Last week, Captain America: The Winter Soldier turned an unbelievable ten years old! This is a film that is considered a fan favorite among Marvel fans! It was able to tell a smart, complex and politically driven story about the dangers of trusting the government and your allies, it delivered some of the best and most unique action in the entire MCU, it gave side characters such as Nick Fury and Black Widow more to do than ever, and best of all, it just made Captain America an ultra cool badass instead of a Mr. Goody Two Shoes hero that the character was originally thought of as.
And in just about four months, we will also see the ten-year anniversary of the original Guardians of the Galaxy. This is a film that is also considered a fan favorite among Marvel fans and perhaps their most surprising film they have ever made. It was able to be a super fun, action packed, heartful and hilarious movie about becoming a family while introducing five instantly memorable characters that turned out to be the most lovable group of misfits you can imagine want to following. Considering the fact that the guardians themselves were characters that very little people knew about outside of hardcore Marvel fans, Guardians of the Galaxy being as good as it is was quite simply a miracle.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were two installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that were so good that I would argue helped turned the tide of the narrative of the MCU as a whole. A narrative that this franchise was more than just Iron Man and his best friends in The Avengers. This franchise could in fact rely on more than just one person with star power but MANY other people with star power as well. So much so that I’m willing to declare that 2014 still remains the most important year for Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe overall.
Yes, more important than 2008 which saw the release of Iron Man, the film that kicked started this cinematic universe. Yes, more important than 2012 which saw the release of The Avengers, the payoff to Marvel’s five to six year plan up to that point. And yes, even more important than 2018 and 2019, which saw Avenger: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the culmination and payoff to the entire Infinity saga, being two of the most commercially successful films of all time. While all off those were undeniably important and impactful, 2014 was where the Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to achieve it’s own level of peak.
Before 2014 rolled around, Marvel was still riding high off of The Avengers and the building blocks of Phase One. However, while every Phase One movie has their fans, it was mostly the first Iron Man and The Avengers that carried the weight of that entire phase and are the two films that are looked the most fondly of! Those two films were so good that it made the entire first wave of Marvel movies worth it, even with the indifferent quality of the other features!
Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off a year later in 2013. However, despite the financial success and solid reviews for certain installments, the fan response was arguably very mixed. Iron Man 3 was a genuine crowd pleaser but was controversial among hardcore fans due to the film’s portrayal of the Mandarin, A.K.A. Iron Man’s greatest enemy. Thor: The Dark World was seen a decent “filler” movie at best and a dull and forgettable movie at worst for critics and fans and is usually ranked as one of the lowest rated movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There was also Marvel and ABC’s first show in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which had strong ratings for it’s first two episodes but saw a steady decline with each episode getting less viewers as the season went on. Although the show would end up getting a following due to the improved quality of later seasons, the first season of the show was not looked to fondly.
When looking back at the state of the MCU in 2013, the reaction that got from fans was almost identical to the state of the MCU for the past few years. After a handful of subpar and lukewarm at best installments, it made people question whether or not Marvel still has it. Is that superhero fatigue setting in and that special bubble is about to burst? If 2014 had anything to say about, the answer was quite simply hell no!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finished off its weak first season on a strong note and started a second season that was considered a HUGE step up in quality. So much so that most fans that stuck around felt that was when the show had finally found it’s footing and was well worth their time and investment. Even if the ratings did decline after each season, the show was still able to last for seven seasons, with the final episode airing in August 2020. What seemed like a questionable show to keep going in it’s first season was able to find a following and fanbase that helped pushed it to seven seasons!
When it comes to the 2014 MCU slate regarding films, we had Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy! After the mixed bag of a 2013 slate with Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, these two films had a LOT to prove! Not only to prove that Marvel Studios was not slipping away in terms of quality but that these stand-alone installments could in fact exist on their own terms and didn’t need Iron Man or the rest of the Avengers to carry it. And man, did Marvel respond to 2013 about as good as they could have!
First up, we had Captain America: The Winter Soldier! This acted as a sequel to The Avengers and served as the next step of Steve Rogers’s development that started with Captain America: The First Avenger. While The First Avenger acted as a period piece flick, The Winter Soldier acts as a modern day espionage thriller. It was a showcase of Steve Rogers adapting to modern day events, discovering the corruption of a government that flew right under everyone’s nose, working and bantering along with his trusted allies, and seeing the pieces of his past come back to haunt him in present day. And it was all brilliant!
The Russo Brothers’ first entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe was met with widespread acclaim from fans and critics, instantly ranked up there as among the very best installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! It acted as a perfect way to follow up Captain America’s story from his first movie and The Avengers while planting the seasoning for future installments in film and television for that universe.
Perhaps the most important thing about The Winter Soldier was not only how impressive it was in terms of story, characters, action, and themes but also how it stood strongly on it’s own without the notable successes of Phase One to bog it down. It shown that these side stories with these characters still had a purpose and they weren’t just being made just for the sake of buying time for the next Avengers movie. Important characters such as Captain America could carry his own film without the need of Robert Downey Jr. or the Avengers name alone. These stand alone entries could in fact stand on their own and play a big important role to the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
For as impressive as Captain America: The Winter Soldier was, one could still make the argument that Captain America was still a well known superhero that was going to have his well deserved due at some point. That is something that could NOT have been said about the other big movie to come out of Marvel Studios in 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy.
I will die on the hill that Guardians of the Galaxy was the most risky project that Marvel has ever released. It contained a bunch of characters that mainstream audiences were unaware of, it had a space opera vibe that the MCU really never had up to that point, and it was directed by James Gunn, a man that tends to have a dark and twisty sense of humor and had a director vision that no other directors of Marvel had yet. If this failed, there was NO way Marvel or Disney was gonna try anything like this again and stick to strictly familiar names and brands for the future. Guardians of the Galaxy was a giant leap of faith……that ended up stick the landing big time.
Once again, Marvel Studios was able to strike gold with their most unrecognizable movie to date in Guardians of the Galaxy. It was met with the same love and acclaim that The Winter Soldier got just four months earlier. People fell in love with the characters of Peter Quill A.K.A. Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and even a talking tree named Groot, people were enthralled by the visuals and set pieces, people were laughing at the jokes, people were crying at the big emotional beats, and people were rocking to the movie’s awesome soundtrack, which sold like GANGBUSTERS on Apple just weeks after the movie came out. It was so loved and adored that there are those that would argue that this is not only one of the best Marvel movies ever but perhaps their favorite Marvel movie to date, even more so than The Winter Soldier or The Avengers. It was that good!
Just like with The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy was a Marvel movie without the big main selling points of their biggest successes with Iron Man and The Avengers. There was no other recognizable superhero to be found or had a tied together plot that made it acquired viewing for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sure, there was a tease of Thanos himself along with the setup of the Infinity stones but they were never a big focus or distraction that it took you out of the the movie. It was just the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves on their own space adventure and it could not have been better for it.
Looking back on the MCU ten years later to where it is now, I stand strongly on the statement that 2014 was the turning point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and when it was able to become something even greater! With the success of the MCU slate that year, it was prove that Marvel did have an identity of their own that wasn’t just strictly Tony Stark and his amazing superhero friends! They did in fact have other interesting characters with their own stories to tell and other unique brands that was worth drawing attention to. They could afford to go bolder, weirder, and riskier and it could all end up for the better!
It’s by being able to make lightning strike twice with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy that motivated to make other great installments later on such as Thor: Ragnarök and Black Panther along with multiple sequels with Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy. They didn’t need to rely solely on Iron Man, The Avengers, and Spider-Man once they formed a partnership with Sony to keep the franchise going. They could afford to try out other characters and untested properties to allow their brand to grow and evolve into other things. And I don’t think they would have gone that exact route if it weren’t for the success of their 2014 installments in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy.
2014 may not have been the most commercially successful or profitable year under Marvel’s belt nor even the one with the most cultural impact but without the success that Marvel was able to gain that year, there is a good chance the Marvel Cinematic Universe would have looked quite different in the past ten years that what we have seen! I sure hope whatever the future holds for Marvel, that they look back on 2014 as to why that got them to where they are now and NOT learn the wrong lessons from it!
Adam's Blog 