Looking Back On 'The Avengers' 10 Years Later
Image Source: Screen Crush
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has grown in leaps and bounds since Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. Captain America and Iron Man battled it out over how Cap knew who killed Tony’s parents, the mad Titan Thanos snapped the universe in two, and for a brief stint, Spider-Man was no longer a part of the MCU. Before we go any further, if you have not seen The Avengers over the past ten years, this is your opportunity to stop reading, watch it, and then return to this article as there will be SPOILERS ahead.
The Avengers starred Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye). The film’s antagonist, Loki (masterfully portrayed by Tom Hiddleston) attempted to retrieve the Tesseract for the Chitauri in exchange for an army to help him subjugate the people of earth. Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson), and S.H.I.E.L.D. were not matched for Loki, and had to activate the “Avengers Initiative.” At first, the Avengers were divided in figuring out how to stop Loki, but the group came together around the tragic death of Agent Phil Coulson, Fury’s right-hand man. From here, the team bonded in grief and successfully stopped Loki from using the Tessaract in a massive battle in New York City, aptly named “The Battle of New York” throughout MCU canon. This ended Phase One of the MCU.
Image Source: The New York Times
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The film continued to hold up ten years after its release. The action sequences were solid, the visual effects were excellent, and there were fun, quippy moments where all cast members seemed to have fun with each other. Central to it all, Whedon weaved distrust into the storyline. Up until this point, all of our favorite heroes have been relying on themselves to defeat their adversaries. In Iron Man, Tony Stark blew Obadiah Stane away with a vast electrical surge. In Iron Man 2, Tony Stark’s nemesis blew himself up, the authorities apprehended the sub-antagonist of the movie Justin Hammer with the help of Pepper Potts. In Thor, our beloved Asgardian hero learned a bit more by the end of his movie after losing his adopted brother Loki to the never-ending abyss of space. Captain America sacrificed himself in Captain America: The First Avenger by crashing a Hydra aircraft full of weapons, losing the chance to return to Peggy Carter, the love of his life. By the time The Avengers comes around, none of Earth’s mightiest heroes have met their match yet.
The first portion of The Avengers hinged around the team’s lack of trust in each other. Stark was suspicious of Fury’s motives as he was told in the post-credit scene of Iron Man 2 that he was not a good fit for the team due to his personality. Captain America stood up to Tony Stark, being the good soldier he was, but after searching the Helicarrier and finding Hydra weapons on board he realized that perhaps Stark was not entirely wrong. From the outset of the film, Bruce Banner was the wild card of the group due to no one understanding the power or intellect of the Hulk. Natasha Romanoff was his essential foil for the film, which was also the beginning of their budding romance. Hawkeye was the only Avenger not with the team for the first portion of the movie being under Loki’s mind control. This was a major complaint about the film at the time. However, Hawkeye’s character would be more developed after the Avengers’ second film Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Image Source: Cinema Viewfinder
Yes, Loki was the film's villain, and the Avengers defeated him, but there was an understanding by the film’s final act that a more dangerous threat was coming. I would argue that the most significant challenge was not the heroes overcoming the antagonist but learning to work together as a team to defeat what is coming to Earth next. In short, Whedon’s The Avengers movie is solid. The MCU’s new superheroes have not met a challenge they can not face alone until now. It is beautiful to see the beginning of the team even after experiencing how the Avengers finally “assemble” in Avengers: Endgame.
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