Marvel Gives Us a Two-for-One Deal with “Captain America: Civil War”
When you watch “Captain America: Civil War”, if you haven’t already, pay close attention to William Hurt. If he seems familiar in the Marvel Cinematic universe that is because he is: he played General Ross in 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk”, which starred Edward Norton in the title role. Legions of movie and comic book fans have been debating for years whether “The Incredible Hulk” should be regarded as cinematic canon for the lead character. There was a hint that it should be in “Avengers” in the scene where Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffalo) explains that he had tried to shoot himself. Norton’s character attempts to do that off-screen in the movie’s last scene.
And now we know for sure that the movie was canon because Hurt plays Secretary Ross (same character, different job) and because Marvel has officially confirmed that “The Incredible Hulk” was canon. This changes nothing in substance but adds a footnote to the history of cinematic presentations of superhero franchises. The footnote will read something like, “In 2016 Marvel Studios confirmed retroactively that ‘The Incredible Hulk’ launched their franchise along with ‘Iron Man'”. “Iron Man” came out in May 2008 and “The Incredible Hulk” came out in June 2008.
Not that it matters so much, but if Mark Ruffalo were to fall out of the franchise they could bring in Edward Norton and people would be like, “Oh yeah, he was the first one.” Technically he was not the first Bruce Banner / Hulk, but he was the first one in this franchise. Eric Bana did a good job in his Hulk movie but there were problems with that. Heck, there were problems with the Norton movie. But these movies did not suffer because of the lead actors.
This is not one of those critical factoids that makes or breaks a major argument in fandom. But it is certainly one of those minutiae that will trip up people in their long-winded analyses for years to come. Whole theories will come crashing down as soon as someone says, “Dude, Marvel said that movie was canon.” You just wait and see. It will happen.
“Captain America: Civil War” (read my review here) is a glue that ties the whole franchise together. It provides a segue from “Avengers: Age of Ultron” to “Avengers: Infinity War, Part I” (due out in 2018) but it links to “Black Panther”, “Spider-man”, and “The Incredible Hulk”, roping all three of those movies into the franchise.
Everyone knew that Thor and Iron Man would be tied into the Avengers franchise but they had to wait for the “Avengers” movie for the formal paperwork. With “Captain America”, you get two new superheroes for the team. Technically, “Iron Man” introduced War Machine (even though Rhodey did not get to put on the suit until “Iron Man 2”) and “Iron Man 2” introduced “Black Widow”. So who’s counting? Well, no one but me, probably.
Cap brought us the Falcon and the Winter Soldier in his two previous movies. What we are seeing here is that Marvel is not afraid to crowd “solo” movies with extra superheroes. But with “Civil War” they have gone a step further and crowded the movie with authentication for another movie, removing fan doubt from the table. This movie is kind of a tune-up for the franchise, an opportunity for them to clear the board (Pepper Potts is out) and reset the controls (the Avengers are not on anyone’s side but their own).
In other words, while Marvel was busy telling us the story about Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and the United Nations’ attempt to rein in the chaos that surrounds the Avengers, they were quietly adjusting the franchise so that everyone could agree that all these characters are connected not only in the comic books but also in the movies. Pepper was not simply forgotten as sometimes happens to characters that are dropped from franchise (anyone remember Richie Cunningham’s older brother Chuck from Happy Days?); they explain where she went and why. Well, they explain why.
Secretary Ross alludes to his past as well. The movie clinches the deal for fans who want Edward Norton’s Hulk to be canonical. And the movie also sets the stage for the Avengers to move out on their own. S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer in the picture, and that’s a clever way to distance the film franchise from the television show (you might be interested in this article from last year about the Avengers / S.H.I.E.L.D. continuity problem). Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is at best a lackluster show that has a semi-loyal following. I follow it mostly out of boredom. I only watch a couple of television shows (the other is ABC’s Once Upon a Time, which is simply incredible) but if I had to miss the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. it would not bother me. I much prefer Agent Carter, to be honest. It’s hard to believe ABC is leaving her return as “unlikely”.
Don’t get me wrong. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Clark Gregg as Phil, son of Coul all the way through. But he has been misfiled in a television show that doesn’t know how to kill permanently boring characters. If ever a TV show was in desperate need of a coroner from Munchkin land, it’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In a way, it’s great that Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood are getting a shot at their own series with “Marvel’s Most Wanted” but ABC’s reluctance to commit to a show is clear in their decision to do a TV movie. If this is supposed to drum up support for a TV show, it probably won’t do any better than past attempts. The show has to win an audience on its own merits. Palicki and Blood are a great team and they were part of what little magic there was in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Removing two of the more interesting characters was a mistake, in my opinion, although the show will probably lumber on for a couple more seasons.
What would be cool would be if Steve Rogers could meet up with Phil Coulson and learn how Nick Fury had just one more secret. In fact, the Kree connection would make it plausible since the Avengers are going into space and there was the matter of five packets of blue liquid in “Civil War”. I fear a less-than-brilliant film-to-TV crossover may center around those blood packs. I kind of hope they were just a lame attempt to explain where the five extra villains in “Civil War” got their power (I don’t want to spoil too much here).
Is “Civil War” a secret nod to the television show? I realize Marvel Studios has much to be embarrassed about the show but they could try to cooperate a little bit with the TV guys. No, we’re probably never going to see Robert Downey in more than a brief video clip on some screen because he would cost more than the entire season, but there could still be better coordination between the show and the movies. It’s all one-sided and that is one of the things that makes it so painful to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: no one really cares about what happens to Phil Coulson and his team. The Inhumans have just turned the show into a superhero-wannabe.
Captain America cannot fix that problem, but the civil war does tie up some other loose ends quite nicely. I wasn’t really expecting so much subtext in this movie. The Russos did a great job with that.
See also:
Captain America: Civil War Keeps You On the Edge of Your Seat at A1MovieReviews.com