Avengers: The Synergy of Marvel

Before seeing the newest Marvel studios blockbuster, "Avengers: Endgame," I felt I should rewatch the previous movie, "Avengers: Infinity War." That, then, turned into my friends and I rewatching the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) over a dizzying two week period. It was exhausting and painful at times, but overall, it proved to me that there really is something special about what Marvel has done here for the last 10 years. The level of meticulous continuity they maintained, the painstaking and sometimes painful level of detail included; they really do pay off. The MCU holds up to a retrospective revisit.

Having anxiously awaited and seen (almost all of) Marvel's movies of the past decade in theaters, I was excited for "Endgame," the epic conclusion to years of connected storylines. The result of the combined genius of Marvel president directors the Russo brothers (Anthony J. and Joseph Vincent) is that these movies are more than the sum of their parts. "Endgame" is the true end of this cinematic era, where each carefully constructed and developed character gets their moment to shine, and which culminates in the ultimate clash of incorruptible good versus inevitable evil.

Making connections

Rather than be the 3000th review of "Endgame," this article will explore what makes Marvel different from the rest of Disney-owned Hollywood, and what makes their movies a cut above the slew of family-friendly action-adventure movies it produces.

The first advantage Marvel has over its contemporaries has to be the aforementioned power team of Feige and the Russo brothers. Marvel Studios has been helmed by Feige since 2007, the same year Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy concluded with the wet fart of "Spider-Man 3." A year after he took over, "Iron Man" came out, and the idea of what superhero movies could be was changed. The concept of post-credits scenes was created by Feige, and the MCU was born. The idea that movies from different directors drawn from connected source material could exist within the same persistent universe was novel, and in a major franchise hadn't been done before. The superhero movies we'd seen before had all been in their own little bubbles. There were five Superman movies, a Spider-Man trilogy, scattered Batman movies and two Fantastic Four's, an X-Men trilogy and that horror fest Hulk. They all had their own entertainment value, but none of them acknowledged the others, even though they were all born of their respective DC or Marvel families. Why not?

What's next?

Part of the problem was that during the 90s, a money-challenged Marvel studios sold off film rights to a lot of its characters to other studios, and so there never could have been a movie like the original Avengers. Their master plan? Make more money from licensing and merchandising than they ever hoped they would from filmmaking themselves. Boy, how that changed...

In 2003 a new COO, original filmmaking. He spearheaded a move to secure funding from a major investment bank, using as collateral the remaining heroes, many of them "second-tier superheroes, who may not resonate with younger moviegoers" to try to build a new cinematic empire. Seemed like a risky maneuver, but when the original "Iron Man" made waves in 2008 as not only a good superhero flick (low bar) but as a good action movie (higher bar) it seemed Maisel may have been onto something.
Skipping over the decade of the story where he was proven very, very right, we find ourselves sitting here in 2019 wondering where things go after "Endgame." Thanks to the cooperation of producer/president Feige and the brilliant team of directors who brought those movies to fruition, a generation of kids and adults got to inhabit a new connected universe. Now, we've just been treated to a beautiful swan song for those "second-tier superheroes" who stole our hearts and showed us such great fun.

"Avengers: Endgame" is in theaters. For more on the Marvel universe, visit the Marvel website.