Iron Man vs. Captain America – The Complete Character Arcs
Lessons from the Screenplay examines the character arcs of Iron Man vs. Captain America.
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Iron Man
Avengers: Endgame
- Title: Avengers: Endgame
- IMDb: link
More than the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that began back in 2008 with Iron Man, Avengers: Endgame is the coda to the series that climaxed in the last chapter and now offers an opportunity for one last hurrah, for heroes to take their final bow, and for Marvel to usher out one set of lead characters and set the stage anew.
For my money, the most successful films of the past 11 years have been The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Excluding Winter Soldier, a great standalone film which cares nothing at all about larger continuity (it basically wrecked Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after all), both Avengers and Infinity War faced enormous obstacles in pulling together various threads of the MCU into a single story. And both succeeded brilliantly. Avengers: Endgame comes off like their less-successful younger brother. I’m not going to call Endgame the Frank Stallone of the Avengers franchise as it may outshine Avengers: The Age of Ultron, but it’s a messy final chapter that offers plenty of memorable moments while failing to live up to what has come before.
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Invincible Iron Man #600
- Title: Invincible Iron Man #600
- Comic Vine: link
- Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
- Artists: Stefano Caselli, David Marquez, Daniel Acuna
The final comic from Brian Michael Bendis for Marvel before moving to DC is something of a mess. Featuring a number of different artists and a plot that seems to condense about six months worth of story all into a single issue, Iron Man #600 announces the return of Tony Stark to the Marvel Universe. Not satisfied with one miracle, Tony also brings back another friend from the dead with him.
The issue also includes Riri Williams, along with other heroes like Miles Morales, getting recruiting into a super-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. like agency whose members include vampires by Leonardo da Vinci. Oh, and Tony’s parents are alive and his father has been working for Hydra for years. Okay…
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Avengers #1
- Title: Avengers #1
- Comic Vine: link
- Writer: Jason Aaron
- Artist: Ed McGuinness
Avengers Reboot! With the release of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel Comics decides to reboot the Avengers. Again. For like the 19th time. I maybe be exaggerating. The new comics starts off with a flashback to the elder Avengers featuring Odin and characters I don’t care enough to look up in a comic concept I hate with a fiery passion (hey, you know the hero/team/villain you really like, well, let’s strip away everything unique about them ’cause somebody else did it first).
From there we jump to modern times with Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man all sitting around a bar thinking how great it would be to get the old band together. And then Celestials start falling from the sky. Wow, good thing they didn’t wait until next week to get drunk and nostalgic. We also get appearances by Black Panther and Doctor Strange, She-Hulk, Carol Danvers, and… Ghost Rider? WTF is Ghost Rider doing in an Avengers comic?
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Avengers: Infinity War
- Title: Avengers: Infinity War
- IMDb: link
2012’s The Avengers brought together all the elements from the planned Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was a payoff movie, and one that was executed brilliantly by Joss Whedon. It also gave us the first on-screen appearance of Thanos (now played by Josh Brolin) whose foreshadowed war on the universe would be put on hold for several years. Until now. Since The Avengers, too many of the Marvel movies have been forced into world building while telling their story. For the first time in years, there is no horizon which frees sreenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors the Russo Brothers to simply tie the elements together as Whedon did six years ago and tell one hell of a story. And you know what? They do a damn good job.
With some notable exceptions (Natalie Portman, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, and Marvel is still completely ignoring their television properties) everyone is on hand to deal with the threat of Thanos who finally gets around to collecting the Infinity Stones which will allow him to complete his life-long quest of killing off half the lives across the universe with the snap of his fingers.
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