I first thought of writing this piece shortly after reviewing the conspicuously mediocre superhero team-up movie Justice League, but it was taking me some time to properly collect my thoughts. When I watched the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, a little over an hour ago, everything pretty much fell into place.
The first answer that may come to people's minds when asked "why does the Marvel Cinematic Universe work so well" could well be "because they make better movies" but not only would such an answer would be rather facile, it would not even be entirely true.
While the first Iron Man was an unqualified success, what not everyone may remember was that the second film, which came out two years later, was specifically derided by a lot of people for the fact that it felt like a "trailer" for The Avengers rather than a movie unto itself. Could Marvel have made a better movie? Probably, but if it felt to viewers that the priority was to plug their Avengers film, especially after audiences reacted positively to Nick Fury's tiny cameo at the end of the first Iron Man movie, there was a reason for that. Making a good follow up was less important than drumming up awareness for their future plans. Iron Man, to my mind, took one for the team in that movie. For better or worse, people thought about, and TALKED about what an Avengers movie would be like, and a year later, they started introducing the other key players, Thor and Captain America.
As much as I enjoyed the first Thor when it came out, I have to admit, having watched it again, that it has not aged very well. It seemed tonally muddled back then, and is barely even watchable now. With its "fantasy/reality world clash" theme it's sort of like a much more expensive, better-written version of the horrid Masters of the Universe movie back in 1987. Without it, however, we wouldn't have had a proper introduction to Thor, one of the founding Avengers, and more importantly, we wouldn't have had an introduction to Loki, the main bad guy of the Avengers film and arguably one of the MCU's most prominent characters. Like the reviled Iron Man 2, Thor, which often hovers near the bottom of many fans' "favorite Marvel films" lists, was a necessary evil. Even though both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger both had middling box office when they came out, and nothing like the billions or near-billions of dollars that their successors proved capable of generating, they were absolutely necessary. The Incredible Hulk, another of their weaker offerings, wasn't absolutely necessary in the same vein, but it did bring the character within the Universe, and it meant we got to see William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross in two movies, which was fun.
In short, it's not all down to the fact that Marvel "makes better movies," because that isn't always the case. It's down to the fact that even when the individual film wasn't a cinematic masterpiece, they were willing to put it out their to lay the groundwork for the bigger plan. Of course Marvel has made it a point to avoid making real stinkers, but ultimately they don't just make good movies, they make COMPLETE good movies, that introduce us in proper fashion to the characters they want us to embrace.
It's one of the key reasons why Justice League failed to generate the kind of excitement WB had clearly been hoping for; instead of introducing us to Aquaman and Cyborg, two characters largely unknown to non-fans prior to Justice League, through modest but complete films, they gave us e-mail attachments. E-mail attachments. Audiences and critics were understandably indifferent to them. Ezra Miller's Flash was a happy exception, but that's in no small part due to the fact the Flash has a TV series (and has had one previously) that helps keep people aware of him.
It's one of the reasons why Universal's "Dark Universe" was basically dead on arrival even with multiple allusions to a bigger continuity (the other being that The Mummy was basically a terrible movie). They tried to go for a payday they didn't really earn.
Finally, it's also why Sony, who fancied a shot at their own "shared Spidey universe" threw in the towel after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 tanked and finally teamed up with Marvel instead. Their lazily-conceived Sinister Six would almost certainly have been dead on arrival at the box office. There was something laughable about how Sony went from aping Nolan's "dark" style with The Amazing Spider-Man to bright colors and universe-building in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 when they realized that shared universes were the next big thing.
The bottom line is that the folks at Marvel took the time and effort to build this world, one character and movie at a time, knowing that the big team-up movie wouldn't work without the individual movies in place. They knew that, apart from appealing to fanboys, they had to get everyone else on board too, and that was a lengthy process. They're basically like the little red hen in the fairy tale in which she does every tedious individual task needed to make bread (or cake, I forget how it goes), while every other animal on the farm just laughs at her. At the end, her bread is made, and she enjoys the fruits of her labor.
As a result, when something like the Infinity War trailer drops, it's not just the visual effects or the music or the actors that get people excited: it's the history, it's everything that led to this moment. Of COURSE it helps that the film looks well-made, but the extra mile that Marvel has gone is what spells the difference between a handful of well-made movies, like X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and a sprawling, interconnected universe. For the most part, when each hero shows up, it feels significant because we've been with them on their arduous individual journeys, and seeing them together, even though we've seen many of them team up before for the first Avengers movie, it...MEANS something.
It's not just that Marvel did the whole "shared universe" thing first; so far, it's the only company that's really taken the time and effort to do it right.
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