Marvel Movie Madness

"Who wants a movie deal?" "WE ALL DO!" "OK, everyone gets a movie deal, why not?" "YAAAAAAY!"

                Marvel. Marvel. Marvel.  So much is being made of the cinematic universe that Marvel has created and rightfully so, as they have been able to do what truly has never done before.  By weaving and interconnecting so many movies together, a rich and complex universe has been established.  Now that the foundation has been laid with Phase 1 and the universe widely expanded in Phase 2, many are wondering how far and how deep into the source material future projects will delve.  Over the next few articles here, I will jump into the various stories and plot lines that I think will translate well from the printed page to the silver screen. 

Now as a disclaimer I don’t work with Latino Review and I have not broken into Kevin Feige office to take a snapshot of the Marvel time line out until 2177 A.D. or whatever year they have mapped out to.  This is simply one nerdy fan who just loves Marvel comics and what he hopes to see in the coming years.

Also, and possibly most importantly, this article will contain spoilers for pretty much the majority of current Marvel movies up to and including Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  You have been warned!

The Plotline: Civil War

Little known fact: The rift between Cap and Iron Man started because Iron Man ducked out on the bill after Chinese.

Now I know some of you are shouting at your screens saying “No duh Civil war, it’s only like the most bestest story ever!” and others are bemoaning “Abraham Lincoln isn’t in da Avengers ya goober!! He hunts vampires!!” So to the uninitiated, Civil War was a story line that pitted Captain America and a team of fugitives against Iron Man and a team of heroes working with the government.  This huge hero on hero bout was due to new regulation requiring all heroes to register their real names and all aliases with the government due to the destruction of a town in Connecticut. Captain America, always being one to make sure people have their liberties and freedoms, opposed the bill and led the now fugitives against their would-be captors.  There is a lot of battling friend against friend and brother against brother, just like in a little event you might have heard of in America’s history called…THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR!

How We Get There

I actually see a lot of the seeds already being planted for this story line in the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Let’s start with the most recent movie to date, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Other than this movie being freaking amazing in both plot and action, it also established that the Captain America in this universe has no issue going rogue and working with a small band of heroes.  However I don’t mean Rogue like in the X-Men as we can’t mention X-Men and Avengers in the same breath or else the lawyers will be all over me.

"Final verdict; the X-Men and Avengers will share joint custody over Wolverine; the X-Men during the week, Avengers on the weekend. Holidays will be alternating."

Another little nugget that would point to this plot line actually seeing the light of day was some of the civilian reactions after the battle of New York in the Avengers.   After the city of Stamford was annihilated, a lot of people rallied to regulate the heroes, but that’s dead kids, so who wouldn’t want to do everything and anything to prevent that in the future.  As the fight drags on, people switch sides, and just as the heroes have chosen their side, so have the normies (and I don’t mean Harry Osborn’s kid).  So in those post battle news clippings Nick Fury was showing the board of directors or whoever, some people are pro-heroes and some people blame them for the damage.  This would be the bedrock from which to build the Civil War plotline.

What Could Get In The Way Of Glory

Now the biggest issue I could see with the established MCU doing this plot is that Tony Stark has been running around with his playboy persona with an ego that’s writing checks his body can’t cash.  A simple fix is to make Tony the new leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Nick Fury is on his post-high school backpacking trip in Europe after CA: TWS, so there is a vacancy. Robin Sparkles as Maria Hill would fill the void when it comes to a named leader, but the council could grant Tony a permanent consultant role. From there we see him snowball into the kind of militant general he becomes in the comics.  It would be a gradual turn from solo act, to part of a team, to leader, to someone who looks out for what he would claim to be the “greater good”.

"The greater good would be another round of martinis for the table!" 

"Mr. Stark, it's just you here."

Civil War: The Movie Film

So your saying, “That’s all well and good but I didn’t ask about any of this stuff so just tell me what the hell this movie would look like you turd monger!” Alright internet, calm down! Marvel seems to have a pretty unified goal to make Thanos the big baddy in Avengers 3, so Civil War would have to be Avengers 4.  I was surprised how well the political intrigue plot in Captain America: The Winter Soldier went over, so clearly that type of story can hold up.  Intersperse that with scenes of the Anti-Registration group apprehending B-list villains (like Cap did with Batroc the Leaper in CA:TWS).  Then a few climactic battles between the two hero factions and you get a great drama, plenty of action and it mixes up the typical “hero beat up boss bad guy at the end of the level/movie” story structure.  Finally, you leave everyone on the shocker with Crossbones (again established in Winter Soldier) sniping Cap and leaving him, apparently, for dead.  Your little mid-credits teaser could even be a funeral and Bucky picking up the shield to establish a new series of standalone flicks.

By Avengers 4 you would have a greater number of heroes established from their own movies and B-roles than the number of game winning drops by Wes Welker!  At this point you have Iron Man, Black Widow, War Machine, Thor, Captain America, Bucky, Falcon, Hawkeye, Hulk, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Dr. Strange, and Ant-Man in already released or currently announced movies.  I also figure you can throw in a few more like Black Panther and Namor in from their own stand-alone films during Phase 3 or 4.  Or even better, with what Netflix is doing with their TV shows, you will have Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil available as well.  That is far and away plenty of heroes to pick teams and as Mortal Kombat would say, “FIGHT”.  Maybe you use Daredevil to reveal himself instead of Spidey (damn property rights issues!!). Maybe Vision malfunctions or is corrupted by Ultron and takes the place of the Thor clone.  There are dozens of avenues you could go down that would flesh out this story with the existing MCU characters and not let the hero team up movie get too stale.

"They made another joke about you Wes."

"Seriously?"

Final Verdict

Civil war is freakin’ awesome! Despite not being able to use the full complement of heroes the comics were able to muster up, the movie could very easily hold up and give a fresh breath of life to the MCU after the standard format has become stagnant. Stay tuned for my next article about which plot line would please the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I smell something fishy…hint hint.

"Couldn't be me, I always smell like body butter ;). "