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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-film"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Marvel Cinematic Universe </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 19 August 2024. Tagged: Film.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=marvel_cinematic_universe'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=marvel_cinematic_universe'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=marvel_cinematic_universe'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="window.open('/gallery.php?link=marvel_cinematic_universe');"> <img alt="Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com" style="margin: 0; position: relative; top:-2px;" src="/images/icon-gal.gif"></img></span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=KeyesG-ExtinctionKey.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/KeyesG-ExtinctionKey.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>A term first used in 2008 by Kevin Feige (1973-    ), President of Production for Marvel Studios and from 2019 chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, to describe the interconnected universe shared by those <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superheroes</a> still remaining under <a href="/entry/marvel_comics">Marvel Comics</a>' full control, after various production and distribution deals over the previous years had conspicuously fragmented the overall Marvel brand, and had left the company with insufficient sway over products generated in its name. The free-for-all of those years had resulted in separate concept "philosophies" and production values and distribution patterns for high-profile franchises like <b>Spider-Man</b>, which remained under the control of Columbia Pictures (see <a href="/entry/spider-man">Spider-Man</a> and sequels), and <a href="/entry/x-men">X-Men</a>, which remained under the control of 20th Century Fox (see <a href="/entry/x-men_films">X-Men Films</a>). There was a certain chutzpah in dubbing the rump that remained the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as though <i>they had meant to do that</i>; but in the event this display of nerve paid off in a series of highly successful films, thirty-two of them by the post-peak-year 2023; and the consequences of the short-term corporate greed that had dangerously watered down the Marvel name could now be dealt with sagaciously. It was announced in early 2015 that <b>Spider-Man</b> would appear in at least one Marvel Studios production under the direct control of Feige, representing a fragile agreement between the ultimate franchise owner, the <a href="/entry/walt_disney_company_the">Walt Disney Company</a> which now owned Marvel, and Sony. The first film produced within the terms of this compact was <a href="/entry/spider-man_into_the_spider-verse">Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</a> (<i>2018</i>), a computer-animated production with various directors; it was followed by <i>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse</i> (<i>2023</i>).</p> <p>Marvel had retained full ownership of the crew of <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superheroes</a> aggregatedly retrofitted into a supergroup known as <i>The Avengers</i>, individual members of which had been central figures in the Marvel stable from the 1960s (or even earlier). These figures included <b>Iron Man</b>, <b>The Incredible Hulk</b>, <b>Thor</b> and <a href="/entry/captain_america">Captain America</a>. Marvel's overall strategy (which continues into films projected to at least 2026) has been to create from this repertory a multi-film <a href="/entry/shared_worlds">Shared World</a> super-series in several "Phases", a project faux-naively accompanied by an implied claim that the announcement of the Marvel Cinematic Universe marks the first use of the concept of the <a href="/entry/shared_worlds">Shared World</a>. In the event, "Phase One" of this super series had been produced according to plan and with great success, with some "Phase Two" films already in release. According to the overall strategy for each Phase, films devoted to individual <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superheroes</a> come first, complete with storylines befitting their <a href="/entry/superpowers">Superpowers</a> and the kind of <a href="/entry/villains">Villains</a> or <a href="/entry/antiheroes">Antiheroes</a> they became superheroes to combat, complete with cross-over story elements and shout-outs, the sort of hook long typical of similar enterprises in print, the most significant early model almost certainly being Jack <a href="/entry/kirby_jack">Kirby</a>'s <b>Fourth World</b> series for <a href="/entry/dc_comics">DC Comics</a> 1970-1972. After several of these films, the Phase climaxes with a supergroup epic.</p> <p>The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Phase One) sequence of films starring individual <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superheroes</a> includes: <a href="/entry/iron_man">Iron Man</a> (<i>2008</i>) directed by Jon Favreau, whose titular hero (played by Robert Downey Jr) dominated the overall sequence until his "real" death in <i>Avengers: Endgame</i> (<i>2019</i>) (see below); <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/incredible_hulk_the">Incredible Hulk</a> (<i>2008</i>) directed by Louis Leterrier; <a href="/entry/iron_man_2">Iron Man 2</a> (<i>2010</i>) directed by Jon Favreau; <a href="/entry/thor">Thor</a> (<i>2011</i>) directed by Kenneth Branagh; and <a href="/entry/captain_america_the_first_avenger">Captain America: The First Avenger</a> (<i>2011</i>) directed by Joe Johnston.</p> <p>There has been no visible change of strategy since, though the constantly increasing scale of each movie fails to disguise an increasing inwardness. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Phase Two) sequence of films, similarly featuring some titles starring individual <a href="/entry/superheroes">Superheroes</a>, includes: <i>Iron Man 3</i> (<i>2013</i>) directed by Shane Black; <i>Thor: The Dark World</i> (<i>2013</i>) directed by Alan Taylor and <a href="/entry/captain_america_the_winter_soldier">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> (<i>2014</i>). and <a href="/entry/guardians_of_the_galaxy">Guardians of the Galaxy</a> (<i>2014</i>) directed by James Gunn. At the same time, two umbrella epics were released, <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/avengers_the_film">Avengers</a> (<i>2012</i>) and <a href="/entry/avengers_age_of_ultron">Avengers: Age of Ultron</a> (<i>2015</i>) – which see for further comments on the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole – both directed by Joss <a href="/entry/whedon_joss">Whedon</a>. Phase Three continues along the same lines, with some films centred on the title characters of <i>Ant-Man</i> (<i>2015</i>) and <a href="/entry/doctor_strange">Doctor Strange</a> (<i>2016</i>). The <b>Infinity Saga</b> – a hindsight ubertitle for the main line of Universe releases in all three phases – climaxes as a whole with <a href="/entry/avengers_infinity_war">Avengers: Infinity War</a> (<i>2018</i>) and <i>Avengers: Endgame</i> (<i>2019</i>), in the latter of which the successful recovery of the universe from total termination hinges on the redemptive death of <b>Iron Man</b>, who by this sacrifice saves us all Phase Four is set in a typically carceral Marvel-shaped vision of the <a href="/entry/multiverse">Multiverse</a>, a term the corporation seems to think it originated, but which initially seems to have been employed as a junction box to enable different franchises to cohabit. The distinction between this phase and Phase Five is perhaps not entirely clear. The first film in that latest phase, the luke-warm <i>Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania</i> (<i>2023</i>), was poorly received, and (dangerously) did not break even at the box-office, though <i>Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3</i> (<i>2023</i>), a complexly laid-down summatory of the entire Guardian family within the overarching MCU, performed much better, and calls for a come-back acclaim that might take some time to test.</p> <p>Unlike the <a href="/entry/spider-man">Spider-Man</a> sequence, and the <a href="/entry/x-men_films">X-Men Films</a>, the overseers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seem consciously to have avoided the <a href="/entry/young_adult">Young Adult</a> market as such. Given the nature of the product, any Marvel-based film will of course appeal most strongly to young viewers, but the Universe movies are free of teenage protagonists, or campus settings; and their central protagonists to date – in particular <b>Iron Man</b> (who first appeared in 1963) and <b>Captain America</b> (who first appeared in a 1941 Timely Comics publication, though he spent most of the intervening years as a <a href="/entry/corpsicle">Corpsicle</a>) – arrive on the screen complete with complex backstories derived from decades of <a href="/entry/comics">Comics</a>-generated turbulence: a complexity known to millions, who were consequently aroused by <b>Iron Man</b>'s death (see above).</p> <p>Perhaps more significantly, the writers and directors involved in making the Phase One sequence come from outside any loosely definable cadre of directors of special-effects-oriented action movies about superheroes who source their audience-friendly storylines on models from the visual media rather than books. Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe directors are by no means exempt from Shared-World constraints, they have clearly been granted a certain degree of creative freedom, an enablement due in part to the by-now extraordinarily developed industrial sophistication involved in the CGI-based execution of the various action sequences currently required: there is an abiding sense that contemporary action sequences respond and conquer technical challenges that are inherently detached from any one film in particular; and that – in a very real sense – contemporary action sequences inhabit their own <a href="/entry/shared_worlds">Shared World</a>. They are at times very cunningly inserted into actual storylines, though that insertion is never entirely invisible; and as the twenty-first century sees an increasingly vast accumulation of action films of this sort, such sequences today are increasingly likely to be presented self-knowingly.</p> <p>It remains the case, however, that Marvel Cinematic Universe films are written and directed with a sometimes convincing semblance of adult intent. It is very noticeable in these movies that politically transgressive arguments are given what might seem to be free play, though always from the mouths of <a href="/entry/villains">Villains</a>. This "freedom" may in fact resemble what Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) in 1965 famously called "repressive tolerance", with Marvel as a pantomime of its owner Disney standing in for post-<a href="/entry/world_war_two">World War Two</a> governments in general; but it cannot be denied that arguments that have been made remain harder to hide than arguments never uttered. The premise of <a href="/entry/captain_america_the_winter_soldier">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> – that the <a href="/entry/secret_masters">Secret Master</a> villains who run HYDRA have tricked the Western world into creating the unstable security-obsessed <a href="/entry/dystopias">Dystopias</a> that oppress humans today – may seen ironic in the corporate environment now necessary to fund and control the creation of epic cinema; but the villain's dying words, "Hail HYDRA!", carry a sting. The Marvel Cinematic Universe may, quite extraordinarily, be open to the future, a supposition strengthened by the premiere of <i>WandaVision</i> (<i>2021</i>-current), a <a href="/entry/television">Television</a> miniseries spoofing its two heroes, both of whom have featured in previous enterprises, and set in a sequence of situation-comedy venues, beginning with <i>The Dick Van Dyke Show</i> (<i>1961-1966</i>) (see <a href="/entry/pocket_universe">Pocket Universe</a>), attempting to make sense of American history as snapshots through these successive lenses. Three further television series aired in 2021: <i>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier</i>, about <a href="/entry/captain_america">Captain America</a>; <i>Loki</i>, centred on Thor's antagonist; and <i>What If ...?</i>, an animated <a href="/entry/alternate_history">Alternate History</a> anthology series; several more shows are in the pipeline: another augur, it may be, that the MCU may be shifting from its default profile in the entertainment world: and that blockbuster feature films on theatre release will no longer headline the franchise. [JC]. [JC]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/black_panther">Black Panther</a>; <a href="/entry/captain_america_civil_war">Captain America: Civil War</a>; <a href="/entry/daredevil">Daredevil</a>; <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/defenders_the">Defenders</a>; <a href="/entry/guardians_of_the_galaxy_vol_2">Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2</a>; <a href="/entry/iron_man_3">Iron Man 3</a>; <a href="/entry/jessica_jones">Jessica Jones</a>; <a href="/entry/luke_cage">Luke Cage</a>; <a href="/entry/mutant_x">Mutant X</a>; <a href="/entry/spider-man_far_from_home">Spider-Man: Far from Home</a>; <a href="/entry/thor_ragnarok">Thor: Ragnarok</a>; <a href="/entry/thor_the_dark_world">Thor: the Dark World</a>.</p> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a href="www.imdb.com/list/ls070026068/">Internet Movie Database</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/gallery.php?link=marvel_cinematic_universe">Picture Gallery</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/marvel_cinematic_universe' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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