This might seem like an unusual post to write as I have hardly talked about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (henceforth referred to as the MCU) before so this might seem out of the blue. However, I have been thinking a lot about the MCU as of late and thought that I’d discuss my history with the films.
Unsurprisingly, the first MCU film I saw was Iron Man (2008). The first film in what would become the MCU, I can remember being at a friend’s house and he decided to play the DVD of Iron Man. Not knowing anything about the character of Iron Man, I found the film very entertaining with a stand-out performance by Robert Downey Jr. While I enjoyed the film, I was completely unaware of Marvel’s ambition to create a larger universe.
I did not end up seeing either The Incredible Hulk (2008) or Iron Man 2 (2010) in the cinema so it wasn’t until Thor (2011) that I would see another MCU film. My interest in Thor did not come from the source material or the cast. Instead, my interest came from the involvement of J. Michael Straczynski as one of the screenwriters. I had been watching Babylon 5 around the time and was interested in seeing some more work by him. I ended up having mixed feelings about the film, enjoying the visuals but feeling that the film felt like a typical superhero origin story with some bizarre tonal changes between the scenes in Asgard and on Earth.
However, soon after my interest in the MCU was piqued again when I found out that Joss Whedon was directing and writing The Avengers (2012). I had watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse and, again, I was excited to see more from him. I watched Captain America: the First Avenger (2011) in cinema and got The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 on DVD and Blu-Ray to catch up. When The Avengers came out, I ended up highly enjoying the film.
I saw Iron Man 3 (2013) in cinema (I held an Iron Manathon before hand to catch up, very proud of the name BTW) and picked up Thor: The Dark World (2013) on Blu-Ray. However, I can remember struggling to find Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) on Blu-Ray, and ultimately could not find it in either brick and mortar stores or on Amazon. I picked up Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) on Blu-Ray, knowing that I did not have to see Winter Soldier to enjoy it.
However, from that point onwards, I ended up skipping the MCU movies as I felt that I would be unable to enjoy them fully without having seen the previous entries. Whenever I was asked if I wanted to go see the new Marvel film, I would respond with “I haven’t seen the previous entries”. I enjoyed seeing other people discussing the films (the response of people from Captain Marvel punching the old lady on the bus tickled me) but I could not be part of the conversation.
However, after Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing movie of all time, I decided it was time to catch up. I picked up the Phase 2 films I was missing and also picked up the two Phase 3 box sets. Not all the films were of equal quality but I found myself highly entertained by most of them and was happy that I could finally be part of the conversation.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my history with the MCU. I have not gone into much detail on my opinions of most of the films as I think that would make a good post in and of itself.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!