God of Thunder

Every week during the Summer of Superheroes, SuperMike Matthews breaks down the ins and outs of a current superhero franchise. Spoilers may follow, so read at your own risk. 

                                                  

This week: THE MIGHTY THOR!  

Superheroes aren’t for everybody.

I do understand that fact, despite occasionally giving off a vibe that seems to say otherwise. Some people, through no fault of their own, just don’t see the appeal of the genre, and they would rather look for their entertainment elsewhere. That’s fine. And yet, without invalidating that opinion, it does raise some interesting questions about what makes the superhero genre a genre at all. I mean, wouldn’t I be justified in calling The Punisher more of an action movie? Or even in calling Green Lantern a sci-fi movie? Hell, Wikipedia says that Blade is a “vampire-superhero-vigilante action film,” and I’m pretty sure putting that many adjectives in a row is the verbal equivalent of mixing colors until you get brown.

The superhero genre is no one thing, and Marvel Studios has taken to that idea to heart, arguably from the very beginning, but certainly by the time they started work on 2011’s Thor.

To make an argument that is ingenious at best, and at worst, entirely based in semantics, Marvel’s two Thor movies are not actually superhero movies, because they aren’t actually about a superhero. They’re about a god. If you want to get really technical, they’re about an alien, but the point I’m making is that the character of Thor, as published by Marvel Comics, is in fact the same Thor that has existed in mankind’s collective awareness for millennia. A figure with that kind of cultural baggage could never fit neatly into the existing superhero formula, which usually requires an origin story (something Thor doesn’t have, other than being born), an alter-ego, * and an array of costumed villains that may or may not carry enchanted crowbars. No, to function at his best, this kind of character requires a somewhat different approach.

You can't make this stuff up. Well… unless you're Lee and Kirby, I guess.

 * For the first 20 years of his publication, Thor actually did have an alter-ego: Donald Blake, M.D. He practiced medicine and everything! While the first Thor film uses the name a few times as an Easter Egg, it wisely stops short of fully committing to the idea. 

There’s a concept in screenwriting, known as the ‘buy-in,’ which refers to the parts of a film’s premise that the viewer is asked to accept right off the bat, without skepticism. The buy-in isn’t usually a hard sell – if you’re going to reject a movie’s premise outright, you probably wouldn’t enjoy it anyway – but everyone does have their own limit as to how far a film can push things, and Thor has a lot on its plate in that regard. I don’t mean to disparage the movie at all, but come on; not only does it posit that the Norse gods were real, it makes the even crazier claim that they’re still alive and kicking up in space, zipping about the cosmos via a rainbow-powered teleportation machine. You’ve got to admit that when I say it like that, * it sounds pretty dumb. It SHOULD be dumb. But it’s not. At least, not really. So what gives?

 * i.e., devoid of all context 

It all comes down to the magic of genre. I doubt this will serve as a revelatory statement to anyone reading this – or anyone at all, really – but the Thor films really do deserve to be classified as fantasy films. In that sense, they’ve cheated their way into a whole new buy-in bracket, one that ultimately has no upper threshold. It’s a smart move, in that favoring Thor’s fantasy elements over his sci-fi ones opens him up to unique storytelling possibilities and, more importantly, a wider audience than the usual comic-book fare. Granted, it’s not a perfect translation; splitting the action between Asgard and Earth gives the films an unusual texture, and the second film adds a not insignificant amount of spaceships and laser guns to the mix (because, again, aliens), but the core conflicts at play in both movies still have a lot less in common with The Dark Knight Returns than they do with The Return of the King.

In fact, any fundamental problems of the Thor franchise come mostly from the fact that it can’t seem to fully commit to the whole ‘epic fantasy’ thing. These are two movies that should easily have the most expansive feel of anything Marvel Studios has put out so far, but, in what I am forced to assume is the result of some sort of time paradox, they’re actually the two most claustrophobic, by a wide margin. To use an example, Thor: The Dark World, a film that I have seen in its entirety at least twice, exists in my mind as six long scenes, taking place across three-ish locations. One of those locations is on Earth. The second is Asgard, which we saw plenty of in the first movie, and the third is Svartalfheim, most notable for being a literal barren wasteland.

Whee.

While the actual story of the film isn’t bad so much as it straightforward, it’s still embarrassingly small in scope for a premise that could have taken place across as many as nine different planets. The first Thor admittedly gets a pass because of everything it had to establish, but it certainly doesn’t help that Thor interacts exclusively with the same three people on both of his solo visits to Midgard, * even when those visits take place two years and almost 5,000 miles apart. Narrow focus on a few characters is a perfectly valid entry point into a dense mythology (could you imagine what Star Wars would be like if we didn’t care what happened to anyone?), but I can’t help but feel as though it’s an overcorrection. Now that we understand how this universe works, the later movies should really give us a chance to see more of it and understand the kinds of threats that are out there.

 * The name Thor and his brethren call Earth 

Speaking of threats, how the Hel have we not talked about Loki yet?

As Thor’s adopted brother and the series’ main antagonist, Asgard’s resident trickster god has become, in many ways, the new lifeblood of the MCU. This popularity comes in no small part from Tom Hiddleston’s amazing performance, but I would be quick to argue that it also comes from Loki’s compelling psychological depth, something he possesses far more of than any other Marvel Studios villain. To sum things up as best I can, Loki was raised by his adopted father Odin to want nothing more than to be king, only to be told when the time came that he can’t actually be one. When Loki later finds out that he is the biological son of a different king entirely, he blames Odin for all his troubles, and what makes him such a great villain is that he kind of has a point. Sure, he’s dealing with it in entirely the wrong way, but we can sympathize with Loki’s plight, something that elevates his character to another plane entirely. More than that, because he isn’t simply evil for evil’s sake, he has varied and distinct relationships with lots of different characters: genuine love for his mother, sheer hatred of his father, begrudging respect – and maybe even affection – for his brother Thor. These people have been a family unit for going on 3000 years now, and those kinds of bonds aren’t easily broken.

So, yeah. Loki’s great. And it’s a good thing, too, because the other Thor villains thus far have really struggled to live up to their full potential, making it even harder for the series to achieve the saga-like feel it’s going for. The secondary villain of Thor, for instance, is The Destroyer, an enemy that the comic-book version of Thor has yet to fight without almost dying, but which fails to carry the necessary weight on film due to its portrayal as nothing more than some sort of mindless Asgardian security guard. Because it only appears in one shot before being sent to kill our hero, the viewer is given no reliable gauge as to what it’s capable of, and I, at least, found myself struggling to understand why Thor and pals were having such a hard time.

The main villain of The Dark World, on the other hand, is Malekith the Accursed, and he comes with an entirely different set of problems. Unlike Loki, whose goals pretty much begin and end with ascending to the throne of Asgard, Malekith wants to return the Nine Realms to a primordial state of darkness, in which his people, the Dark Elves, can once again thrive. I’m going to assume, in the absence of any other information, that being enshrouded in darkness equates to complete destruction for anyone who isn't a Dark Elf, and that in turn means that the film’s stakes shoot up so high that they actually roll back around to zero. After all, narrative rules dictate that someone like Loki or the Iron Monger could emerge victorious, unlikely as it may be, because their victory would have reasonably finite consequences. Malekith, on the other hand, can’t possibly win, because Marvel Studios kind of needs to keep more than one of the Nine Realms around if they’re going to go on making movies.

 For what it’s worth, I think The Dark World’s secondary villain, Kurse, was used to optimal effect, and I love his character design.  –Ed. 

So what’s next for the god of thunder?

What If?

I’m honestly not the biggest fan of Thor, which means I don’t have the best grasp of where the character ought to go from here. But honestly, why put a limit on it? Why can’t we have a movie where Thor goes everywhere? Yes, yes, I know that sending your hero on a far-reaching quest is pretty much the most hackneyed fantasy trope imaginable, but darn it all, when you have a playground as big as the Nine Realms at your disposal, I want you to USE it! There are still four realms out there that we haven’t seen at all! Of course, with Thor now permanently residing on Earth, putting him back in space means jumping through more narrative hoops than ever.

Getting a bit more specific, any future Thor movie will obviously have to deal with the fallout from the second film’s cliffhanger ending, and I’m sure that will be at least half of Thor 3’s finished product. I do worry, though, that devoting an entire film to that conflict will feel like a rehash of the first Thor, mostly because that’s exactly what it would be. To add a little more variety to the mix, we should turn our attention to the franchise’s other ticking clock: Jane Foster.

Up to this point, Jane Foster has been an essential part of both the Thor franchise and the personal development of Thor himself. In fact, she provides the inciting incident that causes the entire second movie to happen (and then becomes basically a human MacGuffin for the next 80 minutes). Natalie Portman, who has played Jane in both films, appears to be losing interest in the role, but for Thor to simply let her go at this point would be a complete betrayal of his character. This means that Marvel will need to either recast the part – something they certainly aren’t above doing – or find a way to justify writing her out in the next film.

If I had to craft a movie with all of those goals in mind – and I really am just spitballing here – I might open with some sort of cliffhanger-related exploit that eventually leads to Jane’s death. From there, Thor would need to journey through the Nine Realms into Hel, thus reclaiming her soul. Once she was saved and back on Earth, Thor would realize that his presence serves only as a danger to her, and tearfully let her go.

I understand that there are a number of terrible things about that scenario: Jane getting ‘Fridged,’ the logical questions of why she would go to Asgardian Hel, the fact that it would provide a way to cheat death in all future Marvel movies, the fact that it pretty much rips off Disney’s Hercules… the list goes on. I never said it would be perfect. Hell, I came up with it in ten minutes. But the very least, it’s a suitably epic story that harkens back to old mythology and has a personal motivation at its core. That’s something to shoot for.

Look, ignoring all of that previous stuff, lf I get nothing else out of the next Thor film, the one thing I do want to see is a better use of the character’s supporting cast. Because, truth be told, the guy has got a pretty great one! Beta Ray Bill would be amazing, but I would gladly settle for more of Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. To me, they’re super interesting, and they’ve been major supporting players in both movies so far, but their characters remain thinly sketched at best. In fact, now that I think of it, their lack of development might be my biggest gripe with the current state of the franchise.

So yeah, if there’s one message I’d like to leave you with, I guess that’s it: Needs more Volstagg.

Every movie could use more Volstagg.

 In Two Weeks: Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American way? 

The Credible Hulk, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Explode With Rage

Every week during the Summer of Superheroes, SuperMike Matthews breaks down the ins and outs of a current superhero franchise. Spoilers may follow, so read at your own risk.               

                                                       

This week: THE INCREDIBLE HULK! 

At the risk of sounding a bit opinionated, Marvel Studios is on fire right now.

Sure, I say that because I love their movies, but even if I were to speak objectively, it’s still true; these are people who, during the 2012-13 year, put out two of the highest grossing films of all time, back to back, and decided to term that ‘a good start.’ If the 2014 iteration of Marvel Studios was a superhero, it would be the Human Torch. Or Ghost Rider from the neck up.

'Scuse me. Pardon me. Coming through.

Iron Man, Captain America and Thor have all proven successful, with more films on the way from the latter two. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has picked up a second season on ABC, and several other connecting franchises and TV series will be launched over the next few years. When you get down to it, there’s really only one corner of the MCU that’s struggling, and ironically enough, that corner happens to be huge, green, and indestructible.

It’s fair to say that the Hulk is one of Marvel’s most recognizable characters; in terms of pure brand awareness, he’s probably second only to Spider-Man, especially before the MCU came into being. In fact, beginning in the late 70’s, the Hulk was the subject of a successful television series that starred Lou Ferrigno. * Given all of that, it’s somewhat surprising that the big guy has had such a hard time finding his footing on film: both 2003’s Hulk and Marvel Studios’ 2008 reboot The Incredible Hulk were met with only vaguely positive reception, and the latter stands as the only Marvel Studios film to date without a planned sequel. Why is that, you ask? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.

 * Ferrigno’s been playing the Green Goliath on and off ever since, doing voice work all the way through to 2012’s The Avengers! 

One completely legitimate reason for the studio’s hesitance has to do with a shortage of workable Hulk-centric conflicts to draw from. After all, it’s pretty hard for a film to achieve good dramatic stakes when its main character is not only the strongest thing on the planet, but also literally invincible. True, there are actually a surprising number of Hulk villains out there, but there have also been a lot of different versions of the Hulk, at varying levels of strength and intelligence, that make his fights against those villains interesting. For the MCU’s current Hulk, whose three main settings are ‘Smash everything,’ ‘Smash the bad thing,’ and ‘Vague concern for the well-being of Betty Ross/Iron Man,’ there are really only three conflicts that can provide him with a true challenge. In order of significance, those are:

Hulk vs. His Alter-Ego, Bruce Banner

Hulk vs. The Army

Hulk vs. Something That Can Punch As Hard As He Can

I toyed with the idea of adding ‘Someone Who Can Outsmart Him’ to that list, but with all due respect to Mr. Green, that isn’t exactly a tall order. And honestly, what’s your goal in that situation, to trap him? That cage had better be made of either Vibranium or adamantium, pal. Although… now that I say it out loud, those both sound like extremely workable plans.

Sorry. Nerded out there for a second.

The point is, The Incredible Hulk already used all three of the conflicts I listed above – and largely resolved the first two – leaving any future Hulk project at a bit of a narrative dead end. And while the bigwigs at Marvel seem to have picked up on that, delaying Hulk’s next solo movie for at least another three years, there is still hope for the future.

 Two Hulk villains definitely worth a brief mention: The Abomination and The Leader. Both appeared in The Incredible Hulk. One was defeated, taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and cryogenically frozen. The other got as far as the end of his origin story before disappearing from MCU continuity for going on 6 years now. Hopefully we’ll see them both again. 

In The Avengers, we were finally presented with a version of Bruce Banner that was extremely popular among audiences, leading many to believe that, while the character can work well as part of an ensemble, he simply isn’t interesting enough to carry his own film. Others have suggested that Hulk’s next solo movie use a story like “Planet Hulk,” which gives the big guy a more focused objective and allows him to smash as much as he wants without getting into trouble. Both camps exhibit an understanding of narrative theory that I appreciate, but in my mind, neither has stumbled upon the right solution. (Also, Planet Hulk is basically John Carter, but with the Hulk instead of John Carter. So… maybe not the best idea.)

No, The Avengers’ Hulk was so successful because it was the first film to show a real understanding of how to make an audience empathize with the character. To paraphrase the words of Joss Whedon, who A) knows a lot more about comic books than me, B) knows a lot more about storytelling than me, and C) actually co-wrote The Avengers: Hulk movies are werewolf movies. And werewolves, as I think we can all agree, are rather unpleasant things to be around. There are a lot of possible responses to seeing man turn into a werewolf, but cheering in excitement isn’t usually one of them.

If it is, you're probably watching Teen Wolf. In which case… all right.

All the same, that sense of excitement tends to be our reaction whenever Hulk shows up on screen. I know I’m guilty of it. And really, why not? We all want to see him smash, don’t we? Hell, it’s pretty much the only thing we want from him. But therein lies the problem. Hulk wants to smash, yes, and we want to see him smash. But poor Bruce Banner? What he wants, more than anything in the world, is to not be the Hulk again. Just this once, he wants to stay at home and eat Chinese food and not decimate the infrastructure of a major American city for the umpteenth time. We may be able to understand that desire – and I should hope that we do – but it doesn’t change the fact that Dr. Banner, as a protagonist, is actively working to prevent what the audience has paid to see, and that kind of conflict of interest makes it awfully hard for us to invest in the character.

“Planet Hulk” is such a popular suggestion for exactly that reason, as it seemingly offers a story in which Banner and Hulk are working in unison. In truth, it’s just a story in which the Hulk shoves Banner out of the way for an extended period of time, and to do that would be a major disservice to Mark Ruffalo, who has done a fantastic job in the role so far. If you ask me (and I realize that you didn’t), it would be much more worthwhile for Marvel to double down on the Hulk’s mild-mannered other half, and start placing him in situations where Hulking out would indisputably be a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

As much as Ed Norton’s Bruce Banner may complain about his condition – and again, justifiably so – a closer look at The Incredible Hulk reveals that all three of the film’s Hulk-outs ultimately serve to further Banner’s (admittedly narrow) goals: namely, not-death and escape from the people who are out to get him. That fact might make the character a bit easier to market to the public, but it also works against good drama by underscoring our perception of the Hulk as a helpful force, and Banner as the buzzkill that’s trying to get rid of it. Contrast that with The Avengers, a film that works to bring us in line with its characters by immediately teaching us to see the doctor as a potential threat, and an extremely dangerous one at that. Sure enough, Banner’s first Hulk-out in that film, on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, couldn’t possibly come at a worse time for our heroes, and the early signs of his transformation bring nothing but fear for the safety of everyone involved. If Marvel really wants to make good use of the character, that fear should be our reaction to his transformations at least half of the time. Granted, the Helicarrier sequence eventually turns into a prolonged fight between Mr. Green and Thor – a gift from the cinematic gods that mankind never knew it needed – but narratively speaking, the Hulk’s presence onboard that ship only serves to make an already bad situation even worse. Banner doesn’t want it to happen, his fellow Avengers definitely don’t want it to happen, and for once, we don’t want it to happen either. That’s empathy. It’s what good movies are based on, and it’s what The Avengers was finally able to achieve in regard to this character.

Of course, the Hulk also deserves the chance to be a force for good, and of course, Joss Whedon understands that. That’s why, when the Jade Giant is let loose at the end of The Avengers, the transformation is completely intentional on Banner’s part. The chaos that ensues is one of the best parts of the movie, and if it seems even more awesome than usual, that because, on a subconscious level, our protagonist has finally given us permission to enjoy it. You’d never realize it sitting in the theater, but that one little change makes all the difference. You might say the final battle of The Incredible Hulk operates on a similar level, but even there, Banner is clearly reluctant about the idea of Hulking out, and he explicitly states that he won’t be controlling his other half, simply ‘aiming it.’ The Avengers takes that cautious optimism to the next level, and opens up new possibilities for the character by clearly distinguishing between the ‘good’ Hulk, that Banner turns into on purpose, and the ‘bad’ Hulk, who comes out whether Banner likes it or not. With both of those figures coexisting in Banner’s mind, future Hulk movies just got a lot more interesting.

So… what’s next for the Hulk?

What If?

Despite the Hulk’s narrative limitations, he is, at the end of the day, a two-for-one deal, and it turns out that Bruce Banner is an extremely versatile character, one that could easily take part in any number of different plots, simply by nature of being one of the smartest people on the planet. * The Hulk TV series, for instance, gave us a Banner who couldn’t seem to go a week without finding some sort of use for his vast scientific knowledge, and more importantly, it ran for five years without using so much as a single supervillain. That’s because the show was never about smashing; it was about Banner, his emotional troubles, and the people he met and tried to help along his never-ending journey. Those people didn’t know he was the Hulk, and even if Banner’s condition often contributed to his reason for being there, it rarely factored into the problem he ended up having to solve. 

* He is, by the way. A lot of people forget that.

What kinds of problems might the MCU Banner have to solve? Well, there’s already one idea floating around, suggested by none other than Mark Ruffalo himself. Apparently, the next foe the actor wants Joe Fixit to tackle is… environmental awareness?

To be fair, he was the first Marvel character to ‘go green.’

See, Ruffalo is a big time environmental crusader (working closely with the charity Water Defense) and he apparently wants Banner to follow in his footsteps. If your first reaction to that is a patronizing smile and a murmur of “That’s nice, Mark,” know that you aren’t alone. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s hardly the worst idea. Infiltrating some sort of shady corporate scheme is a well the TV series went to quite often, and who’s to say that Dr. Bruce Banner wouldn’t have a bone to pick with someone like the Roxxon Oil Corporation? Especially if they got involved with fracking or something. An espionage plot would also be a great way to keep the stakes high, since nothing blows a person’s cover quite like turning into a green, 12-foot-tall rage monster. 

And even if he did happen to lose his temper in the midst of his social crusading… well, at least he’d be laying the smash down on people who kind of deserve it.

Next Week: We Journey Into Mystery!

(Now seems as good a time as any to throw in a plug for Film Crit Hulk over at Badass Digest. He’s one of my favorite film columnists, and the way he approaches his column was a huge inspiration in how I approach this blog. He also, as I learned while looking up photos for this recently finished post, did his own write-up on this exact concept. It’s probably a lot better than mine, and it’s not the first time it’s happened, either. Check him out!)

A Stark Difference

Each week during the Summer of Superheroes, SuperMike Matthews breaks down the ins and outs of a current superhero franchise. Spoilers may follow, so read at your own risk.    

                                                               

This week: THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN! 

First, some history and a disclaimer. 

The first superhero to make it to the big screen was obviously not Iron Man, but Superman, as it should be. (The year that it happened, 1951, is a bit more surprising.) Following Supes was Batman, and coming in a distant third was, uh… Swamp Thing.

Which is weird. 

Skipping ahead to this century, the current ubiquity of superhero movies began with Brian Singer’s X-Men series, a franchise that is still going strong after 14 years and 7 films, with no end in sight. Our discussion should really start there, especially since the latest X-Men just came out two weeks ago, but it won’t, because in my opinion, any worthwhile discussion of the X-Men is hardly entry-level stuff. The various backstories and relationships that fill their corner of the Marvel universe can get pretty confusing, even for me – which is saying something, as you’ll soon realize. An intelligent analysis of the X-Men franchise is therefore left as an exercise for the reader.

Iron Man, by contrast, is a recent and extremely accessible starting point, which makes sense, since that was kind of the whole idea behind the movie in the first place.

Some time in 2004, the folks at Marvel Studios got it into their head that they wanted to start making their own movies, instead of just selling away film rights like they’d done in the past. Even though the rights to their most famous properties – Spider-Man, X-Men, The Fantastic Four – were no longer theirs at that point, the characters that they did have were more than enough for what they had in mind. Beginning with Iron Man, and continuing over the next few years, Marvel launched multiple, distinct franchises, all of which take place within a single shared universe: Earth-199999, a.k.a. the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Each series of films tells its own story, but the various films also have the potential to share characters, locations, and backstory with one another. It’s an ambitious idea, and it’s actually very intuitive and satisfying, once you can wrap your head around what is and isn’t part of it.

As of May 16, 2015, the MCU includes: 

• All Iron Man movies 
• The 2008 Hulk movie (It does NOT include the 2003 one) 
• All post-1990 Captain America movies 
• Both Thor movies 
• Both Avengers films
• Guardians of the Galaxy 
• The ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter
• The Netflix series Daredevil 

Any other comic-based film or TV show you might see, even if it opens with the Marvel logo, falls outside this continuity. 

Before we can talk about any of that, though, we have to look at the individual pieces, and the first of those is Iron Man.

Important as he may be in the mainstream Marvel comics universe, * Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, wasn’t exactly a well-known character when his first film came out in 2008. I, for one, will admit that I had no idea who the guy was when I went to see it. (Again, this will surprise you very soon.) And yet, the movie was a smash hit that turned out to be the perfect foundation for Marvel’s future plans, in no small part because it dared to make its themes more important than smash-boom action.

 * Earth-616, if you were wondering. 

The character of Tony Stark/Iron Man dates all the way back to 1963, when Stan Lee created him as a vehicle to explore the day’s then-topical Cold War themes, specifically the role that American capitalism played in the fight against Communism. The general beats of his origin story have remained consistent over the years * but in order to keep the character topical, the country in which it all happened was eventually retconned (retroactively changed) to Afghanistan, rather than the original Vietnam. Now, instead of fighting Communists, Iron Man fights terrorists. Well… not all the time. Or even very often, really. But the point is that the zeitgeist is in there, and his film counterpart, at least, makes the most of that.

* As seen in Tales of Suspense #39: On a visit to a foreign country, billionaire weapons manufacturer Tony Stark was abducted by the enemy, who tried to force him to construct a WMD on their behalf. Much to their surprise, Stark instead used their materials to construct a robotic suit of armor, allowing him to defeat his captors and escape! 

In fact, two out of the four movies Iron Man has appeared in – and 2/3 of the films that he’s starred in alone – feature terrorists as either primary or secondary villains. Take a second to consider that. That’s a really high percentage for a superhero franchise, guys. It makes sense, of course: the narrower scope of the MCU means there are fewer supervillains to fight, and I also imagine that any superhero that gets kidnapped by terrorists isn’t going to just walk away from that without some sort of vendetta. Sure, the movies don’t actually concern themselves all that much with the intricacies of real-world politics. The strongest stance they can be said to take is: “Terrorism is bad, and it would probably be in our best interest if we stopped accidentally and/or intentionally facilitating it.” But the fact that that second clause is in there at all means Iron Man put a lot more thought into the issue than most depictions of big-screen terrorism. That’s worth something.

I'm looking at you, Zero Dark Thirty! Unless I'm not. I haven't seen it. It might be fine.

So yeah, Iron Man has more on its mind than just being a superhero movie. Most of Marvel’s movies do, for that matter. Which is good, because that method – rejecting the superhero genre in favor of genre films that star superheroes – slows the onset of superhero fatigue, a phenomenon that could really put a damper on Marvel’s plans to keep building up the MCU through at least 2028.

Oh, did I mention that they were planning on doing that? Because they totally are. Me, I’m not even confident that human civilization will last that long, but hey, more power to them. Best laid plans of mice and all that.

The thing you have to understand about the MCU is that, even though it’s a shared universe, it isn’t necessarily one that’s used to seeing superheroes run around doing… whatever it is they do. Justice, I guess. The sudden emergence of these superhumans is an earth-shattering development, and if the audience is going to properly share that headspace, things had to start out kind of small, with a premise that was relatively grounded. Iron Man was a smart choice in that regard. True, a genius billionaire flying around in his weaponized metal suit is still a bit out there, but it’s a lot more believable than a man who transforms into an unstoppable monster when he gets angry. Or an alien so old and powerful that the Vikings mistook him for a god. Or a guy with a shield who can, like, run really fast.

Hey… maybe we should have led with that one.

The entire MCU could have fallen apart immediately if Iron Man wasn’t a success. And Iron Man probably wouldn’t have been a success if we didn’t have a reason to care about the man inside the suit. Fortunately, Marvel recognized the potential in a character like Tony Stark, and knew how to take advantage of it; unlike some superheroes, Tony has a clear and ongoing character arc that spans all four of the movies he’s been in.

The first thing anyone will realize about Tony Stark is that, quite simply, he’s a douche. He’s an extremely charismatic and likable douche, but he’s a douche all the same. I would even argue that the continued interest in the Iron Man films comes mainly from the audience’s desire to keep on watching as this douche very gradually becomes… less of a douche.

I said ‘very gradually’ just then, but in fairness to Mr. Stark, the entire first movie actually comprises a pretty massive change in his ideology. That’s all the film really is, when you get down to it. Yes, the obligatory suit-on-suit battle is there, taking up maybe ten or fifteen minutes at the end, but the core conflict of the story is that of a man trying to fundamentally reinvent himself in the wake of a tragedy – albeit in a way that’s a bit more on-the-nose than most attempts.

The Tony Stark that we meet at the beginning of Iron Man isn’t exactly a bad person, he just doesn’t feel like dedicating himself to the good of the world. He’s not lazy, and he takes full advantage of his genius intellect… when it benefits him. He is, in that sense, unabashedly self-centered and narcissistic. He makes weapons, he sells weapons, he gets paid, and he gets to be famous. That’s good enough for him.

But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked after Tony was kidnapped. The jagged piece of shrapnel in his chest, inches from his heart and held in place by nothing more than a homemade electromagnet? That’s a huge wake-up call in regard to his mortality. The sacrifice of fellow scientist Ho Yinsen during Tony’s escape? Now he has to consider just how much his own life is worth. And the fact that Tony’s Humvee was blown up with Stark Industries weaponry? Well, that’s gonna make a guy take a good hard look at what exactly his company has really been up to lately.

The first thing Tony does after arriving back home is to shut down Stark Industries’ weapons division, rebranding the company as a manufacturer of clean energy. Then, after he turns his prototype armor into a fully functioning suit, he flies back to Afghanistan and shows those Ten Rings sons of bitches what for. In short, Tony feels responsible now, something you never could have said about his old self, and it’s a good look for him. Interestingly, we’re about halfway through the movie at this point, if not farther, and as the more astute of you may have noticed, a supervillain has yet to emerge.

Iron Man’s rogues gallery is not a particularly distinguished one, even within the comic book world. With one notable exception, Tony’s foes are mostly just people in other suits like his, which… you know, is fine. It’s not like the films shied away from that angle at all. But they can’t really stand on their own, either, something that ultimately worked to the films’ benefit. Because none of these guys are particularly iconic, the writers were able to tweak their identities to fit the exact stories they wanted to tell. It’s a good lesson for superhero films in general: don’t pick the ‘best’ villain, pick the right villain. After all, if you start with the archenemy, where are you going to go from there?

The answer, apparently, is "multiple villains at once," and no one needs that. 

The villain the writers chose in this instance was Tony’s business partner, Obadiah Stane. * Put simply, he wants Tony dead so that he can run the company himself, and ends up building a knock-off version of Tony’s suit to fight him with and then sell en masse. It’s a simple backstory that flows naturally into what’s going on with Tony, to the point where you’d think Obie was always a crucial part of Iron Man’s origin. As it happens, he’s not; he was just rewritten for the film to be thematically relevant. (Take note, Spider-Man writers!)

 * a.k.a. The Iron Monger! 

At the end of the first film, in a crucial moment, Tony declares to the world that, yes, he is Iron Man (cue Black Sabbath), something it took his comic-book counterpart almost 40 years to do. By throwing away his secret identity immediately, this Tony Stark places himself in an entirely different category of superhero: the kind that has no intention of living a double life. This is who Tony is now, for better or for worse, and he has no choice but to live up to his new reputation in everything he does.

Following that train of thought, Iron Man 2 starts with Tony on top of the world. For the last, let’s say, two years, he’s been single-handedly preventing large-scale conflicts all around the globe, and – as he says in the film’s opening – there’s not a person alive who can go toe to toe with him on his best day. Of course, that means that in the interest of drama, it becomes the movie’s job to pull Tony down from that peak, so that his next ‘best day’ ends up being a long way off. Sure enough, it’s revealed right away that the chestpiece Tony built to keep the deadly shrapnel out of his heart is also slowly poisoning him, and any substantial change to its design would probably only kill him faster. It’s the one problem that Tony’s bravado and brainpower alone can’t solve, meaning if he wants to survive, he needs to give up the big-shot act and learn to accept help: from clandestine government agency S.H.I.E.L.D., from his best friend Rhodey, and even from his dead father. In turn, by learning to be more of a team player, it opens up the door for Tony to join the Avengers in his next appearance.

That’s how it works in theory, anyway. The finished product reads more as if the writers threw a bunch of stuff at the wall, saw what stuck, and then threw some more stuff for good measure. None of it is nearly as bad as you may have heard, but I have to admit that it isn’t quite cohesive. For instance, some scenes play around with ideas from the comics’ famous “Demon in a Bottle” storyline, which addressed Tony’s latent alcoholism, and they actually work really well, since at this point in the films, Tony is still the type of guy who would use his imminent death as an excuse to double down on self-destructive behavior. The issue is that none of Tony’s internal conflict – and I really mean none – continues into the second half of the movie. Instead, everything just kind of stops, stagnates for a bit, and then picks up again in an entirely different gear.

When Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., abruptly arrives halfway through the film, there’s no real attempt made to orient the viewer as to who he is or why he’s there. He simply scolds Tony for being naughty, instantly negates the effects of his blood poisoning, drops some hints about an upcoming Thor movie, and takes off, leaving behind a box containing information to help Tony fix his chestpiece. It’s deus ex machina at its finest, literally placing the main character under house arrest until his problems are solved and he’s ready to fight the bad guys again. That kind of story might play fine in a comic book universe, where every detail has an in-depth origin hidden somewhere. But in a film franchise centered around one man, all the S.H.I.E.L.D. scenes do is rob Tony of his agency at a time that should have been a major turning point in the trilogy.

The second Iron Man is also troubled by the fact that its villain isn’t thematically connected to Tony’s arc the way Obie was, a development that’s especially frustrating because he totally could have been. Ivan Vanko is initially presented as a kind of Bizarro Tony Stark: he’s the son of Anton Vanko, a Russian physicist who helped Tony’s father Howard create his revolutionary arc reactor technology*. In Ivan’s mind, Howard unfairly took all the credit for his father’s design, and now he’s out for revenge. Howard Stark was a good man, but certainly had his flaws – the movies present him as equal parts Howard Hughes and Walt Disney – so it’s entirely possible that he could have screwed over a partner in the past. If he had, it would have given Ivan some sympathetic shading, and it could have been a motive for Tony to consider the repercussions of his own lone wolf mentality. But the film throws that out as well when Nick Fury says that no, actually, the Vanko family are a bunch of dicks, and they deserve every bad thing that happens to them. It’s all a bit of a waste, really.

 * In the comics, Anton Vanko was the name of the first Crimson Dynamo, the USSR's answer to Iron Man who was both one of Tony Stark's first foes and his eventual ally. Ivan is an original character created for the movie, but his supervillain persona Whiplash has been around for quite a while. 

Following Iron Man 2, we next see Tony in The Avengers. The main thing you need to know about that right now is that it ends with Iron Man flying a nuke through a wormhole into space to destroy an alien mothership, and then almost dying.

Spoiler Alert

When Tony finally gets a good look at that mothership, it’s a pretty powerful moment. You can jut feel his entire worldview crumbling around him. Not only is there so much more to the universe than he ever could have imagined, it turns out there are things out there he wouldn’t stand a chance against, even if it was his best day. Even during a moment of total victory, he realizes how insignificant he really is.

So hold that in your mind.

Iron Man 3 is probably the most controversial film in the MCU, at least from a comic-book purist’s perspective. I’m not a comic-book purist, and as I’ve said before, * my philosophy towards adaptation is, generally speaking, “do what you have to.” Even so, I do understand where the film’s detractors are coming from.

 * In Mike Overthinks Movies #5! 

The third Iron Man was advertised as the film that would finally pit Tony Stark against his long-time archnemesis from the comics, the Mandarin. As a warlord in possession of ten mystical rings of power, depictions of the character over the years had pinged back and forth from ‘magical, Chinese Lex Luthor’ to ‘borderline cultural stereotype.’ That’s why Iron Man 3’s Mandarin, presented as a ruthless, multi-national terrorist, was something to really get excited over. It’s also why fans were understandably upset when – seriously, Spoiler Alert – he turned out to be an actor hired by the real villain as part of his plan to monetize the war on terror. (I promise it all makes more sense than it seems to after the first viewing.)

It’s obvious why a twist like that would bother people. To put it very loosely, it was kind of like going to see The Dark Knight, only to have the Joker wipe off his makeup halfway through the movie and admit that he’s been taking orders from the Penny Plunderer the whole time.

Except not nearly as awesome as that would have been.

I was a little upset myself, until I sat down and thought about it for a while, at which point I realized that Iron Man 3 actually represents the epitome of the franchise’s main conflict. Both of the previous films featured businessmen willing to sell their potentially good technology to bad people for monetary reasons, but this one takes the idea to a whole new level by having its businessman actively create those bad people himself, for no other reason than to raise demand for the technology he’s selling. It’s the exact opposite of everything that Tony Stark – who’s spent years fighting to keep the Iron Man suit out of any hands but his own – stands for.

“But SuperMike,” you ask, “what about Tony’s internal struggle? Do the villains have some sort of thematic resonance with it?”

That’s a great question, reader, and as luck would have it, the villains this time around can claim the maximum number of bonus points in that regard. Iron Man 3 is very loosely based on the comics’ “Extremis” storyline, named after a specialized technovirus that uses nanomachines to give people superpowers. The film’s main villain, Aldrich Killian, is the creator of this virus, and he dreams of a world in which all people can be ‘upgraded’ and made better with these abilities. Conversely to that, we talked last week about how the true value of a superhero comes not from their power set, but from their personality, a concept that the film really takes to heart, even if it takes its hero a while to realize it.

See, following the events of The Avengers, Tony’s been having a bit of a hard time. The things he saw in that wormhole have really left their mark on him, giving him nightmares when he sleeps and panic attacks when he’s awake. The only time he feels truly secure anymore is when he’s in one of his suits, and as a result, he’s been making lots – and I mean lots – of suits. At the end of The Avengers, Tony is wearing his Mark VII armor. At the start of Iron Man 3, he’s working on the Mark XLII. That’s 36 new suits in about a year. He’s got one for every occasion, because he’s overtaken by need to be prepared for anything, and that focus has taken a toll on the other parts of his life. Naturally, then, as the rules of drama demand, Tony ends the film’s first act stranded in the middle of the country, far away from all his resources, with only a badly malfunctioning prototype for support. It would be a pretty bad situation for anyone, but for Tony at this point in his life, it’s a worst-case scenario. And yet, by being forced to act on his own, without excessive reliance on his suits, he’s able to let them go.

In fact, by the end of the movie, Tony makes a clean break from the past. He destroys every last one of his suits, and gets the shrapnel taken out of his chest while he’s at it. (I don’t know why he couldn’t have done that in the first place, but whatever.) He knows now that he doesn’t need the suits to do right by those close to him, or even to be a hero in the first place. It’s an unorthodox ending that values catharsis and emotional truth over a continuing franchise, and I have to give the writers a tremendous amount of credit for going with it. It’s also notable for being the polar opposite of the end of the Extremis story in the comics, in which Tony not only keeps and powers up his suit, but actually gets a new one that is completely synthesized with his body and stored in the hollow spaces of his bones.

Which is weird.

So what’s next for Tony Stark? I can’t say for sure, but considering all the bragging I did last week about my screenplay, I can at least guess.

What If?

Gun to my head, I don’t think Tony’s retirement is going to be anything close to permanent. I do think he was serious about trying to keep out of the suits for a while, but his hero complex isn’t going to let him sit around and do nothing, if only because Robert Downey Jr. is still under contract for two more films with Marvel. Concept art for the next of those films, Avengers: Age of Ultron, shows the Hulk doing battle with Stark’s specialty Hulkbuster armor, and while it’s true that that armor is specially designed to fight the Hulk, Mr. Green can still pack a punch. I wouldn’t be surprised if that little skirmish is the straw that breaks the camel’s back – or Tony’s back, for that matter. If he can’t go into the field himself, Tony may then focus his efforts on improving the remote functionality that the suits in IM3 showed off, turning them into fully autonomous drone pilots. When you factor in the fact that the Ultron of the movie’s title is a killer robot powered by a rogue A.I., I for one think my odds of being close to right on that are pretty good.

A more out-there but still plausible prediction is that Tony might actually die over the course of Avengers 2. After all, the other film he’s on contract for, Avengers 3, doesn’t come out until 2018, so with all that missing time in between, he could very well just appear in flashbacks or as a recording. More importantly, killing him off would indicate a lot of confidence on the studio’s part, sending a message to viewers that their success isn’t based on star power alone.

Plus, Joss Whedon’s writing it, and that dude kills beloved characters like a kid stomps on ants.

 Next Week: You’ll believe a man can Smash!