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MCU Rewind: How We Got to Avengers: Endgame
The world is a lot different today than it was a decade ago when Marvel Studios premiered their first film, Iron Man. Lest we forget, in the first scenes Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark makes a MySpace reference over the sounds of a CD boombox, and his high-tech phone is not of the “smart” variety. It was also a time when the current craze of superhero films seemed to be starting its inevitable downslide, poised to go the way of the western in cinema. Instead, the Marvel offerings proved the comic book phenomenon was only just beginning. A few weeks after Iron Man’s tenth anniversary, Avengers: Infinity War began the denouement (with a lot of rising-action) of the multi-movie story arc envisioned when this project began. It’s a cultural touchstone for those who grew up (or, merely grew older) with these films, and they are all worth a second look.
Marvel already owned the modern superhero big-box-office trend after they sold the rights to all of their mutant heroes and villains to 20th Century Fox. That first X-Men film in 2000 sent up a flare to comic book fans around the universe that the time was finally right for superhero flicks. Especially after 9/11, the world needed a little fantasy and some heroes to look up to, and special effects improved enough to portray these fantastical beings realistically. There were high moments ( Spider-Man, X2, Batman Begins) and…
