You've Seen 'The Avengers', Now Rank the First Six Films in the Franchise

The Avengers is now confirmed to have made a record-crushing $207.4 million in its first three days at the domestic box-office. That number is larger than the entire theatrical run for Thor ($181m), Captain America: The First Avenger ($176.6m) and The Incredible Hulk ($134.8m) and it has some pondering what’s next for writer/director Joss Whedon as he is now expected to become one of the most highly sought after genre filmmakers in Hollywood. Others, however, have take the opportunity to look at things in a more negative light.

The success of The Avengers has caused some to bemoan the fact it just means we’ll continue to get more of the same, mega-blockbuster features with studios chasing the next opening weekend record, product placement, endorsement deals, lunchbox stickers, etc. The problem I have with this complaint is the fact studios were going to do that no matter how The Avengers performed. It makes me wonder why anyone would knock a positive addition to the process rather than continue to focus that negative energy on the giant films that make tons of money that actually aren’t any good?

Of course, there may be a little something to that complaint depending on what you think of the first six films in Marvel’s Avengers franchise and The Avengers itself.

Was The Avengers an outlier, joined by five previously mediocre films that contributed more to the problem than the solution? Were films such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger merely cash grabs before the big show? If so, is it a fair trade-off to accept five mediocre movies for one good one?

As far as I’m concerned, The Avengers is clearly the best of the first six films in the franchise, the caveat being that it could not have existed as is without the other five. In writing the film Whedon assumed a lot. He assumed the audience was at least vaguely familiar with the stories behind each of its super characters and familiar with their personality quirks. You could certainly piece things together without having seen the first five, but I’m not sure you’d be able to take away as much entertainment.

In my review of The Avengers I noted how it seemed to take the majority of its entertainment cues from Thor and its character and story control from the first half of Iron Man. If anything, I felt Thor did an excellent job of taking an unashamed approach to a truly ridiculous character, opening the door for Whedon to walk through and feel as if there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with the franchise.

Whedon used Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) character traits to poke fun at anything ridiculous from Loki’s outfit, Captain America’s suit and his poking at Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). The result is a film that almost watches along with the audience, saying, “We know this is silly, but just go with it.” It was subtle self-awareness rather than beating the audience over the head with the realization.

Not so coincidentally, Thor and the first Iron Man are my second and third favorite of the franchise, though my appreciation for Iron Man stops around the midway point. When it comes to Iron Man and its sequel, I wonder, Is it better to be 50% great/50% meh or 60% entertaining and 40% meandering and worthless?

The first Iron Man has those moments of true greatness in its opening half before devolving into a bunch of noise and cliche genre trappings. Iron Man 2, however, has elevated moments of entertainment peppered throughout a rather shoddy screenplay overall. The biggest problem, for me, being the Downey charm we loved from the first one was already beginning to wear thin.

When I reviewed Iron Man 2 I described it as being “better than the first in terms of overall entertainment” but added that it “really could have used a jolt of energy midway through as things begin to sag before ramping up for the explosively loud conclusion.” I also made the assumption that I would return to Iron Man 2 on DVD and Blu-ray when in fact it is the only film of the six I haven’t watched a second time.

Speaking of reviews, prior to The Avengers, the film I gave the best review out of the first five was The Incredible Hulk, a film I rewatched just last week and immediately began second-guessing my 2008 self.

I remember getting caught up in the spectacle of Edward Norton‘s portrayal of the big green guy, the thunderous booms as he clashed and raged across the big screen. However, watching it again recently I couldn’t give it my full attention. The opening dragged on for way too long and by the time it got to the end I just couldn’t really care less.

Alternatively, the film in this franchise I gave the worst review to was Captain America, a film I couldn’t manage much interest for the second time around either, but I appreciated it a bit more after watching The Avengers.

Without the introduction to Captain America (Chris Evans) as a product of World War II, I felt The Avengers would probably be missing something.

Steve Rogers stands for old school values, something that frequently clashes with the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist that is Tony Stark, but their combined values make for some great scenes and underlying determinations of what it means to be a hero. While I’m still not entirely keen on the Captain America film, I’m glad it exists if only to make future films involving the character that much better.

So to that point, where does this franchise stand in terms of the complaint that with the success of The Avengers it only means we’ll be getting more of these assembly line blockbusters in the future? After all, it’s not as if the Avengers films are going away any time soon.

Iron Man 3 hits theaters on May 3, 2013, Thor 2 arrives on November 15, 2013, Captain America 2 releases on April 14, 2014, there are new rumors of a standalone Hulk feature, there’s potential for a Hawkeye and/or Black Widow feature, an inevitable The Avengers 2 is sure to be made and there are new rumors regarding Edgar Wright‘s involvement in the long-gestating Ant-Man feature based on the image you see to the right that he tweeted just this morning.

If you ask me, the Avengers franchise appears to be a superhero genre all its own. It’s not comparable in execution to what Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises or even Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man trilogy. Fox took a look at what Marvel Studios was doing and is now trying to work backwards with their X-Men films, but it appears as if it might be too late to go the standalone route as their Magneto film never got off the ground, after a shaky start it finally appears The Wolverine will begin shooting soon and X-Men: First Class may be their only shot to keep that franchise breathing easy.

To me I’d say The Avengers approached their franchise more as a television series, spending the first five episodes on character building with a little bit of peril, building to the mid-season sweeps week with The Avengers. It only stands to reason that the first episode would be the one to capture our attention and from then on keep us watching, hoping for the pay-off. Now, we’re hooked once again and Iron Man 3 has to keep things chugging along as we’ll probably get five more episodes before the first season finale and The Avengers 2, probably some time in 2016.

Until then, here’s how I would rank the first six films in the franchise today with links to my original reviews for each if you’re interested in how my opinion on each may have changed over the last few years.