Themes in the Phases of the MCU
***UPDATE*** This post has been remade into a video, which you can find here.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is ready to begin what it has dubbed phase 4 with the release of Black Widow aiming for next May (Or with WandaVision in Dec, or whenever Falcon and the Winter Soldier comes out… Release dates are all over the place right now). With three phases already complete, it’s worth looking into what exactly these phases are used to delineate.
The first phase of the MCU stretches from Iron Man to The Avengers, giving the impression that these phases are merely meant to build up to a crossover climax. As the years went on, and the next two phases became fully developed, this is proven to not be the case. Phase 2 ends with Ant Man, and Phase 3 with Spider-Man: Far From Home, both of which come directly after Avengers movies.
With the Avengers movies evidently not the key factor in what makes a phase, it must be something that the movies of each phase have in common. It could simply be a matter of a release window. Such as, every MCU movie between 2008-2012 is in phase 1. It works for marketing; they tend to have a big reveal about the whole plan for the next phase all at once (with slight changes made as movies get moved around and such). But there seems to be something more to it than that.
Watching movies of a particular phase tend to feel similar. While this is probably in part because of their timing (special effects technology and trends in movies can shift as release dates gets further apart), that doesn’t account for this entirely. As these movies all get sorted out and looked at in their individual groups, it turns out that there are elements that reoccur in each one: their themes.
So, let’s take a look at the first three phases of the MCU and what themes connect their respective movies.
MCU Phase 1 – “With Great Power Must Also Come Great Responsibility”
Iron Man (2008) || The Incredibly Hulk (2008) || Iron Man 2 (2010)
Thor (2011) || Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) || The Avengers (2012)
Power and responsibility. The connection between these two concepts is a theme that can be arguably applied to most superhero origins stories, though it is especially poignant for Marvel. While this exact quote doesn’t necessarily need to be used to describe the theme, it is fitting in that it is probably the most famous quote to come out of Marvel comics, specifically from Uncle Ben in Spider-Man. While the quote itself never comes up in any of these movies, it is easy to see how it can be used to describe the theme being addressed in each one of them.
We begin the phase with Iron Man, where Tony Stark is the CEO of a weapons manufacturer who doesn’t feel any sense of responsibility for what he is putting out into the world. It is a movie about him learning to hold himself accountable for what he makes, deciding that his hands alone are the safest to use these weapons.
Come Iron Man 2, that lesson is shifted slightly. Rather than needing to take on all the responsibility himself, Iron Man 2 forced Tony to share in his power. He begins closed off, the source of his power in the first movie literally killing him and not feeling like he can tell anyone. But the end, he let’s people in. Not only that, by he only defeats Whiplash by using a team attack with War Machine. He’s learned to share the power, and the weight of the responsibility that comes with it.
The Incredible Hulk and Thor end up being opposite versions of the same story when we look at this theme. While both title heroes begin their respective movies with unbelievable abilities, Bruce does everything he can to keep from using his power, whereas Thor seeks out fights to use his. By the end, they both learn the lesson that the responsible choice is to sometimes use their power. Bruce comes to terms with the fact that there are some things only the Hulk can take on, and it is irresponsible to just let them happen. For Thor, he realizes that it is better to use his power to protect others rather than purely to show off his strength.
In Captain America: The First Avenger, we see the whole concept get flipped. Until now, every hero we have seen has started their movie with great power and had to learn the value of responsibility. Here, Steve Rogers begins his movie with an incredible sense of responsibility but absolutely no power. It is this very sense of responsibility the has him chosen for the Super Soldier program, and inevitably leads to his choice to sacrifice himself in the end to save countless lives.
Much like Iron Man 2, a key element of The Avengers is the various heroes learning to share in their responsibility. While each of the six members has their own kind of power, it is an even greater power that comes when they can work together. An attack by Loki in which Agent Coulson is killed pushes the team to understand the consequences that will come if they can’t put their differences aside. It teaches them the responsibility of working as a team.
On top of that, Tony Stark is made the primary protagonist of The Avengers, with his story focusing on the question of if he is willing to sacrifice himself for others. This question is made explicit when Tony and Steve get in an argument over this exact idea. In the end, Tony makes the same choice Steve did in the previous movie, choosing to risk his own life by carrying a bomb somewhere where it won’t explode a city.
In a lot of ways, this theme of power and responsibility is the most basic building block of the superhero genre. It is because of this that there is a kind of purity to this first phase of the MCU, but also a level to which they just feel more like a starting point. It is with the next phase that Marvel begins to really play with the world that they have set up.
MCU Phase 2 – Questioning Heroism
Iron Man 3 (2013) || Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) || Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) || Ant Man (2015)
With a whole phase under the MCU’s belt setting up the basic concept of a hero, phase 2 comes along to call it all into question. The very concept of this phase is a look into the way tropes and genres evolve over time: first a baseline is created and explored again and again, and then it is subverted, generally as a way to try to make it feel more fresh.
The first half of phase 2 is all about sequels for heroes set up in phase 1, but with a twist. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America are put into situations where they lose aspects of what made them the heroes they are.
In Iron Man 3, Tony is put in a situation where he needs to be a hero without his Iron Man suits. By the end, he’s seemingly given up on Iron Man, no longer needing his arc reactor to keep him alive, and blowing up all the suits he’s made.
Thor: The Dark World puts Thor in a situation where he commits treason. Not only does he fight against Asgard and break Loki out of prison, but by the end he gives up his claim to the throne to stay on Earth instead.
And finally, Captain America: Winter Soldier takes the idea of Captain America as the perfect solider and has it turn out that he has been working for the bad guys. He becomes a wanted man fighting to take down the agency that he’s been going on missions for since being saved from the ice.
This is all taken a step further with Avengers: Age of Ultron. This movie spends much of its runtime questioning if Tony Stark is a hero at all. Everything with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver is from the side that Tony is actually the villain here, that what he is doing is going too far. And of course, Ultron, the big bad that the Avengers have to come together to defeat, is created by Tony. Ultron’s whole personality and outlook is paralleled with Tony, to the point that he has multiple lines that lead others to comment that he sounds like his creator.
When it comes to Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man, we get a new kind of origin story. Both of these movies end up being about criminals put into the position of heroes. Ant Man follows Scott after getting out of prison, where he feels forced to return to life a crime when no one will hire him for any other kind of job. He even gets the Ant Man suit after stealing it in a heist. Much of the climax even comes down Scott having to use the Ant Man suit to perform another heist, this time on the movie’s villain.
With Guardians of the Galaxy, this idea is taken up a notch. The Guardians all meet when in prison and escape together. They don’t stick together out of any noble means, but out of promises of money. Even when it comes time for them to take on Ronin, they aren’t drawn to the fight because of an intense sense of responsibility like in the phase 1 movies. Quill agues they should help just because they live in the galaxy and so they’re screwed too if destroyed.
It is also fitting in this phase of subversions that Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy have climaxes that include moments like Ant Man fighting Yellowjacket on a toy train track, and the Guardians in a dance off to save the galaxy.
As a side note, while it isn’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all, Deadpool (2016) feels like the perfect MCU phase 2 movie because of the degree to which it works with subverting tropes of the superhero genre.
MCU Phase 3 – Legacy
Captain America: Civil War (2016) || Doctor Strange (2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (2017) || Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Thor: Ragnorok (2017) || Black Panther (2018) || Avengers: Infinite War (2018)
Ant Man and the Wasp (2018) || Captain Marvel (2019)
Avengers: Endgame (2019) || Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
By the time phase 3 comes around, it isn’t just a continuation but a culmination. Phase 3 is the end of the Infinity Saga for the MCU, a storyline with the infinity stones that has been building since the beginning. Because of this fact, it becomes incredibly fitting that the phase itself is all about legacy, both in terms of the legacies the characters continue, and the ones they leave behind. A consequence of this theme really ends up being that very few dads make it out of this phase alive…
Captain America: Civil War kicks of phase 3 by calling the legacy of the Avengers into question. While it is true that the group has saved the world on multiple occasions, this movie asks if the damage caused in those occasions has been acceptable. Not only that, but Tony Stark, T’Challa, and Zemo are all key characters for the movie who are propelled into the plot by deaths in their families (two of three of which are by their parents’ deaths). And finally, there is the fact that the legacy of the Winter Soldier acts as a red herring driving the movie’s climax.
While Doctor Strange doesn’t have its title hero deal with the death of a parent, his story is still one of continuing on a legacy. When Doctor Strange loses the ability to use his hands, he turns to magic to heal them. This begins his journey that leads to him being passed down the title of Sorcerer Supreme.
Next up were a couple movies where the main characters reject the legacy that’s been presented to them, instead choosing to carve out their own. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Quill is dealing the question of who his father is. When he finally meets Ego, he is ecstatic to learn where he has come from. When Quill learns what Ego has done to his mother, he not only rejects what Ego is offering, but ends up killing his father. At the same time, he also comes to realise that it was Yondu who really raised him and who’s legacy he wants to continue. Similarly, there is the plot of Gamora and Nebula needing to come to terms with each other after everything their father has put them through.
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter may not reject his offered legacy to the point of killing his father figure, but he does still turn it down. Peter spends the movie wanting to prove himself as good enough to be an Avenger. But as Peter takes on Vulture, a villain who exists because of situations too small for Avengers to deal with directly, he comes to find that he has his own place in the world and he is happy to stay at that level.
Thor: Ragnorok and Black Panther are two very similar stories told in very different ways. These are two princes who struggle to come to terms with how to lead their people after the deaths of their respective fathers. Both are dethroned by someone looking for revenge for things done by their fathers, and both prove themselves to be worthy kings by the end of their movies. (This is not an argument that these are the exact same movie, but jut that they work to deal with the theme of legacy in incredible similar ways.)
There is a lot going on in Avengers: Infinite War, but one important element is Thanos’s relation to the concept of legacy. He explains to Doctor Strange that he tried to convince his people that they should set up a lottery system to kill half their population in order to save on resources, and when they don’t listen, all of his people end up dead. His entire mission of killing half of the universe’s population when he collects the six infinite stones is one of correcting his legacy. The fact that he has made a habit of collecting young kids from planets that he visits and naming them “The Children of Thanos” shows his interest in the legacy he is leaving behind.
Ant Man and the Wasp comes down to trying to fix mistakes from the past. Janet, the original Wasp, ended up stuck in the quantum realm on her final mission with Hank. Ever since Scott has proven it possible to shrink to that size and come back, it has renewed hope that she is still alive. And of course this movie is full of fathers just trying to do right by their daughters, be it with Scott and Cassie, Hank and Hope, or even Bill with Ava (while not related by blood, it is a fatherly relationship).
Back in phase 1, Captain America: The First Avenger flipped the theme that the other movies had worked with to instead be about a hero who begins the movie already responsible and who goes on to gain power. Captain Marvel does a very similar thing with its conception of phase 3’s theme of legacy. Carol isn’t a character struggling with how to live up to legacy that’s been left to her, or with how she will leave one behind; she is a character who doesn’t even know what her legacy is. Carol starts her movie with no memory of the majority of her life, where the Kree she is working for are trying to keep her memories suppressed. It is only when she is able to remember who she is, when she remembers the legacy of her life, that she reaches the full potential of what her powers can offer. There is also the concept of deceit in the telling of a legacy as we learn about the truth of the Kree and the Skrulls, and how the Skrulls are not the evil beings that have been claimed to be.
And then there is Avengers: Endgame, a movie that is not just about legacy within the text itself, but in a metatextual sense about the legacy of the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. The entire time travel plot building out the majority of the second act is love letter to everything that has come before, a deep dive into moments from earlier in the series. In the final moments of the climax, when Tony Stark snaps his fingers as he says the line “I am Iron Man”, it sends the audience back to the first Iron Man, the very first MCU movie. At his funeral, we see the characters he has left behind, we see the legacy of all the lives he has touched within the movies. While other characters have incredibly important moments here, it is Iron Man’s legacy that is so interconnected with the MCU itself.
Finally, phase 3 ends with Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter struggles with how he could ever live up to the legacy of Tony Stark. It is very similar to Peter’s struggle in his first movie, only this time he goes from simply trying to be an Avenger, to trying to be specifically Iron Man. He struggles with how he doesn’t feel like he can ever be enough, how he can’t fill the void left when Tony died. Peter doesn’t win, doesn’t defeat Mysterio, until he realizes that he isn’t meant to be the new Iron Man, he meant to be Spider-Man. It is his spider sense, a power that is only his, that allows his to beat Mysterio and be his own hero.
Of course, as much as it is a little off topic, it seems wrong to talk about the MCU and legacy without mentioning a couple real life deaths that have occurred. Stan Lee, who not only created many of the heroes of the MCU, but also had a cameo in every one of the movies here from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame, with Spider-Man: Far From Home being the only without his presence. In many ways, this universe is part of his legacy.
Then, much more recently, there was the passing of Chadwick Boseman. Chadwick played T’Challa, the Black Panther, in four movies of the MCU, all in phase 3. While this one character is far from being all that he was, this portrayal of a Black superhero leading such a huge blockbuster is something that will ripple into the future, hopefully creating more opportunities for similar figures to rise up in these movies.
Conclusions
Each one of the phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is driven by a particular theme. While the wording of these theme may not have ever been thought of by the writers in the exact way presented here (aside from possibly “legacy”), it seems unlikely that the basic concepts never crossed their minds. At the very least, it all seems to fit together too neatly for it to not have been the plan of Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios.
It is also worth pointing out that while these are themes presented in each of these movies, they are not always the only themes. It was brought up in a past post that the thematic question of Avengers: Infinity War is about sacrificing others to save half the universe, but multiple themes can be addressed in a single movie, and in fact, this very question helps to address the theme of legacy with Thanos. There are also cases like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which both include themes around the concept of found family and opening up to those around you.
Looking back at how these phases connect their movies through theme, it is hard not to wonder what comes next. With Black Widow we will not only be starting a new phase, but presumably an entirely new saga for the MCU. Much of this only becomes evident in hindsight, so even with such a short time before the first movie, it could still be a while before all the pieces of the puzzle reveal their picture.
