Why ‘Civil War’ Shows Marvel Needs to Up The Stakes in the MCU
I make no bones about my love of DC over Marvel. Whether fairly or unfairly, some critics have been accused of having a DC or Marvel bias when it comes to reviewing each studio’s films. Although I try to be, as Fox News claims, “fair and balanced,” it would be disingenuous for me not to acknowledge I prefer one group of superheroes over another. I’d rather admit that upfront than some sites that are obviously anti-DC and throw up New York Post-like headlines as click-bait.
To be clear, Marvel Studios put out fantastic films. Even their weakest films (The Incredible Hulk, Thor: The Dark World) are still enjoyable. I liken it to baseball. While not every film is a homerun, even the least among them are hard singles to left field. Furthermore, Captain America: Civil War was commercially and critically successful for a reason. It’s not only one of the best superhero movies Marvel has produced, it’s one of the best superhero movies ever made. Definitely in my top ten so far for 2016 and easily a 9/10 for me. However, I think it’s just the latest example of Marvel’s glaring problem.
We’ll get to that in a second though.
The DCEU films have been accused (and rightly so) of narrative, levity, and execution problems. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice definitely has flaws and Suicide Squad, while enjoyable, is kind of a mess. Man of Steel on the other hand is a fantastic film and better than any of the original Superman movies in my opinion. However, it appears that WB and the people behind the DCEU are trying to correct those problems.
Whether fairly or unfairly the DCEU has been and will continue to be judged against the MCU. Marvel was there first and they set a very high standard. What’s confounding though is that with every vitriolic filled criticism of a DCEU movie, there’s always a comparison to Marvel, implying that the MCU is some paragon of perfection. This couldn’t be further from the truth. And while the DCEU may have issues, Marvel possesses a glaring problem of their own.
A stakes problem.
Marvel’s been taken to task for having weak villains in several of their movies, Thor: The Dark World and Ant-Man being two. However, this is just indicative of the larger stakes problem. The one thing about Marvel films is that they are too safe. No one is in any real danger of dying. And no Quicksilver’s demise in Age of Ultron, or Tony Stark’s possible poisoning from Iron Man 2 count. I’m talking about the major players: Thor, The Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow—all of them—have about as much chance of shrugging off their mortal coils as I do of being Angelina Jolie’s rebound guy. Granted these guys face mortal danger in each of their films, but I’ve never once gone into a Marvel film thinking, “Welp this is the one where Hawkeye finally gets killed,” and neither do most audience members.
Say what you want about the DCEU, but you can’t deny they take risks. Zod dies at the hands of Superman in Man of Steel, Superman is killed by Doomsday at the end of BvS, Jared Leto’s take on The Joker in Suicide Squad, and having a well-established mythos in the DCEU rather than Marvel’s formula of origin stories leading into ensemble films. That takes testicles of solid adamantium. Do they all work? Of course not. But it’s better than Marvel playing it safe.
Which brings us back to Civil War. Man there were so many awesome things about that movie, whether it was Tom Holland’s fantastic Spider-man or the kick-ass fight on the airport tarmac. Even Vision and Scarlet Witch’s romantic dynamic was interesting. And of course the plot setup was intriguing: should The Avengers and other people with powers operate with autonomy or should there be oversight? Emotions were high on both sides and the ad campaign building up to the film reflected that. In fact the implication was that either Cap or Tony would die in Civil War.
And then Marvel completely screwed the pooch by having them make up at the end of the movie. Steve Rogers goes into hiding but leaves Tony with a cell phone to call him if he’s needed. So essentially this was Cap and Iron Man at the end of the movie:
The more I reflect on this, the more I realize how much of a missed opportunity this was by Marvel. For those of you who don’t follow comics, in the Civil War graphic novel, Captain America is actually arrested at the end of the book and subsequently assassinated by Crossbones. I’m sorry but this would have really raised the stakes leading into the third Avengers film. Tony killing Cap may have been even more satisfying, because then you’re dealing with the emotional aftermath of Stark killing one of his best friends. But nope, Crossbones dies way too early in the movie and audiences get an “it’s all good” fistbump between the two Avengers.
Marvel cannot continue to bask in their complacency. Now I know the dump trucks of money aren’t going to stop flowing to Marvel and Disney anytime soon. Kevin Feige will continue to bathe in dragon blood and exfoliate with unicorn horn body wash for years to come. However, that’s no reason to rest on your laurels. Cash cow or not, Marvel has to address this problem. Whether that’s killing off a major character and replacing them with a new actor (ala Sam Wilson/Falcon taking over for Steve Rogers/Captain America) or something else, I don’t have the answer. Only Marvel can answer that question. To misquote Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight, the world deserves a better class of superhero film.
And Marvel needs to give it to them.
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Yeah…nonsense. The MCU has its flaws (mainly it struggles with romances), but lack of risk-taking is NOT one of them. The MCU in itself is a huge risk! Gotg was a huge risk! The DCEU wouldn’t even exist if Marvel hasn’t jumped first because Warner kept dithering with their own Justice League project for decades and was even too fearful to release a freaking Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, killing Zod was kind of a bolt move, but it was badly set-up, executed and then forgotten in five seconds. There were no consequences whatsoever resulting out of it. And I didn’t believe for one second that Superman would actually die permanently. Nothing about this is in any way bold, and I honestly don’t get the constant need to say every time someone criticises one of the DC movie “but Marvel does too” (most of the time this is either not true in the first place or it is true but Marvel actually executed it better) or “but this is something the DCEU does better than the MCU” (totally meaningless even if (emphasis on if) one element is better, one element doesn’t make a good movie).
When it comes to consequences, the MCU actually does do it better than the DCEU. In the MCU, New York or Sokovia weren’t rebuilt after five seconds like the DCEU did it with Metropolis. And when it comes to characters dying: For one the DCEU hasn’t killed off any main character yet either (Superman doesn’t count because he isn’t dead, Zod doesn’t count because he is a villain, villains die in movies all the time) and two killing off characters when there is no need for it is stupid. Dead is the most boring of all consequences. Cap actually dying in the ice would mean we don’t get The Winter Soldier or Civil War in the first place, seeing him struggle with the fact that the world he knew is no longer is way more compelling than him being just dead. Bucky dying would mean we never get to see the result of him suffering for 70 years. Loki dying would mean we never get to see him going up against the Avengers. Rhodey dying would mean we never get to see him struggling with the fact that he lost the use of his legs (plus, it would actually detract from the main message of the movie).
Shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have somehow convinced the audience that killing off characters is necessary to create stakes. That is BS. It only makes certain characters expendable. But not all of them. You know pretty fast which characters will survive no matter what and which ones are truly in danger.
Sorry for this long post, but this trend really enrages me – as does the constant attempt to defend the DCEU by pulling the MCU down one way or another.
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I’m well aware that killing superheroes never lasts for long. Superman is obviously coming back. And I never suggested to kill Cap at the end of The First Avenger. I meant if they were going to do it at all it should have been at the end of Civil War. He wouldn’t have stayed dead either. Raising the stakes doesn’t necessarily translate to “kill someone off” either. I don’t think GoT and WD have convinced audiences that deaths are necessary to create stakes either. If that’s the case those shows would have been off the air years ago. You can’t make a show last on a “who we gonna kill this week” platform. This was not an attempt to pull down the MCU either in defense of the DCEU. As I stated in the article the MCU movies have done very well and are each enjoyable, obviously some more than others. But I’m not going to act like the MCU hasn’t gotten complacent when they clearly have. They play things safe, they don’t shake it up. Sure GoG was a risk but if the MCU is the bastion of risk takers why are they going to be late to the party for a female led superhero movie and an all villain superhero movie? When doing an analysis of what works and what doesn’t in either the MCU or the DCEU I think it’s impossible now NOT to compare them to each other. We crossed the Rubicon on that one when WB decided they wanted to do an EU. I wish it could be looked at in a static way but that’s just not the reality anymore. Sadly people have turned this into an Us Vs. Them thing when it comes to Marvel V DC. As if some how you can’t appreciate both or that by criticizing one you’re also lessening it’s value. Ridiculous. And if you think that the romance aspect is the biggest problem with the MCU right now you better look again. They have a serious villain problem. Civil War had a very weak villain, ditto Ant-Man, Thor: The Dark World, and Iron Man 3.
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i don’t agree that “CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR” was one of the best superhero movies ever made. It disappointed me in so many ways. And I’ve been a major MCU fan for the past nine years. It wasn’t a bad movie. But there was a lot of sloppy writing involved that led me to shake my head with disappointment in the end. It’s even more galling for me, considering that the “CAPTAIN AMERICA” movies have been among my favorites.
Nor am I stating that the DCEU movies are better than the Marvel films. But . . . I was a lot more satisfied with 2013’s “MAN OF STEEL”, along with the two DCEU flicks – “BATMAN V. SUPERMAN” and “SUICIDE SQUAD” than I have been with the MCU films of the past year-and-a-half. Well . . . I did enjoy “ANT-MAN”, because it was not only funny, but also unusual.
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The villains for “ANT-MAN”, “IRON MAN 3” and “THOR: THE DARK WORLD” were not weak to me. I especially enjoyed Corey Stoll’s performance as Darren Cross. The problems are that Christopher Eccleston’s Malekith lacked a sense of humor and all three did not outlive the endings of their respective movies. With the exception of Loki and Thanos, Marvel does not know how to hold on to their villains.
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