that is fine provided we can recognize its faults and biases. Obviously, Marvel films are never explicitly in favor of warfare or any of the horrors of war common in the negative connotation of the phrase “military propaganda.” They do, however, miss the same soul its source material intended for it to have.
To understand comic books, comic book culture, and the media based off of both, one must understand a little bit of background on the Avengers and the comic book industry.
The Avengers by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
In 1963, legendary creative team Stan Lee and Jack Kirby decided to combine several ongoing Marvel Comics titles into one crossover title in a similar move to other comic companies of the time. With a somewhat familiar lineup to the modern Marvel movie watcher, the Avengers consisted of Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp. The “First Avenger” Captain America joined later down the line when the lineup already started shifting quickly. Cap was also retroactively given founding membership status much later in the 300th issue.
What’s notable about the first issue of Avengers is the five characters combine their themes into one comic book where they team up against a common foe. Hulk is a loner antisocial monster in the first issue, Thor has magic and cosmic troubles with his brother Loki as the villain of the issue, Iron Man has him use his intuition and mechanical might throughout the issue, and Ant-Man and the Wasp bring both figurative and literal small scale conflict and resolution to the issue. This sounds unremarkable to comic readers of today, but these ideas were somewhat new and uniquely handled by the iconic artist and writer combo Lee and Kirby.
The Avengers, in a similar vein to other superhero teams, formed organically on their own. The Wasp came up with the team name off the cuff, and the rest of the team ran with it. It was that simple. Five heroes happened to meet each other and decided to join forces for a temporary, ragtag, and uncertain alliance.
A notable trait of superhero comics of the time is how escapism interacts with real world commentary. Stan Lee has famously said in a regular segment present in some of his comics, Stan’s Soapbox, that although some fans do not appreciate the commentary present in their superhero comics, morality and philosophy are ever-present in stories of all kinds throughout history, even fantasies and mythology. “Sure our tales can be called escapist — but just because something’s for fun, doesn’t mean we have to blanket our brains while we read it,” Stan Lee claims, ending with his iconic “Excelsior!”
After the Silver Age of comics ended and the 80s and 90s began, the Bronze Age of comics started to introduce some core ideas into the rapidly evolving world of graphic novels. Gritty realism, soap opera drama, darkness, horror, attempts at permanent stakes, and relentless deconstruction began. Creators like Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, and others provoked the comic world with deconstructive comics like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and The Brat Pack. What were superheroes really? In contrast to the golden age and silver age where it was fun and games with the occasional comment about real world issues (with some pretty poorly aged moments as well, particularly involving other nations and racial caricatures that would rightfully stir outrage today), the bronze age portrayed superheroes for what they realistically would be: government funded contractors, armed to the teeth vigilantes, morally gray complicated anti-heroes, and conflicted individuals overwhelmed with responsibility. Yes, some of these themes had already existed in books of previous times, but the Bronze Age brought old ideas back, reinvented old characters, and challenged the minds of readers with a sort of erotic edginess that attracted older readers to the comics.
Commentary on real world issues became the norm. For a time, I personally believed that the Bronze Age of comics is when comics as a medium became really good. Older comics, to me, often felt like reading the equivalent of an episode of He-Man. Not super exciting, often fairly thin characters, and middling action. With the Bronze Age, ideas and perspectives on real world issues diversified and ingrained themselves into the setting. Many famous books started here, and so did many problems.
Enter creator and movie rights.
A Huge Crash
Creators began to get fed up with low wages, editorial, and the lack of ownership over their creations. Several of the best talents from Marvel and DC Comics moved away from the Big Two publishers and created Image Comics. To make a long story short, the market began to get flooded with books, mostly Marvel and Image, and Marvel was faced with a financial crisis. Now, they would have to sell the movie rights to their characters to stay afloat as sales declined.
This should be more familiar to modern movie fans. Marvel did not own the rights to Spider-Man or Ego for the MCU and needed special permission to use them. The reason why this was the case originated here, when Marvel began selling the individual movie rights of certain characters. Superhero movie adaptations were present around this time, but were not quite the big hit they would eventually become until Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man hit the scene.
The decline of comics and interest in cinematic superheroes resulted in new marketing strategies. From here on out, comics would sometimes change to be familiar to moviegoers or Netflix bingers, such as Daredevil’s Back in Black series, which put the character in a black suit and undid enough of his history to make for a good starting point in the comics simply because the character’s Netflix series had him in one.
The comics would change for the movies to create starting points for movie fans, but the movies would adapt to the comics, as well. In the 2000s, after the success of comic book-related merchandise involving anything except the books themselves, Marvel had a new business strategy. Create a new universe where the characters were modernized. This was Earth-1610, the Ultimate universe.
The Ultimates
The Ultimate universe started out as a blank, modern slate for the Marvel heroes. Talent such as Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were brought aboard for this experimental universe. The universe debuted early in the year 2000 with the release of Ultimate Spider-Man #1, featuring a young Peter Parker in the modern age. With better distribution and an intriguing beginning with great artwork, Ultimate Spider-Man was a smash hit.
Heavily contrasting the comic book love letter adapted to modern times, Mark Millar had his own take on the Avengers. Mark Millar is known for his edgy and provocative comics, sometimes to a fault. You may be familiar with some of his adapted work such as the film Logan (loosely adapted from his alternate universe Old Man Logan comic), Wanted (a 2008 film loosely based from his comic of the same name), and Kick-Ass (a film, once again, loosely adapted from the comic). There are a few reasons why these adaptations of his work diverge from the source material or take creative liberties. One, comic books have not had any real restrictions to what can be portrayed in them since the dissolving of the Comics Code Authority, which used to severely limit what could be portrayed in them. Television and movies, on the other hand, have a rating system they must abide by for maximum profit. Two, the graphic material in his books are often divisive and don’t always deepen or advance the plot. In the case of The Ultimates, the book would be lost without its divisive themes.
The Ultimates is Mark Millar’s take on a modernized, realistic Avengers. That ragtag team that formed on a whim? Couldn’t happen here. The Ultimates are a team of a heavily militaristic and nationalistic Captain America who is decades out of touch with the modern world, a cannibalistic and antisocial Hulk under intense mental pressure, a possible schizophrenic Thor who seems to have access to secret technology making all of his herculean feats possible, Ant-Man is a wife-beater to the Wasp (which is surprisingly accurate to the source material), and Iron Man is a smug and rude billionaire playboy, but one who does not have much time left as he has a large brain tumor that gave him the epiphany to start doing good. Each main character plays on the tropes present in their original comic appearance in some way. Heavily influenced by Watchmen and comics inspired by it, the Ultimates are funded by the secret military organization tied to the US government known as SHIELD, led by a Nick Fury directly modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. Movie fans probably have made a few connections by now.
The Ultimates was made to comment on the industrial military complex, old comic tropes, commercialization, propaganda, and perhaps superheroes as a concept. The Ultimates have quite the dark side, and the intriguing cinematic panels and hyperrealism of the comic make it a provocative read especially for the time. When Hank Pym beats his wife Janet van Dyne and the media notices she has been hospitalized, Nick Fury moves her to a private location where she can be treated so the media can hardly report on her terrible condition inflicted by her lover. When Bruce Banner feels rushed to come up with a solution to a new member of the Ultimates, he injects himself with an experimental supersoldier serum that turns him into a cannibalistic grey version of the Hulk that destroys the city and has intense sexual urges. Thor only joins the fight to stop him if the president promises to double the foreign aid budget, being the secular peace-loving hippie he is. In a different storyline featuring the Ultimates, a cult forms obsessed with the end of the world and the coming of a godlike entity from space, which is in truth an alien planet-eating hivemind whose name translates to Gah-Lak-Tus (a play on the Marvel character Galactus). Once the Ultimates, Fantastic Four, and SHIELD find a solution to this existential problem, Nick Fury’s ego rises as he reasons that if God can’t even stop him, who can?
This is where the Marvel Cinematic Universe got its ideas from. The Ultimates’ cinematic approach inspired the early MCU in what material ideas to take from it. Costume designs, villains, conflicts, character backstories, and even the casting of Nick Fury was based on the Ultimate universe version. However, the MCU left behind the themes and ideas of Mark Millar’s story, some might argue for the better. Personally, I think The Ultimates is an incomplete story without its sequel, The Ultimates 2, but I can understand that its edgy tone and cynical ideas may not be for all readers.
However, this was my problem with the MCU in general. Why use the gritty realistic backdrop of The Ultimates as the basis of your story if all you want to do is make a hype action blockbuster that prints money?
Where MCU and the Ultimate Universe Diverge
I want to first say it is quite obvious that the MCU is not exclusively based on the Ultimate universe. For example, Spider-Man: Homecoming, while having some themes of Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate universe work (although some of it leans more towards Miles Morales of that universe), also features an iconic moment from the famous emotional climax of the Spider-Man story “If This Be My Destiny…!”
The film Thor features a Thor who comments to his love interest Jane Foster that what Earthlings considered to be magic, Asgardians considered to be their technology. Captain America: The First Avenger tells the same classic story we all know, along with Nick Fury and SHIELD reviving and recruiting him for the Avengers initiative, with some hints of the Ultimates present within it. Nick Fury’s recruitment of the heroes is present in the first few MCU films. The use of Hawkeye and Black Widow as characters in the first Avengers films likely took inspiration from The Ultimates referencing an Olympic archer who may be a good pick for the team and The Ultimates 2 featuring Hawkeye outright along with a double agent Black Widow. The Ultimates 2 also introduces Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who also happen to be an incestuous couple in this universe to the disgust of everyone who knows about them. Their inclusion in the following Avengers film may have coincided with The Ultimates 2. The Ultimates also references Hank Pym’s Ultron project, who would be a member of the team, but later turned bad in The Ultimates 3, perhaps being the reason why Ultron is the antagonist in the second Avengers film. Despite the film Avengers: Age of Ultron being named after a comic event, the original Age of Ultron comic storyline has almost nothing to do with the movie other than a name and a central antagonist. The Ultimates 2 and 3 have a much more likely candidate as the movie’s source material.
There is one theme that is central to the MCU that is added onto all of the characters, and that is militarization. No more silly or frilly comic designs, all of these designs look colorful but faded enough to where they do not look tacky and seem somewhat practical to fight with. Fan outrage has been very common at the “tacticool” approach (meaning a cool-looking but not as combat optimal piece of fighting equipment), especially for the MCU design for Taskmaster. The Jolly Roger skull, the white cowl, the cape, and the vintage weaponry of the comic design is all gone in favor of a full body armor with a quiet color pallette and no skulls in sight (which some have speculated may be because of Chinese regulations). Even Spider-Man has been heavily militarized, being a close friend to Tony Stark and now having a new suit with access to satellite missiles and other high grade weaponry not even a Spider-Man from the future would use (at least, not without a few upgrades in a new storyline).
There are so many material similarities and basic ideas that are carried over from The Ultimates and the Ultimate universe of Marvel in general that I am surprised it carries on even to this day, to a limited degree. However, what concerned me was that all of the political commentary of The Ultimates and their flaws as a profit-seeking militaristic American-made team who ultimately saves the day even with all their faults was deliberately taken out when adapting the books for the big screen. Instead of being against commercialization and heavy advertisement, that’s what the MCU essentially is all for (it is a modern action movie franchise, after all). Instead of commenting on corrupt power, dark money, and consequences of a big military, these are the tools the Avengers and SHIELD use every single mission without even an attempt at an excuse in the story of how “it’s all for the greater good” which, even then, would make a character a villain in a Mark Millar story. Even Thor uses the technological interpretation of Asgard and Asgardians present in some Thor stories, but especially in The Ultimates, and essentially makes Thor into a sort of supersoldier. There is very little magic in this magical universe of marvelous heroes. But what about the one hero who does use magic?
Doctor Strange is mostly a side character in both the comics and the films. He compliments stories rather than being a main player because, realistically speaking, he could end stories very quickly if he had most of the screentime with his overpowered magicks. I was invested in the arc that Stephen Strange had in the first twenty minutes of his eponymous film, but once the cosmic special effects began and Strange was punched into an out of body experience, I immediately lowered my expectations. Overall, the film was average for me. I was particularly turned off by how the one source of mystical characters in the normal Marvel universe was made into another military complex. The Sorcerer Supreme in the film even describes the sorcerers as warriors who stop threats to their realm. I expected more spiritual, flowery language to describe them, but the Sorcerers of Doctor Strange are surprisingly militant.
That’s when I realized my problems with Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Captain Marvel was a film I expected strong feministic themes along with a nostalgic 90s aesthetic, but while I was in the theater I couldn’t name a single moment about the arc of Carol Danvers that was meaningful to her as a woman, and she really only had one or two moments where there may have been slight feminist themes present. The film has an oddly grounded take on Captain Marvel for how powerful and how ridiculous the scifi and high concept fantasy gets in the comics for any character that inherits the title of Captain Marvel (although admittedly Carol Danvers does not have the same fantastical elements as her predecessors such as Mar-Vell and Genis-Vell). Where was the journey outside our reality, where were the cosmic abstracts, where was the whimsical cosmic Marvel so many generations learned to love together? Instead, Mar-Vell and Carol have their Kree military background and their Earthly military background emphasized.
Nick Fury in the MCU compared to Ultimate Nick Fury is perhaps one of the most bizarre comparisons. In Captain Marvel, Nick Fury plays second fiddle to Carol Danvers as a quirky side character who screams a lot and is not as straight-laced as Carol. If that sounds funny, it usually is, but I am more focused on what this change in characterization represents. A serious Nick Fury in the MCU is usually played entirely straight. The films he appears in are typically just action blockbusters you would expect of an American studio, occasionally with jingoistic undertones. Then in Captain Marvel, he is characterized as a more humorous deuteragonist (although this may be partially due to the fact that a Skrull body double played as him for some time, though this is also revealed to the audience in a comedic fashion). The character has completely shifted away from even his abridged original version. Nick Fury was already a military recruiter who gathered a team of what are essentially superpowered mercenaries, but when his character became comic relief, the chances of him turning into a nuanced or interesting take on his Ultimate counterpart died. The point of the original character had already been missed.
Spider-Man, the everyman of Marvel, one of the most popular characters of all time and a guaranteed cash cow who resonates with generation after generation, is a walking weapons arsenal more fitting of a version of War Machine than almost any Peter Parker that is not an outright parody. The appeal of Spider-Man and his backstory is that anyone could be Spider-Man. His character flaws and ideas resonate with so many people, adding to why his character is so popular. However, the MCU version of Spider-Man skips his origin and gets right into the fighting. His debut film is a film about conflict, Captain America: Civil War, which is ironically another adaptation of a Mark Millar comic that was severely watered down to such an extent that the movie misunderstands its own source material. The reason Spider-Man is what he is in his own films is pushed to the wayside, mostly due to the fatigue moviegoers have felt at seeing the Spider-Man origin story retold so many times, but the traditional Spider-Man mythos is replaced with Peter becoming more weaponized with Iron Man tech. Although anyone could be in Peter’s situation when he got his powers in a lab accident, not anyone could be friends with a billionaire. Andrew Garfield, former The Amazing Spider-Man star, said it well just before Spider-Man made it to the MCU:
“He wouldn’t get along with Tony Stark… Too arrogant, ethics are dubious, and Peter’s a man of the people, Peter’s the working class hero, whereas Tony’s this rich gajillionaire that is arguably not all that responsible or heartfelt.”
Although I understand Marvel movies are not the most explicit or even egregious American propaganda, I do see their softening and constant need to ground the extraordinary into reality as a downside. If you aren’t convinced that these films have an American bias, I would recommend a certain film that may change the mind of the skeptic a little.
Guardians is a 2017 Russian superhero film, and a box office bomb. Do the colors feel familiar? Does that poster grab your attention like a certain film franchise always does? Do you feel like you already recognize these characters a little, but then see that they are not any brand name characters you know? That’s how I feel every time I look at this poster. The tagline “A squad of Soviet superheroes” is not present in overseas releases for obvious reasons. In the same way a comic book supersoldier named Captain America who wears stars and stripes all over his uniform might feel a bit gratuitous to non-Americans, an American such as myself seeing a Soviet superhero film with all the same themes as one made in the States was a bit of a wake up call.
Marvel movies are omnipresent in our culture. They are everywhere, from gross political campaign ads, to the boxes on our grocery mart purchases, and especially in our theaters or, more relevantly, streaming services. The monopolies they possess have made some fans tired of them or anxious about the future of entertainment. Naturally, some parodies, deconstructions, and even outright answers to superhero movies exist. Amazon’s original series The Boys is their biggest hit on their otherwise underperforming streaming service, and comments by Eric Kripke regarding the intent of one “Girls get it done” scene parodying Avengers: Endgame has caused some heated internet fights, but they have also begged the question to many adamant fans. Why do we love these movies so much, even if we recognize on some level that they are talking down or advertising to us?
Former Bronze Age comic book legend Alan Moore criticized superhero films quite scathingly, but seems to have more of a magnanimous take on superhero comics. In his view, superhero films represent a sort of failed growth of modern adults, a sort of new form of fascistic empowerment present in hateful cinema of the past. While I cannot fully endorse his thought process, I do find his core idea intriguing. He always saw comic books as a cheap entertainment option to younger audiences who lack funds. Although he does seem to respect graphic novels as a medium, he does not respect the superhero genre appealing to older, middle class audiences instead of lower class youth, given adult graphic novels not really getting off the ground as he had hoped.
Former Marvel Comics and Image Comics writer and editor Aubrey Sitterson also believes in this idea of a superhero comic’s core ideas. To him, his idea of a superhero is one who uses their individual “strengths and talents to uplift and inspire regular folks.” However, Sitterson also believes that superheroes have been on a downward spiral to a more oppressive “super-cop” owned by mega-corporations. His response to the problems with the modern superhero is embodied in his new project Beef Bros, a Kickstarter-funded comic about two bodybuilder best friends who operate under the idea that “if you can help someone, you do it.”
Although I will always respect Marvel Cinematic Universe films on some level, we now have many alternatives and ways to get the stories we really want to see. After a decade featuring over twenty films, I honestly feel as if less than half of them are necessary watching for the franchise at large, and maybe a fraction of those are necessary to watch to be considered culturally competent. Yes, these movies are fun, but after Endgame, fatigue with the film genre set in and I was ready to stop consuming watered down propaganda and start experiencing different, deeper, diverse and resonant films.
