Hype for the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been higher. Their last three films have all received over a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Black Panther is currently ranked as the 12th highest-grossing film of all time and climbing.
Now with Infinity War hitting theaters ahead of schedule, all eyes turn to the team at the center of it all: the Avengers.
We’ve certainly come a long way since Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were first assembled for the 2012 film – a task that once seemed impossible beyond the pages of a comic book. These crossover films have now become commonplace in the MCU, much to the delight of fans everywhere.
However, as they rapidly approach the 20 movie mark, it would be impossible for the MCU to get everything right with respect to the Avengers.
While these discrepancies have been few and far between, there have still been a number of instances when new releases have exposed cracks in past films, characters have underwhelmed audiences, and plots have fallen subject to the typical popcorn movie tropes.
Let’s take a closer look at the 15 Things Wrong With The Avengers We All Choose To Ignore.
15. They only assemble when they feel like it
At the end of Avengers, Nick Fury allows each superhero to go their separate ways with no protocol in place to reunite them should the world need saving. His reasoning? Because they should instinctively know when to answer the call.
In other words, don’t expect this kind of spectacle for every Marvel movie that follows.
As viewers, we understand how much more labor-intensive it is to make a movie like Infinity War compared to something like Ant-Man. Not only do the Avengers films cost hundreds of millions more to make, they also require corralling a dozen A-list actors for a film that could take well over six months to shoot.
Therefore, we all suspend the disbelief that these heroes are largely on their own when it comes to their standalone films, even though they’re really only one group text away from getting the band back together.
14. Their powers are inconsistent
While even the Super-Soldier Steve Rogers is prone to having an off day, we’ve seen numerous instances where the Avengers’ powers fluctuate wildly from film-to-film.
Thor is a primary example of this, where in his debut movie he’s able to toss around Frost Giants and summoning a vortex, only to have a difficult time dispatching Iron Man in The Avengers.
Meanwhile, in Age of Ultron, Thor gets beat down by the eponymous antagonist after already watching Captain America hold his own against the villain — unintentionally implying that the Cap’s powers are tantamount to that of a god.
In Iron Man 3, one of Tony’s auto-piloted suits gets smashed to bits by a semi despite watching an earlier model take repeated blows from Mjolnir in Avengers, proving once again that the franchise isn’t afraid to nerf or buff these characters’ powers for the sake of storytelling.
13. Civil War was really an Avengers movie
Throughout the first two phases of the MCU, we came to expect that the only movies with any substantial overlap would be the Avengers films. Therefore, the casual viewer could still appreciate Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 without also having to sit through every Thor and Captain America movie.
That has largely changed with Phase Three, which has contained more crossovers than ever before, beginning with its kick-off film Captain America: Civil War.
Not only did Civil War set the stage for the entire third phase by fracturing the Avengers, it also contained more characters and had a longer runtime than any previous Marvel movie. It wound up serving other characters than Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Natasha, all of whom played a vital part in Winter Soldier.
This really begs the questions as to why they didn’t just make it the third Avengers installment in the first place?
12. How Thor returned to Earth in The Avengers
We knew that 2012’s The Avengers was going to be quite the juggling act, meaning that certain plot points were inevitably going to be glossed over for the sake of concise storytelling. But unfortunately, one of those plot points happened to involve Thor’s return to Earth.
At the end of Thor, we watch as the God of Thunder sacrifices his chances of ever reuniting with Jane by destroying the Bifrost Bridge to thwart Loki’s plan. He’s essentially stranded in Asgard, though we do see Jane searching for a way to reopen the portal at the film’s end.
Forget about all that — Odin’s got dark matter, which he can apparently conjure up at any time to send Thor back to Earth.
While this loophole certainly saved time in The Avengers, it essentially sucks all the gravitas out of Thor’s ending upon repeat viewing.
11. Tony Stark continued being Iron Man in Age of Ultron
Throughout Iron Man 3, we watch Tony Stark struggle with his PTSD following the Battle of New York, which ultimately leads him to enact the Clean Slate Protocol where J.A.R.V.I.S. destroys all of his Iron Man suits. Stark also vows to spend more time with Pepper, has the shrapnel removed from his chest, and throws the arc reactor in the ocean.
All of this makes perfect sense for the character and what he’s been through.
But apparently, that didn’t quite mesh with what they wanted to happen Age of Ultron.
Here, not only has Stark reunited with the Avengers to take on HYDRA, he’s also rebuilt a number of his suits, including the Mark 43 and the Hulkbuster Armor. While we understand that Stark had plenty of time to engineer these suits off-screen, it’s the reversal on his character development that comes off as more than a little sloppy.
10. They never mention The Defenders
After creating a shared cinematic universe the likes of which have never been seen before, Marvel went a step further and expanded its continuity into the TV world.
While we’ve seen Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Daredevil give numerous nods to the movies, it’s never once been the other way around.
In Civil War, we know Tony Stark had tabs on Peter Parker well before he recruited him. Why wouldn’t he at least reference the other superheroes who are currently bouncing around the Five Boroughs? If it’s truly a shared universe, surely Stark would want as many players on his team, or at least be concerned about someone like Luke Cage or Jessica Jones joining Cap’s faction.
The answer might be as simple as the movie franchise not wanting to point kids in the direction of these more adult-oriented shows. But a few subtle Easter eggs never hurt anybody.
9. How they defeated the Chitauri
At the end of Avengers, Iron Man plans to sacrifice himself by flying a nuclear warhead out of the wormhole above New York City toward the Chitauri fleet. And despite his suit running out of power once he’s in space, Iron Man succeeds in blowing up the mothership before falling back to Earth.
While we can willingly suspend disbelief that Stark falls back to Earth despite there being no gravity in space, it’s a little bit harder to look beyond the fact that the remaining Chitauri on Earth suddenly fall dead as soon as their mothership is destroyed.
It’s clear that the movie was going for a sort of hive-mind scenario, where destroying the “brain” disables the minions.
However, this plot device was never established earlier in the film. Of course, most people probably didn’t think twice, as every popcorn movie needs a singular moment when good ultimately triumphs over evil.
8. Ant-Man getting his own movie before Black Widow
While Black Panther marked a major turning point for the franchise, the film’s success only helped demonstrate how much the MCU underestimated the power of diversity in the past — when every person of color or female character was relegated to playing second-string to the movie’s white male heroes.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with Black Widow, who has been a mainstay of the series since 2010, but has failed to get her own feature despite an enthusiastic fan base. Instead, the MCU has focused its efforts on giving increasingly obscure characters like Ant-Man their own day in the sun.
Last year, Wonder Woman absolutely dominated at the box office. With Johansson being the highest-grossing actress of all time, we’re sure Marvel would have another hit on their hands. A Black Widow movie is finally in development but who knows if it will involve Johansson.
7. Vision’s untapped potential
Not only does Vision wield an Infinity Stone upon his forehead — which he uses to shoot energy blasts — this Avenger is also made out of Vibranium, has super-intelligence, super-strength, the ability to fly, and can make himself intangible — ostensibly rendering any physical attack directed at him utterly useless.
So far, Scarlet Witch has been the only one to best Vision by manipulating the Mind Stone – though it’s always possible that he purposefully didn’t resist due to his feelings for Wanda.
As a matter of fact, Vision’s feelings have repeatedly kept him from being a key player, which may have been a result of the character actually being made too strong upon his debut.
Whatever the case may be, we hope to see Vision unleash his full potential in Infinity War. Up until this point, his powers have really been put on the back-burner.
6. Scarlet Witch’s extreme personality change
While Wanda Maximoff is on the wrong side of the equation at the start of Age of Ultron, she’s at least a character with convictions who is willing to stand-up and fight for what she believes in.
This characteristic ultimately works in favor of the Avengers when Wanda learns the truth of Ultron’s plans. However, her character development seemed to take an unrealistic turn in Civil War.
Here, not only did her accent seem to waver and her use of telepathy become pretty much non-existent, but she also spends a majority of the film unwilling to take a stand.
While one would expect Wanda to be responsibly despondent over her brother’s passing, Pietro barely seems to cross her mind — probably because Civil War desperately tries to establish the romance between Scarlet Witch and Vision, which we can only hope pays off in Infinity War.
5. How Thor knew about the Power Stone
With Infinity War upon us, we’re sure fans will be revisiting the MCU in the next few weeks and be paying extra close attention to the locations of the Infinity Stones.
While each Avenger has come into contact with at least one stone, Thor has actually crossed paths with three: the Tesseract, the Aether, and the Mind Stone. How exactly did Thor also see the Power Stone during his hallucination in Age of Ultron?
While the Power Stone had already popped up in Guardians of the Galaxy the year before, the stone was still worlds away from the God of Thunder.
While it’s possible that Thor had previous knowledge of the other stones, it’s a little too convenient that the only ones he sees in his vision just so happened to be the stones the audience had already been introduced to.
4. How useless Tony Stark has become
Ironically, the very character who started the MCU has also become one of the franchise’s most ineffectual superheroes.
Don’t get us wrong, Tony Stark is still one of the smartest Avengers, who can effectively engineer a killing machine out of a pile of scraps when allotted enough time. But there’s quite a difference between going up against the Mad Titan and a group of cave-dwelling terrorists.
Stark has also proven time and time again that he doesn’t need to be in his suits for them to be just as effective.
In the few instances we’ve seen him up against a foe without the armor, he hasn’t faired nearly half as well as the other Avengers, making it no wonder that he’s in favor of the Sokovia Accords.
So whether fans want to admit it or not, Stark may be the Avenger who’s ultimately proven obsolete in a world of increasingly powerful threats.
3. How they handled Quicksilver
In the comic books, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are amongst the earliest members of the Avengers — who really helped shake things up due to their former villain-status. However, they have largely been given short shrift in the MCU — especially Quicksilver, who got the ax during his debut film.
Thanks to the complicated deal with Fox, a number of aspects about the characters had to be changed for Ultron, including swapping out their mutant origins in exchange for being HYDRA creations.
Quicksilver was largely robbed of all his bravado that made him such a compelling character in the comics.
This added insult to injury when they decided to eliminate him before getting him right.
Why introduce a fan-favorite character when you have no intention of keeping him around for at least a few films?
2. Movie announcements have spoiled Infinity War
The catch-22 of establishing a joint universe is that projects in development are going to spoil upcoming releases. Of course, you can’t expect Marvel to play all their cards close to the vest and not build hype for Ant-Man and the Wasp, which will be released only a few months after Infinity War.
The MCU has also announced a number of other releases for 2019 and beyond, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oh, and that script for a Black Widow solo film is also currently in the works. Provided none of these films are prequels, we can already guarantee that these characters will be making it out of Infinity War and the Untitled Avengers movies alive.
While Captain America and Iron Man seem to be topping everyone’s list of character most likely to pass in Infinity War, these future announcements have undeniably sucked out a certain level of suspense when it comes to the fate of the Avengers.
1. They’re invincible (so far)
One of the biggest complaints of the MCU — outside of their underdeveloped villains — is how invincible many of their heroes seem to be.
Just think about it, when’s the last time that you walked into a Marvel movie unsure of whether or not the Avengers would win?
Of course, like any good popcorn movie, the heroes should largely prevail over the villains by the time the credits roll. After everything they’ve been up against, the Avengers should have realistically taken some heavier casualties by now.
This is where Infinity War is expected to shake things up, with Kevin Feige warning that critics better be careful what they wish for when it comes to major losses.
While we’re not necessarily in favor of saying goodbye to some of these beloved heroes, their departures could certainly make way for new characters and unexplored dynamics in future films.
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Do you agree with these Avengersinconsistencies? Sound off in the comments!
