The release of First Avenger -- when I saw the movie six months later, anyway -- was kind of a watershed moment for me in terms of my MCU fandom. I had greeted Thor with a kind of perplexed bemusement, considering the whole idea of superheroes from space to be anathema to what I expected from the genre. I recognized some strengths to the film, but overall, I didn't like it, and this was already a pattern in the movies that Marvel had released to this point. I rated Iron Man significantly lower than most people, thought The Incredible Hulk was okay but forgettable, and didn't even see Iron Man 2 until more than a year after its release (11/27/11), and about six weeks after I saw Thor (10/15/11).
Despite the way the MCU was regularly disappointing me, I dutifully saw Captain America: The First Avenger on January 3rd of the new year, or another six weeks after that. Something about this film finally unlocked these movies for me. I loved the World War II setting -- a similar setting worked for me in Wonder Woman -- and I really appreciated the set design and artistic direction. The action scenes had a kind of kinetic quality that I hadn't seen before in the MCU.
After that, it was rare that I disliked any other MCU films. There were a few -- I wasn't hot on Doctor Strange when I first saw it, and the second Avengers seemed like a turd at the time, though I bet I'd think differently if I watched it today -- but overall I've been mostly on board with what they do. (He says, with the selective memory of just having not liked Black Widow.)
One thing that was consistent was that I always liked anything with Captain America in it. It didn't have anything to do with Chris Evans, though I've grown to love his political activism and the fact that he's from the same hometown as I am (Boston). No, there was just something about these stories, about how Joe Johnston and then the Russo brothers were telling them, that clicked with me, as the sequels to those movies (The Winter Soldier and Civil War) remain personal favorites. Captain America was my gateway into the larger MCU.
Of course, in time, I grew fond of Thor. Ragnarok is top five MCU for me, which is no small statement given that they now have 24 films, and will be over 30 before you know it. (Sometime next year, to be exact.) The whole "superheroes from space" thing still seemed sort of weird to me, but given how many other times Marvel has gone to that well -- Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel being prime examples -- my objection to dosing the superhero movie with science fiction started to seem arbitrary. I had to accept it or not even bother watching these films, so accept it I did.
Ten years after my Thor/Captain America watershed moment, there happen to be two TV shows on Disney+ that have grown out of those particular storylines, one of which I've just finished (Loki) and one of which I am now just over halfway through (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).
And you know what? I've done a complete reversal.
If Marvel movies are generally split between things that might happen (Captain America) and things that could not happen (Thor), I now find myself in the other camp.
I suspect I'd still love those Captain America movies -- The First Avenger is the only one I've seen more than once -- but this show that uses characters first introduced to us in that storyline? I'm finding it to be a slog. The second episode was better than the first, but then the third and fourth took a step backward again.
Meanwhile, Loki was a constant delight, an example of the imaginations of creative people turned up to 11. It built on what WandaVision had done, the latter also being an example of the outlandish multiverse-type thinking that originally bothered me about a planet populated by Viking gods.
The comparative realism of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier just feels gray and drab and stunted by comparison. In fact, the only thing that really draws me to the show is Wyatt Russell's new Captain America, and only because something about it reminds me of The Boys. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier themselves? Yawn.
Then you've got Loki, fronted by an actor (Tom Hiddleston) whose status as a treasure is just revealed to me more and more all the time. It's colorful, it's shot in a grand style relying on great digital landscapes, it's got a noodle-twisting narrative, and it's even got the best use of Owen Wilson in at least five years.
And if you told me five years ago, when I was fully in the grip of my Captain America infatuation, that I'd be this enchanted by a show about people trying to fight a purple smoke monster that guards a gate that takes you to the man who watches over the end of time, I'd have thought you were crazy.
Yet here we are. Not only am I fully on board with all things Thor -- Love & Thunder might be my most anticipated movie of 2022 -- but I can't get to the end of this brief six-episode Captain America spinoff fast enough.
Could it be that the thing that initially made me skeptical of Captain America -- its probable self-seriousness and jingoism -- has finally caught up to it? After all, the anointing of a new Cap in this series feels pretty quaint, reflective of a set of values from the past. (As I've watched it I can't help but think that this show is a bone thrown by Marvel to its more conservative audience, who just can't understand Loki and WandaVision.)
But I don't really think that's it. I think that I finally accept that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not just a series of stories about small twists on reality, featuring characters who are super in scenarios that are ordinary. Rather, the MCU is a place for people to dream up crazy ideas, based in whole or in part on existing material, and to get those crazy ideas filmed.
Its only limits are the limits of our imaginations, and after ten years as a fan, I've decided that's how I like it.
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