Why I’ll Never Love Again… or, How Endgame Broke My Heart.
Needless to say, here there be spoilers.
“Why does it feel like we’re coming home from a funeral,” I said to my kids as we drove back on I-84 from The Village in Meridian to our home in Caldwell.
Normally after seeing a movie, especially a Marvel movie, Rebekah and the kids and I are full of stories about our favorite moments and scenes, what we loved, what we thought they could have done better.
After that we move on to the storytelling, was the character sufficiently motivated, did they act like they should, that sort of thing…
Not this time. This time it was dead silence. By the time we got home, the realization hit us.
It was over.
The MCU, was over.
For the next three days, all of us, but me especially, walked around the house like zombies reeling from the fact that our favorite characters, were gone. Never to be seen again.
It doesn’t matter that we agreed on their end. Natasha (at least in her eyes) needed redemption. Tony needed to make the sacrifice play. Steve needed to live his life with Peggy.
Even now, writing this months later I’m getting the chills and I don’t think I’ve ever had such an impactful emotional experience from a movie in my life.
And I doubt I ever will again. Marvel pulled off something that no other film company has ever done, ever. And it wasn’t the shared universe. It was that they brought these characters to life and set them loose on the world for 20+ movies.
All the tricks we writers use to make people love our characters, they used. When a movie called “Captain America” opens number one in China… CHINA… you know you’ve done something right.
However, more than just the death of beloved characters or the end of the movie itself, it’s the end of the MCU that really bothered me. All of a sudden, I have NO DESIRE whatsoever to watch any of the Marvel movies I own, none. I’m not even excited to go see Far From Home and Spider-man is my all time favorite comic book character.
The only thing comparable to this feeling is when I left the Army. For four years I’d sunk my heart and soul into service and then one day I wasn’t in anymore. But for Marvel, it was ten year.
Ten years of eagerly anticipating the next movie. Ten years of wondering when Cap would frigging say, “Avengers… Assemble!” Ten years of wondering if Tony would ever find out that Thanos was behind Ultron and it wasn’t his fault.
In the MCU, Cap was my hands down, favorite character. Now he’s gone. I like Anthony Mackie, but he’s no leading man, and he certainly isn’t Cap.
People are saying, “Just wait till the next Avengers movie.” I’m not sure there will be a next Avengers movie. Who would be in it?
Captain Marvel is to OP to ever be in a team movie. And while I like T’challa, and I feel like he’s the only other person in the MCU who could lead the Avengers, he doesn’t really have a team to put together.
And from a meta-perspective, even if he did, the audience would compare them to the old Avengers and it would not go well for the new team.
So, what now? I have no idea. If it were me leading the MCU I would have backed the Brinks truck up to Chris Evans and RDJ’s house and paid them whatever they wanted to keep playing those characters.
Because those characters WERE the MCU, and without them, the world is a little more sad, a little more alone. They brought us hope. They stood for what was right (most of the time, I’m looking at you, Tony).
But most of all…
They brought us together.
Jeffery is the award-winning writer of the Full Metal Superhero series, and the Superhero by Night series. Check out his awesome superhero books on Amazon.com
Latest release, Arsenal Reloaded: Full Metal Superhero Book 8
https://www.amazon.com/Jeffery-H.-Has...
“Why does it feel like we’re coming home from a funeral,” I said to my kids as we drove back on I-84 from The Village in Meridian to our home in Caldwell.
Normally after seeing a movie, especially a Marvel movie, Rebekah and the kids and I are full of stories about our favorite moments and scenes, what we loved, what we thought they could have done better.
After that we move on to the storytelling, was the character sufficiently motivated, did they act like they should, that sort of thing…
Not this time. This time it was dead silence. By the time we got home, the realization hit us.
It was over.
The MCU, was over.
For the next three days, all of us, but me especially, walked around the house like zombies reeling from the fact that our favorite characters, were gone. Never to be seen again.
It doesn’t matter that we agreed on their end. Natasha (at least in her eyes) needed redemption. Tony needed to make the sacrifice play. Steve needed to live his life with Peggy.
Even now, writing this months later I’m getting the chills and I don’t think I’ve ever had such an impactful emotional experience from a movie in my life.
And I doubt I ever will again. Marvel pulled off something that no other film company has ever done, ever. And it wasn’t the shared universe. It was that they brought these characters to life and set them loose on the world for 20+ movies.
All the tricks we writers use to make people love our characters, they used. When a movie called “Captain America” opens number one in China… CHINA… you know you’ve done something right.
However, more than just the death of beloved characters or the end of the movie itself, it’s the end of the MCU that really bothered me. All of a sudden, I have NO DESIRE whatsoever to watch any of the Marvel movies I own, none. I’m not even excited to go see Far From Home and Spider-man is my all time favorite comic book character.
The only thing comparable to this feeling is when I left the Army. For four years I’d sunk my heart and soul into service and then one day I wasn’t in anymore. But for Marvel, it was ten year.
Ten years of eagerly anticipating the next movie. Ten years of wondering when Cap would frigging say, “Avengers… Assemble!” Ten years of wondering if Tony would ever find out that Thanos was behind Ultron and it wasn’t his fault.
In the MCU, Cap was my hands down, favorite character. Now he’s gone. I like Anthony Mackie, but he’s no leading man, and he certainly isn’t Cap.
People are saying, “Just wait till the next Avengers movie.” I’m not sure there will be a next Avengers movie. Who would be in it?
Captain Marvel is to OP to ever be in a team movie. And while I like T’challa, and I feel like he’s the only other person in the MCU who could lead the Avengers, he doesn’t really have a team to put together.
And from a meta-perspective, even if he did, the audience would compare them to the old Avengers and it would not go well for the new team.
So, what now? I have no idea. If it were me leading the MCU I would have backed the Brinks truck up to Chris Evans and RDJ’s house and paid them whatever they wanted to keep playing those characters.
Because those characters WERE the MCU, and without them, the world is a little more sad, a little more alone. They brought us hope. They stood for what was right (most of the time, I’m looking at you, Tony).
But most of all…
They brought us together.
Jeffery is the award-winning writer of the Full Metal Superhero series, and the Superhero by Night series. Check out his awesome superhero books on Amazon.com
Latest release, Arsenal Reloaded: Full Metal Superhero Book 8
https://www.amazon.com/Jeffery-H.-Has...
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[deleted user]
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Jul 09, 2019 09:07AM
Well said, Jeff. We may have seen the demise of the Golden Age of superhero movies. Plus Rogers rules, Stark drools.
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Totally disagree. The Archival MCU is still immensely watchable particularly some of the ancillary characters. Ant-Man and AM and the Wasp are enjoyable in their own as is Dr. Strange. I could watch Thor;Ragnarok on a loop and never get tired of it just for the sheer audaciousness of the story and execution. The Winter Soldier still has its place as my Number One Marvel movie and stands tall as a masterwork of filmmaking on its own merits. Just the other day I rewatched AVENGERS and you can’t say that watching the genesis of this team isn’t just freaking awesome.
