The Man Movie Encyclopedia: The Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One (Part 1)

Greetings, all.

Your boy has been busy, so I took a small break, but we’re back.

In honor of Avengers: Infinity War coming out, I thought we’d take a look at the MCU’s phase 1, their most ground-breaking work, and home to some of their best work. I thought about going through the films one by one, but that’d take a bit of time, so I decided to break it up into two weeks work, looking at the first 3 here, and the final 3 next week.

Alrighty, let’s get it, gang…

Just like that, Marvel took an actor that was written off, a character that was a B player in the Marvel Universe at best, and catapulted both to the absolute top. Ever since then, RDJ has been A List, and Iron Man is just as well known as Batman or Spider-Man.
The first act of Iron Man is arguably the best 1st act in the entire MCU, and one could even argue the best act in the entire MCU. We meet Tony Stark, an egotistical, brash, party-loving, billionaire genius who flies through life doing whatever he pleases. It’s while in the Middle East on a weapons demonstration he’s kidnapped by the 9 Rings, a terrorist organization. They want Tony to build them their own Jericho Missle, a weapon capable o supreme destruction. From there, Tony is shown a new path via his work assistant, Yosef, a man trapped in the cave with him. With his help, Tony builds the Mark 1 suit, and frees himself, rescued shortly there after by his friend Colonel Rhodes.
Once back home, Tony decides he’s no longer in the business of making weapons, after seeing that they were falling into the wrong hands. He then heads to his lab where he begins work on the Mark II. These scenes are great, as we watch him build the suit we all know, tinkering with various things and seeing what works, and what doesn’t. Also, few things sweeter than when he gets the suit up and running, and heads back to deal with the guys that kidnapped him. We soon find out that Tony wasn’t kidnapped by chance, but rather set up by his partner, Obadiah Stane He attempts to kill him again, only for Tony to save himself at the last minute and suit up.
The first Iron Man is universally loved, and with good reason. It tells a fantastic story, carried out by interesting characters and actors more than capable of the work load. We get some great action scenes, and Marvel’s trademark humor peppered through out. RDJ is as perfect for the role of Tony Stark as Patrick Stewart was Professor X. RDJ doesn’t even have to act, he IS Tony Stark. My only complaint is I feel the villain just isn’t that interesting, and I would have liked to see him in something other than just a bigger Iron Man suit.
8/10

Post Credit Scene: This is our first introduction of Nick Fury, and the mention of The Avengers. Back in the day, Nick Fury was a grizzled white guy, on the bad-ass level of guys like The Punisher. When the cats at Marvel started doing the Ultimate Avengers comic, they revamped Nick Fury, and purposely molded him after Sam Jackson. So, that ended up working well.

The 2nd outing for the MCU was another stab at the Incredible Hulk. Their first venture in 2003 was…well, it sucked, let’s just leave it at that. This time around, we wipe the slate clean with Ed Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner. We get the origin in the credits, and as the film starts he’s living in South America, attempting to work on a cure, but with no avail. He’s working at a soda bottling company where he cuts himself, and a drop of blood happens to get into a glass and ends up poisoning Stan Lee. When he’s discovered by the man chasing him, General Ross, a team is sent in to extract him, lead by a man named Emil Blonsky. Of course, he has no idea what his team is going into, and once the Hulk shows up, all hell breaks lose. He’s able to escape, and decides to head back to the school where this all happened, and his girlfriend, the daughter of General Ross, also happens to be. Else where, Emil is fascinated by the Hulk, and wants another shot at him. I dunno, call me crazy, but if a dude hurls a forklift at me, I’m not really itching for round 2. He tells Ross that he wants a second chance at the Hulk, and Ross tells him that not only can they arrange that, but they can give him a better shot at winning. This of course leads to him becoming the Abomination. A character that is stronger than Hulk, but has a threshold, where’s Hulk gets stronger as he gets angrier. They have a pretty great fight in the streets of Harlem, as it never tires watching a monster break a cop car in two and bludgeon another monster with it.
I really enjoy this film, and honestly find it better than Iron Man. Norton was a great Banner, and I wish he’d stayed on. There are some great action scenes, the Hulk vs the Army and Hulk vs Abomination of course being the stand-outs. I thought Roth damn near stole the show, and was fantastic as Abomination. Unfortunately people have flat out forgotten him, as he’s never mentioned when people say the MCU is lacking in villains.
8/10

Post-Credit Scene: This time we see a defeated Thunderbolt Ross at a bar, when in walks Tony Stark. The first time I saw this it blew my mind, because movies didn’t do this. Characters from other films didn’t appear in other films, this was madness! It’s when you first got the sense of the fact they’re really shooting for something big here.

Before we saw other Avengers in their own solo films, we went back and hung out with Iron Man again. In the second entry, a man named Ivan Vanko is out to get revenge on Stark for what his father did to his father, a man that helped design the arch-reactor, but was disgraced after it was discovered he was selling secrets to the Ruskies. Meanwhile, Tony is being harassed by the man who is trying to get him to give up his suit. Also, he’s being poisoned by the very thing keeping him alive, his arch-reactor.
Besides Ivan, Tony also has to look out for another guy trying to piss in his Wheaties, Justin Hammer. A weapons designer who is trying to beat Tony at his own game, and failing miserably.
When Ivan shows up at a race, armed with similar tech to Tony’s, he nearly gets him, before being bested. However, as he tells Tony, if you can make God bleed, then people with stop believing. The sharks will come. Which is what happens, as Justin Hammer funds Ivan’s escape, and hires him to build his suits. Naturally, Ivan has other plans, and builds droids, along with a new suit for himself, so at the Stark Expo, he can raise hell. During this time, Stark is thinking he’s doomed because of the blood poioning, and just quits giving a shit. Getting drunk at his birthday party, hanging out in the suit, blasting shit, and even fighting his best friend, who’d go on to be War Machine.
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I like Iron Man 2 more than the original. Seeing Tony go a bit off the rails and not give a shit is great, and I find Ivan & Justin Hammer to be far more interesting and charismatic villains than Obadia. Plus, Don is a much better Rhodes than Terrance. The introduction of Black Widow is great, and there are some awesome action scenes, such as the fight on the raceway, and the final brewhaha between Ivan with his drones, and Iron Man and War Machine.
8/10

Post-Credit Scene: This was great because it was the first time we got a look at another film, or something pertaining to another superhero. I wasn’t even a big Thor fan and I geeked out over this. The world was really beginning to open up, especially since we got a look at Cap’s shield in this film.

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.

Twitter: @CaliberWinfield

Instagram: @CaliberWinfield
I post almost daily with workout related stuff to help you cats out, along with what’s coming down the pike via the MME, and general pop culture from the 80s and 90s that I can’t seem to let go of.

[email protected]

If you just can’t wait until next week, you can also find me at these fine places:
Only A Ninja Can Review A Ninja: The Man Movie Encyclopedia
The deadly arts contained inside these movies can only be viewed and reviewed by one man, Caliber Winfield. For only a ninja, can review a ninja. I cover all the classics, from Enter The Ninja, American Ninja, to the modern films such as Ninja Assassin and Ninja. I don’t want to say this book has both saved and changed lives, but this book has both saved and changed lives.

The Man Movie Encyclopedia: The Hall of Burly – Vol. 1 – A collection of the first 19 MME articles written for 411. You get all the classics like Commando, Robocop, and Die Hard, not to mention bad-assery such as Point Break and They Live. Beyond that, you also get two new articles. My Top 5 favorite action movies, and what I believe to be the Top 5 most over-the-top scenes in action movie history. I won’t lie, it’s the greatest self=help/martial arts instruction book of all time.

My Summer Vacation At Camp Crystal Lake – My brand new ebook that’s become so popular it’s charting on the album sales charts. I cover the Friday The 13th franchise in Man Movie Encyclopedia fashion, followed up by a few list-based articles, chronicling my favorite kills, moments from the franchise, and a few other subjects. $3 via amazon, or simply email me and get it for $2, either way, it’ll probably change your life.

Caliber Winfield On The Facebook –
Anything new that I do you guys can find here. Last I checked I was at 54 likes, which is pretty fucking solid in my book. However, I saw Joe Lee and A Bloody Good Time were over 110. C’mon now, we can’t let them beat us, can we?!

All Things Caliber –
I merged my wrestling website into my long standing website that’s been up for over 6 years. Anything under the sun, I’ve written about it.