Where Marvel could have truly transcended its comic book origins?

( For non-comic book movie goers this is the all powerful Thanos)

It is pretty clear now that The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the rest of the marvel films preceding it are a success because of their comic book origins. It also has the help of blockbuster material with its outrageous action sequences involving super powered individuals. Despite this it still feels hollow or empty in a lot of places. This  emptiness is as a result of its comic book origins. The comic book origins have been elevated to an esoteric level in some cases and one cannot follow what is going on in the marvel canon now unless you actually read the comic books in depth.  The quantity on display in the form of Tv Spin offs explain nothing and act as retreads in order to get ordinary humans involved. Here is looking at you Agents of Shield. These spin offs include more back story from a descriptive standpoint but still don’t make it clear what the basis for the whole enterprise is apart from comic book adaptations.  The characters only jump out at you because they are famous comic book heroes or villains. Marvel missed the boat which could have made their series of comic book adaptations more meaningful to non-comic book movie goers. There is nothing wrong with comic book adaptations but if that is all there is to the phases then it only ends up being descriptive, filler material where people react because these are supposedly famous comic book personas. Is the Antman film, which should be released later this year, just one to showcase another comic book character? If so why was he not involved with the avengers much earlier especially as he is an important member of the team in the comic books? Antman is also the real creator of Ultron and so featuring him this late can only be a means for showcasing the character. How many people really bought Antman comic books?  What does Antman represent and why should I spend big money to watch a movie about him apart from the interesting powers he has on display? Antman is famous for creating Ultron and being a founding member of the avengers but it seems that role has shifted to captain america and tony stark.  What purpose can he really serve coming in so late especially if the strength of marvel films is their ability to adapt straight from the comic books.

In any case this upcoming film is just one example of why Marvel missed the boat. I am here to suggest why Marvel could have gotten more out of its rich source material and not dwell on its mistakes. The marvel universe is rich with characters, storylines and artwork. I am not here challenging marvel as a DC fan. When I collected comic books I bought from DC and Marvel although I always felt that DC had the better story lines and marvel had the most action. It seems to be playing out in the film world as well. In any case I feel that marvel could have been more transcendent if it followed the approach of other famous blockbusters that have endeared themselves to people across the world. These great blockbusters have endeared themselves to people across the world not just because of their source material but because the themes they dealt with resonate with most people. Marvel is now relying primarily on the amount of comic book characters they can bring to screen but it is still not clear what they represent for everyone. When I was watching The Age of Ultron they started throwing themes like evolution and legacy issues around. This was not enough because it still seemed to be limited to that film. Making it up as they go.

In any case if they followed the path of great blockbusters like Star Wars (1977-83), The Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight Trilogy  they could have been transcendent. What made these blockbusters transcendent and not just money making machines, which they are or were, was their ability to set up an objective that most people can relate to. In Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings the objective was to defeat a tyrant or those that held absolute power. In The Dark Knight Trilogy the objective was about taming the monster of crime that plagued the city of Gotham. One reason these blockbusters were able to set up their objectives was that they had a significant introductory sequence that set up the events to follow. Star Wars was more brief with the booming John Williams score playing as the narrative begins with the words in the opening crawl describing events that are occurring or about to occur, emerging from the bottom of the screen and moving out into the distance. That is all that was required to understand what the objectives were likely to be. Remember you are dealing with a fictional world which can be considered preposterous in some quarters because it has no bearing with our daily reality. What does resonate are issues we deal with or witness or read about every day. That is what makes these preposterous fictional worlds resonate.   You get the terms like empire and rebel resistance or the return of the Jedi, the leaders of the good forces who have been exiled. In The Lord of the Rings there were substantial introductory scenes that made you understand about the one ring of power and why its position in the world remained so formidable and why it should be destroyed in order for the world of men to be free. The marvel films don’t have much in terms of an overall objective and the overall objective will only be clear when they fight Thanos in The Infinity Wars. My point is that this could have been set up better from The Avengers (2012). This did not have to be the case with the earlier films in phase 1 but The Avengers could have set everything up much better. The epic Thanos reveal at the end of The Avengers did not do much if you didn’t know who Thanos is. This is made clear at the end of The Age of Ultron when thanos is again revealed but the effect is not there. So in the end Marvel is just building up to a confrontation with this individual that non-comic book film goers know nothing about. Who is this alien? How many film goers are going to do their research especially the non-comic book fans?

Well here is how marvel could have set up everything in my opinion at the beginning of  The Avengers. In that very brief opening scene which is more mysterious than revealing they could have some narrator, yet to be revealed, that would set up the entire struggle. Instead of making it a mystery they could have an opening sequence speaking about the six gems that represent the great power of the universe. There is one individual, a great lord named thanos,  who desires those gems in order to please death by extinguishing all life in the universe and be the supreme leader over all with nothing standing in his way. There are still forces that are ready to fight in the name of freedom and prevent this great evil lord from having his way. Then they could have cut to his servant talking about the universe being his once they get rid of earth etc. In this case you would not have needed a flurry of blue energy. All you would have is the servant looking at the chair which everyone will know to be  Thanos and then the servant would be talking about sending Loki and then the film could have started where it did.  Just a brief general intro would have set up the marvel films to follow very nicely. This is made clear when you watch The Guardians of the Galaxy and Thanos is featured and mentioned repeatedly. The point I am making is that the struggle could have been set up much earlier in The Avengers. At least non-comic book movie goers would understand that it’s the age old battle between good and evil. The Thanos reveal at the end would still have been epic even if you disclosed his name earlier on. The name Thanos was not mentioned in the marvel films until much later in The Guardians of the Galaxy  and for me that was a big mistake for the series as a whole.  All you get in The Avengers is a sight of the individual and non-comic book movie goers would be at a loss regardless.

The mid post credit scene that features Thanos in The Age of Ultron was not very effective because it is clear that Marvel is all about the reveal of comic book characters. Everything remains mysterious when there did not need to be so much mystery about the next comic book character reveal.