Assembling The Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe--comprised of films, broadcast television and streaming series and digital shorts--has generated considerable fan engagement with its emphasis on socially relevant characters and plots. Beyond considerable box office achievements, the success of Marvel's movie studios has opened up dialogue on social, economic and political concerns that challenge established values and beliefs. This collection of new essays examines those controversial themes and the ways they represent, construct and distort American culture.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe--comprised of films, broadcast television and streaming series and digital shorts--has generated considerable fan engagement with its emphasis on socially relevant characters and plots. Beyond considerable box office achievements, the success of Marvel's movie studios has opened up dialogue on social, economic and political concerns that challenge established values and beliefs. This collection of new essays examines those controversial themes and the ways they represent, construct and distort American culture.

Avengers Assemble chronicles the rise and continuing rise of what is arguably the greatest filmic success story of the past half century: the Marvel Cinematic universe. Since 2008, the interlocking series of 23 superhero movies have combined to gross over 22.5 billion dollars worldwide. This is the first and only comprehensive narrative of how the MCU came to be, assembled by two veteran pop culture experts, journalists Chris Lee and Geoff Boucher. Avengers Assemble features inside access to the major players within the MCU from Jon Favreau, Robert Downey, Jr., Kevin Feige, Isaac Permutter, and David Maisel, one of the founding architects who frequently does not get much credit, and many, many others. The book kicks off with the very founding of the Marvel Studios and takes readers behind the scenes of how the real Marvel Universe came to be formed and how they have continued to have remarkable success. Marvel fans and cinema fans alike will find much to obsess over in this explosive inside look at the making of a mega franchise.

Avengers Assemble! explores the cinematic and televisual branches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a diverse range of critical perspectives. Beginning with Iron Man, it considers them as both embodiments of the changing blockbuster film and affective cultural artifacts that are immersed in the turbulent political climate of their era.

Marvel Studios takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most eagerly anticipated films of all time in AVENGERS: THE ART OF MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS. This keepsake volume is an experiential journey through the entire film from beginning to end - featuring stunning concept art; full-color photographs from the set, as well as the finished film; excerpts from the script; and exclusive interviews with the cast and crew, including writer/director Joss Whedon, producer Kevin Feige and, of course, the Avengers themselves. From costume and production design to visual effects and creature creation, AVENGERS: THE ART OF MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS is a lavish showcase of all the artistry and creativity that brings the Marvel Cinematic Universe to life onscreen. Avengers Assemble!

Breaking box office records, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved an unparalleled level of success with fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. This is the first book to analyze the Marvel output as modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from world religious traditions. This book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. The films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.

Breaking box office records, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved an unparalleled level of success with fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. This is the first book to analyze the Marvel output as modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from world religious traditions. This book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. The films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.

A diverse cast of characters -- Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), Miles Morales (Spider-Man), and Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl) -- team up in their first-ever middle-grade series told through comics, in-world artifacts, and more! Kamala Khan was an average middle school kid. That is, until a cloud called a Terrigen Mist swept through the New Jersey waterfront and activated her super powers! After taking on the persona of Ms. Marvel, she's been fighting crime in Jersey City, and has caught the eye of some pretty well-established super heroes. But that's not always a good thing...After Kamala is caught by news cameras taking on a super villain -- and accidentally destroying a building along the way -- she gets a letter from Captain Marvel herself! It's great that she's fighting crime and sticking up for people, but maybe a regular school isn't the best place to learn how to do that. If she wants to continue as Ms. Marvel, she's going to need to take on some new extracurricular activities -- mainly, training with other young super heroes alongside the Avengers!Now Kamala is the new kid at the Avengers Institute. Her classmates are all kids like her, they have special powers, but most of them have gotten into some trouble or drawn attention to themselves. The big news at the Avengers Institute this year? An academic decathlon in which students will group up into teams and compete against each other in super heroics. Kamala and her friends Miles and Doreen will have to go up against a team led by some kids who fight less than fair -- and have some trouble with the concept of "fighting for good" -- in this funny, action-packed look at some ordinary middle school kids who just happen to have some extraordinary powers.

The Superhero Multiverse focuses on the evolving meanings of the superhero icon in 21st-century film and popular media, with an emphasis on re-adapting, re-imagining, and re-making. With its focus on multimedia and transmedia transformations, The Superhero Multiverse pivots on two important points: firstly, it reflects on the core concerns of the superhero narrative—including the relationship between ‘superhero comics’ and ‘superhero films’, the comics roots of superhero media, matters of canon and hybridity, and issues of recycling and stereotyping in superhero films and media texts. Secondly, it considers how these intersecting textual and cultural preoccupations are intrinsic to the process of remaking and re-adapting superheroes, and brings attention to multiple ways of materializing these iconic figures in our contemporary context.

As technology has made the world smaller, with media consumption increasing exponentially, consumers expect their entertainment worlds to be larger. With one of the most successful film franchises of all time to its name, Marvel Entertainment is not only a leader in the box office, it is an innovator in its use of world building in storytelling. It is no secret that the films that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) are set within the same fictional universe. Furthermore, Marvel has incorporated a serial television series into this grand narrative and incorporated secondary elements, including short films and comic books, in order to take audiences deeper. This method resembles an emerging topic of interest in communication studies, that of transmedia storytelling (often referred to simply as transmedia). Transmedia, briefly, is the telling of a story across multiple media channels where each individual narrative has the ability to stand-alone and yet, makes a worthy contribution to the grand narrative. On its own, any transmedia installment may be enjoyed by a casual consumer, however, the consumption of all installments, across media channels, provides a more enriching experience. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which Marvel has applied the principles of transmedia to its Cinematic Universe, to investigate how strongly it tied its various media installments together into one compelling, overarching grand narrative. To accomplish the purpose of this study, as is more robustly explained in the methodology chapter, a thorough evaluation of the MCU's various installments was conducted, searching for an assortment of storytelling elements, as described by transmedia experts as key components of a compelling transmedia venture. These elements serve as connections between the separate installments of a transmedia narrative. This study found that the MCU is indeed saturated with connections between its individual stories, across all media p