Avengers: Infinity War is the crushing moon thrown at any review that approaches it as a known commodity.
There is no easy way to review Avengers: Infinity War, because there has never been a movie quite like Avengers: Infinity War. Here we have a film that plays out narrative threads from 18 movies and 10 cinema franchises. It’s not a sequel, hell, it’s not even a season finale. It’s the culmination of a decade of disparate storytelling. It’s something new that we don’t have a word for yet. And how do you review a work of art without another comparable work of art to measure it against? That’s the conundrum.
But review we must, because we are results-driven as a culture and simply looking at Infinity War’s record-breaking domestic box office in its first weekend is unsatisfying. Money is one thing, vital for sustaining blockbusters of this magnitude, but it doesn’t answer a key question: is this movie actually good?
It’s certainly groundbreaking and unprecedented. There’s simply no denying that. You have to look to comic books to find something of comparable scale, and even then it’s a shoddy comparison because no comic book event has ever sprung from a continuity as clean and straightforward as this one.
This first panel comes from What to Get From the Man Who Takes Everything by Chris Hastings, Flaviano, & Federico Blee. This is the story of a regular guy who Thanos comes back to harass annually on his birthday. It's a funny panel, and I also like the imagery of Thanos in an office, where you know he would without question be that one co-worker who drums on his desk.
It’s also a risky film (HERE COME SPOILERS!). The bad guy wins. He has to give up a cherished loved one—his only cherished loved one—but when the film ends he has everything he said he wanted. He heaves a sigh of contentment, and there’s nothing around to suggest it’s not a sincere one. Oh yeah, and half the heroes fade away and die. Now, if we’re being real, we know none that died in the fade out are going to stay dead. We have the advantages of knowing the source material and that the film was originally part one of two (more on that in a sec).
For more thoughts on the movie, you can hear me on the WMQ&A Podcast here!
This is, of course, a comics site first and foremost, so let’s cleanse our pallets after all that film talk with some good ol’ fashioned comics. Folks, I now present to you my favorite panels from last week’s Thanos Annual #1. I choose one from each of the six stories inside.
This panel is from My Little Thanks by Katie Cook and Heather Brickle, which is adorable but also one of the more interesting takes on what makes a villain tick. In this story, Thanos is put off by a race of little cuties who ascertain he enjoys maiming and death, so they pull out every stop to supplicate themselves and deliver that to him. The effect is...off putting.
Panel numero tres here today is from That Time Thanos Helped an Old Lady Across the Street by Ryan North, Will Robson, & Rachelle Rosenberg. This story is a meditation on human potential, specifically on the way so much has to transpire for it to be fully released. It's a lesson Thanos teaches in a saccharine way.
Kieron Gillen, Andre Arujo, & Chris O'Halloran's story Exhibition is basically a series of poems relating to the high concepts of various planets, every one of which ends prematurely when Thanos obliterates said plant. It's this ending panel of every planet exploding at once, however, that really delivers the crux of the story.
The Comfort of the Good by Al Ewing and Frazer Irving is the story I found the most disturbing from this bunch of uniformly disturbing stories. It has to do with religion and morality, and whether people only act decent to each other to reap an eventual reward. There were so many panels to choose from here, some of which showed characters beginning to weep as they realized the blissful afterlife they'd been promised would never come to pass. This silent panel of Thanos cracking a knowing grin, however, is easily the most sinister.
And this last panel reunites the team from Thanos Wins, the best Marvel villain story in ages. It's Titan's Greatest Dad by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, & Antonio Fabela. This panel is from the back half of that story's two bookends, and I choose it because I'm looking forward to Cates forthcoming Cosmic Ghost Rider mini series and I think you should be too.
I rarely write about comic book movies, for a few reasons: 1. I think they're pretty self-explanatory and most conversations amount to either wouldn't THIS be cool?, or screw you, let's fight!; 2. I'm an old-before-my-years purist who prefers comics; and 3. I'm not as passionate about these movies as most other people tend to be, so I usually just sit back and let strong feelings have the room.
But Infinity War is HUGE. It's part one of what feels like a major shift for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (part two being Avengers 4), and so I'm using it as an excuse for a rare post about the MCU, wherein I organize this mosaic of stories into tiers. Unless otherwise noted, these tiers have less to do with quality than with content. Also, I generally enjoy all comic adaptations, which feel to me like nice bonus supplements for my favorite print stories.
Enough preambling, let's do this!
I know I said the tiers weren't about quality, but this first one is. Sorry. These are my three favorite Marvel movies, and I've grouped them in a tier because they feel like the future of the MCU, a future in which a talented director (or directors) is given a movie and trusted to execute a vision.
This is especially true of Taika Waititi's Thor Ragnarok and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther. It's almost like Kevin Feige saw and loved What We Do in the Shadows and Creed, respectively, and invited the filmmakers to come do that in his universe. And they did. Civil War gets a nod because directors Joe and Anthony Russo juggle so many characters without losing control, much like they did as directors on Dan Harmon's all-time great TV sitcom, Community.
It's weird to think, but these movies all took risks that evolved the MCU. Guardians of the Galaxy didn't have mega-popular characters (or actors back then, not counting voices). In fact, there were comic fans who were only vaguely familiar with the team. But Marvel executed well and fans came. Winter Solider incorporated darker complex themes, even dismantling SHIELD. Again, fans came. But it was Spider-Man: Homecoming that was probably the most risky and consequential, proving properties adapted elsewhere could be re-done for the MCU. It ignored the origin, added modern touches, threw in an RDJ cameo, and glazed over that nasty business about Uncle Ben with jokes. And fans loved it. (I'm mixed, myself).
I've never been one for drug culture, although I used to tip a few brews when I was younger (another story), but I couldn't help but think how impressive/funny they'd have been if I had done some chemical altering before watching these movies...Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 because of the colors, Ant-Man because haha look how small he is, and Doctor Strange because obviously.
I should note Iron Man is my favorite of these. I remember walking out of the theater thinking, WHAT was that? It just felt so real. But I think Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers are all solid at getting the job done in terms of introducing heroes and building a shared world.
Listen, I know every one of these movies means a lot to someone, that's just how fandom works, and I'm not looking to criticize or attack. What I am saying with this tier is that if you were re-watching all of Marvel's movies, these are the four you could skip and probably still understand what's happening in the rest.
I should note, though, that if you do skip these, you should still watch the party scene in Age of Ultron, and also Google "Who are Vision and Scarlet Witch?"
That's it for me. Enjoy Infinity War everyone. Depending on what I think about the movie, I may review it for you all here next week.
Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.
I’m not here to review Black Panther. The movie is a critical and commercial success, and I can’t think of anything in it that could have been done better. What I am here to do is talk about why this movie works. Let’s get right to it.
Killmonger is Marvel’s best villain, although Loki is in the conversation (if you’d still consider him a villain). One problem with Marvel’s movies has been that the stakes feel low. We know our main character will emerge mostly fine, hell, we’ve seen the previews for the next film.
We knew this going into Black Panther, but with Killmonger, director Ryan Coogler created a villain so compelling that the tension became about the villain’s fate. Killmonger was a bad guy, an extremist who shot his own girlfriend in the head without hesitation to get what he wanted, but we knew what happened to make him that way and, from a certain perspective, we sympathized with his motives. Plus, Michael B. Jordan played him to perfection.
Ryan Coogler has quickly become the best director of blockbuster movies within established commercial franchises. Exhibit 1: Creed. Exhibit 2: Black Panther. I knew Coogler was talented when I saw his tragic 2013 indie drama Fruitvale Station, but I didn’t know he could make Rocky and Marvel movies that stood with the best cinema has to offer.
I saw Black Panther Thursday and tried to see it again Sunday, but all the shows in Sacramento were sold out. So, I re-watched Creed instead, and I realized Coogler has a toolbox of techniques he draws from to make his work stand out within a big money studio series.
He tells the audience what his movie is about, from start to finish, in the first five minutes: this is a literary technique, one best done in To Kill a Mockingbird, within which the start of a story foreshadows its plot. He did it in Creed with Adonis fighting impossible odds because of his father, and he did it in Black Panther with the story of Wakanda’s wealth followed by a cut to impoverished Oakland where a king ignores others’ plight in favor of isolationism. It’s tone setting at its best.
He makes the audience uncomfortable: the fights in Creed are ugly, there’s a lot of talk of boxers struggling to wipe their asses, etc. In Black Panther, Coogler dives into the idea that powerful civilizations (America specifically) have long been built by subjugated lower classes while future generations ignore their culpability. Basically, he makes you think while you're watching yet another CGI slugfest.
He makes films that standalone: Black Panther and Creed can both be enjoyed if you’ve never seen another Marvel or Rocky movie (though both are better if you have), because rather than use established worlds as crutches, Coogler’s movies put character drama at the center.
He casts even bit parts with super talented (often underused) actors: there are almost too many examples to count, but see Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett and Sterling K. Brown in Black Panther, and see Wood Harris in Creed.
I saw Kendrick Lamar in concert at a small venue on his Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City tour (yes, I’m bragging and also I should have put music on that list above, damn), and between songs, Kendrick talked about how he’d brought his music mainstream rather than trying to make music he thought the mainstream would like. Coogler does the same thing with his movies.
He’s brought the perspective he grew up with as a black male from Richmond, Calif. to two franchises traditionally dominated by white directors, writers, and actors. The expert storytelling is why this movie succeeds, of course, but it’s still important to note that in 2018 audiences are anxious for new stories from different perspectives and Coogler has consistently delivered that. Here’s hoping the success of Black Panther results in a Lando film over at Star Wars or a John Stewart Green Lantern film at DC (provided, of course, they’re done as well as Coogler did this one).
So, there. Oddly, this blog took longer to write than any other piece on this website (even though it’s one of the shortest) because writing about film is not something I enjoy or ever do. I doubt I’ll do it again, frankly, but I had a lot to say about this one. Besides, any excuse to talk, read, or think more about Black Panther, this week right?