Movie Rants: Marvel's Big Problem

The Problem

With a cinematic universe spanning as far as the MCU, there’s bound to be movies that just don’t perform as well as they should or potential story elements that get missed, dropped, or otherwise neglected. It’s impressive that the MCU has performed as well as it has, considering just how big it is. The bigger a story gets, the more moving parts there are, and the more there is to juggle to make everything work. It’s in this constantly-moving juggle where Marvel’s big problem is revealed.

Marvel doesn’t know how to write their strongest characters.

Or rather, Marvel doesn’t know how to write their strongest characters when those characters are functioning in an ensemble. The first time I noticed this was in Captain America: Civil War, but it happened even earlier than that.

The Avengers

In The Avengers, our heroes faced off against each other showing us that they were (mostly) equal in terms of power. Thor acted as the standard here. We needed to know the answer to the question, “Can Iron Man’s armor help him keep up with a god?” Once that question was answered, we needed to know how Captain America and his mighty shield would fare. The conclusion was that they could indeed fight head to head with Thor (kind of). This standard is shown again when Thor fights the Hulk. Each core member of the team is required to prove themselves against Thor.

Enter Black Widow and Hawkeye who, at this point, are definitely the sidekicks. Black Widow’s test is not to go head to head with the Hulk, but to survive an encounter with him. Hawkeye is shown as a near perfect match for Black Widow. They just aren’t in the same league as our heroes.

But in the final battle, Thor is relegated to the (mostly) off-screen task of killing as many bad guys as possible while they're still at the spawn point. Meanwhile, we get to watch Black Widow and Hawkeye nearly non-stop. Even with the Hulk, we get to see a few cool moments, but he doesn’t have the in-depth finale arc that Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye have.

Iron Man 3

Tony spent 90% of this movie not in his suit because having a fully-functioning Iron Man suit (or fifty of them) would have ended the movie instantly. As seen when he gets access to all of his fully-functioning Iron Man suits.

Civil War

This was the one that opened my eyes. To fully grasp this one, we need to look back at Avengers: Age of Ultron. When Vision was created, he represented the best of each of the core members. He established a new standard of power, no longer destructive like the Hulk, arrogant like Iron Man, or warmongering like Thor. The MCU’s Vision essentially answers the question, “What if we gave Captain America the power of ALL of the current Avengers?” Not only that, but he comes with his own unique abilities, fully cementing him as the current powerhouse of the MCU (though they clearly indicate that Wanda’s power is, or will be, at/above his level).

So, in Civil War when the opposing sides line up and smash into each other, Vision and Wanda are flying opposite each other. The implication being that these two are going to clash and therefore cancel each other out. Except, as soon as the fight starts, Vision disappears and Wanda’s big contribution is to throw cars or hold up falling debris. That’s pretty much it. Vision only reappears when Antman turns big and starts dominating the fight.

For a while, I rationalized this as Vision not wanting to fight. He’s more of a peacekeeper at heart, so he only gets involved when things are starting to get out of hand. That’s a possibility, but that’s not how the movie makes it seem. He flies into the fight just like everyone else. Conscientiously objecting would have been an easier sell if they had shown him holding back or cutting to him now and then as he watches over the fighting or offers support from a distance. Except, there’s none of that. He just vanishes until he can return without breaking the game.

And that’s really the problem. Marvel creates characters capable of breaking the game, but then they bench them because they don’t know how to write such powerful characters into an ensemble story.

Infinity War

This is the movie that confirmed the theory that started in Civil War. By the end of the movie, Thanos has been established as an unstoppable force of nature. He stomped the Asgardians. He stomped the Hulk. He fought the Iron Man/Dr. Strange team and won with relative ease (though he had a significant amount of plot armor in this fight). The movie presents two scenarios for us: Either they destroy the mind stone, or Thor gets enough of a power boost with his new weapon to fight him.

As it turns out, to my genuine surprise, Stormbreaker actually gives Thor the boost he needs to kill Thanos. Thor, by himself, had the power level needed to kill Thanos, while Thanos had all six infinity stones. In a head to head power showdown with the full might of the infinity gauntlet, Thor won.

Except he didn’t go for the head so… *snap*

But that means they would have likely won the fight if Thor had shown up at any point between Thanos arriving and Thanos getting the mind stone. He at least has the excuse this time of chasing down the alien invaders and he didn’t have an earpiece (I guess) so he didn’t know that they were all gathering around Vision.

Endgame

There are at least three major incidents with this issue in Avengers: Endgame. Remember, Thor+Stormbreaker had the power to kill Thanos+Gauntlet, but now Thor is nearly killed by Thanos-No-Gauntlet. What? Sure, he’s spent the last five years drinking himself into a stupor, but this is a bit much. What was the redemption arc and the dramatic lightning makeover for if Thor was still just going to be useless in the fight anyway?

Captain Marvel is obviously a huge issue for the film. She swoops in long enough to say, “I’m stronger than all of you,” and then she leaves until they need her to help them fight Thanos and his army. They presented her as the extra power that the team needed, but the team didn’t need extra power. They had plenty of power. (Read here to see what would have made Captain Marvel amazing). They needed someone to bring their team together again.

Finally, Dr. Strange. He didn’t fight a full-powered Thanos, but went toe to toe with Thanos when the Mad Titan had three stones. I don’t have to sell Dr. Strange’s power level to you (though the writers of Spiderman: No Way Home might need a refresher on it). Where was he in the final fight? He was holding back the lake water. He killed one group of bad guys and then removed himself from the rest of the fight to stop a flood. You know, not like he could have opened a portal or something to contain the water.

What it means…

The building blocks of a story are: Goal, Conflict, and Resolution. The problem with these overpowered characters is that the conflict in the story isn’t enough to actually stop them. With the established power levels going into Endgame, the final fight should have been over as soon as Thor woke up. With the core team working together, Thanos didn’t stand a chance. We would have essentially moved from goal to resolution without any real conflict. That’s why our strongest characters get benched.

When Hawkeye is fighting aliens, there’s a very real chance that he may die.

We’ve literally seen Thor kill hordes of aliens in an instant, even after shrugging off what should have been certain death.

They’re playing the same game, but they have very different cards.

In order for both characters to play a role in the movie, the conflict needs to offer something to both of them. The problem is that it can’t. Not really. Characters at Hawkeye’s level end up being able to do things they shouldn’t and characters at Thor’s level end up failing at things they should be able to do with ease. Then, if the writers get clumsy, this bleeds over into individual stories. Suddenly Black Widow is just as indestructible as Captain America… but that’s a rant for another day.