The Avengers

In America, there are two very big comic book brands for superheroes: DC and Marvel. Each brand has its own large group of superheroes, villains and stories. These comics are popular in their own right, but have found another level of popularity in the movie world. Both DC and Marvel create movies featuring popular superheroes such as Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman for DC, and Iron Man, Spider-Man and Thor for Marvel.

Here, I would like to talk about Marvel’s movie series The Avengers. I mentioned previously that Marvel has been creating movies based on their superheroes. What makes these movies really interesting is that they are not only good as stand-alone movies (side note: when I say that the movies are good, I am of course stating my opinion, rather than a fact), but many of them are linked. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor are all movies with powerful main characters, the heroes of their own movies, but they all exist within the same connecting story. In fact, all of these heroes and even more characters come together in the same movie: The Avengers.

The Avengers was a hugely popular movie at the time of its release, doing extremely well at the box office. At the time of writing this, there are in fact four movies within the Avengers series. Personally, I really like these movies and I am currently excited for the fourth installment in the series that was released in Japan on the 26th of April, 2019.

In The Avengers, a team of superheroes forms a super-team that is supposed to be capable of defending Earth from even the most powerful of threats (aliens, robots, or whatever else). The thing about the Avengers is that as a team they are not always the most functional. Heroes tend to have strong personalities, and that leads them to clash with each other sometimes, which makes for interesting dialogue and story telling.

Personally, I think that before you watch The Avengers, you should try to watch the movies that each Avenger comes from. If you watch Captain America: The First Avenger, you’ll better understand the motivations of Captain America and his motivations in The Avengers. You might also watch the first two Iron Man movies, witness the character of Tony Stark (the man inside the Iron Man machine) and wonder how these two personalities will interact in the same movie.

At this point, there have been quite a lot of movies that are a part of this MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, the name given to the story that links so many movies). It might seem like a bit too much to watch, which is completely understandable. As someone who enjoys the movies though, it feels like the more movies they make and the more they flesh out the MCU, the more enjoyable it is as you get to know the characters and start caring about what they do and what happens to them. I highly recommend them. The Avengers becomes an even richer experience when you have watched multiple MCU movies. These movies provide a variety of stories that are often action-packed, humorous, and filled with interesting characters.

Thomas

Vocabulary

installment (n) – a part of a series that is published or broadcast
dialogue (n) – the words spoken as part of a movie, book, etc.
motivation (n) – the reasons for one’s actions; what one is trying to achieve
flesh out (phr. v) – to add more detail to something
humorous (adj.) – having humor; being funny or comedic