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2020

Avengers Explored

IRON MAN AND : A STUDY IN TRANSMEDIA, ADDITIVE COMPREHENSION AND ADDITIVE MYSTERY SNEPVANGERS Contents

Introduction ...... 2

1. Theory: Transmedia and Narratology… Assemble! ...... 5

1.1 Transmedia ...... 5

1.2 Narratology ...... 10

1.3 Method ...... 19

2. Analysis: Captain America and : A tale of two superheroes ...... 20

2.1 Captain America: Fragile body, Strong mind ...... 20

2.2 Iron Man: Fragile ego, Strong suit ...... 29

2.3 Steve and Tony: Fragile friendship, Stronger together ...... 37

2.3.1 The narratological nature of the relationship ...... 37

2.3.2 Exploring and expanding on Stony with additive comprehension and mystery ...... 45

3. Conclusion ...... 49

Coda: Discussion and suggestions for future research ...... 50

Bibliography ...... 51

Appendix ...... 53

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Introduction

“I love you 3000”. This phrase exploded onto the pop culture scene after the release of : Endgame and by simply uttering it some people would struggle to hold back their tears, myself included. It felt like a double whammy after the trauma that Avengers: War had already left, first seeing some of our favorite new Avengers get snapped out of existence and now losing three out of the original five for good. It marked of the Infinity Saga, a collection of films, tv series and comic books spanning more than a decade, with Endgame alone beating the all-time box-office record of $2.7 billion. Although it does not mean the end of the Cinematic Universe, quite the opposite in fact (Eisenberg, 2020), it does mark the end of some of the most beloved and important characters in the MCU, none more important than the two that started it all and led the way throughout: Iron Man and Captain America. These two characters and specifically the relationship between them have been a heavy influence on the unfolding of the story at large, a story not just told in a single film, but a large and varied catalog of media. As the reign of these two characters at the top of popular culture comes to an end, it is worth the time to look back and discover how exactly they achieved such success that millions of people across the globe collectively ball their eyes out after finding out about their /retirement. The fact that their story has unfolded over several different media comes into play here. As they are two of the most important characters in the MCU, they have had quite a lot of stories devoted to them, not just in film, but also in comics, video games and, to an extent, tv-series. Marvel have used all these resources to construct and develop their two characters with interesting results. To give every entry legitimacy, they apply the principle of additive comprehension, a term coined by game- designer Neil Young when talking about the Lord of the Rings game he was making and popularized in transmedia research by professor Henry Jenkins. This term describes the idea that every new entry into a transmedia narrative must have something that adds to the storyworld or revises your understanding of said world, like, as Young stated, the origami in the director’s cut of Runner, in which they added a scene where Deckard finds an origami unicorn, making the audience if he is a replicant (Jenkins, 2006: 123). I would argue, however, that this term, additive comprehension, has not been explored as much as it could be. Many scholars seem to have a tendency to focus on transmedia as a whole, but there appears to be more nuance to this principle than many of the researchers give it credit for. I would argue that to build a successful transmedia narrative and give room for future development, it is not enough to just have additive comprehension in your new entry, it is also beneficial to have additive mystery, a way to entice the audience into exploring more of the universe. Marvel has used some very explicit forms of this with the way they have popularized the so-called mid-/post-credit scenes, where they tease the next

2 entry in the film series. There are however more and subtler ways to do this, and especially with regards to characters, such as Captain America and Iron Man. I have chosen to focus on these two particular characters because 1) their relationship is a large driving for many of the events and specifically conflicts that arise in the MCU, particularly the cross-over events, such as The Avengers and Captain America: and 2) they are two of the only three characters, along with , to have a complete trilogy of stand-alone films, i.e. Iron Man 1, 2 and 3 and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier and Civil War, plus a major role in the cross-over films, along with a plethora of canon and non-canon comics, such as : Public Identity and Captain America: First Vengeance, and other media, such as the tv-show and the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King, to further develop their character, their relationship and their world, which gives Marvel many opportunities to use additive comprehension and mystery to give them a complete and satisfying story arc. Basically, there is a lot to work with. All those entries into the MCU use additive comprehension and mystery to both develop the characters and to entice the audience into finding out more about them, what they’re doing and what they’re thinking. Imagine a page in a coloring book with the outline of Iron Man. It is the job of creators to fill in that drawing, and with every entry they fill in an arm, a leg or a piece of his torso, until it is fully colored in and we have a complete image of Iron Man. Every portion they fill in is with additive comprehension and every part that remains blank is additive mystery.1 This research will take the characters of Iron Man and Captain America and see how they and the relationship between them are built with additive comprehension and mystery in mind. To fully understand how a character is built through multiple media, however, the study of transmedia on its own appears to fall short. It would be beneficial for studies such as this to not only incorporate transmedia literature in this analysis, but also theories of narratology, which would provide a theoretical backbone to understanding how a character is built in just one story, to see how the transmedia producers have built it through not just multiple stories, but multiple media. Incorporating narratology into a study about a transmedia narrative gives structure and tells us what aspects go into building a character and a relationship between characters, to see if and how these aspects are applied in building the story of Iron Man and Captain America, which aspects are perhaps easier to highlight in a specific medium and how additive comprehension and additive mystery are applied to help the consumer understand and invest in this relationship. Three fundamental aspects of narratology will be discussed: space, time and character. The latter is quite obvious, but the other

1 A similar idea is also applied in open-world video games such as GTA V or Assassin’s Creed, where the goal is exploring every corner of the map, but large parts of the map start out unclear, foggy or unavailable. Players can choose to focus on the main storyline, or, in case of the MCU, only watch the films, or explore every corner of the map, or watch and/or read every other piece of media released in relation to the MCU. 3 two are relevant as well because they have strong influence on both the characters and additive comprehension/mystery and they help to not only build the character but build the world around them, which in turn helps us create a more complete image of our two main heroes. With that in mind, this thesis will examine how additive comprehension and additive mystery are employed to build the relationship between the narratological characters Iron Man and Captain America in time and space in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Two theoretical fields are important to this research: narratology and transmedia storytelling. An important note is that this research intends to add to the conversation surrounding transmedia, not narratology. The latter has been chosen as a backbone for exploring the terms additive comprehension and additive mystery and incorporate a theoretical field that has historically not been incorporated as much in transmedia research, at least not in the manner it will be here. The pioneering scholar connected to the study of transmedia is Henry Jenkins, the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. Although transmedia as a phenomenon has existed for centuries, Jenkins was one of the first to recognize and study it in his book Convergence Culture (2006). It is therefore a relatively new discipline within media studies but has already had numerous scholars chiming in (Dena, 2009; Ryan, 2013, 2016; Pearson, 2017). The study’s relative youth leaves a lot of room for further exploration and discussion, however, and this research will attempt to add to that discussion. The second aspect of this research is that of narratology and for this I will refer mostly to Mieke Bal and her book Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2009), alongside Peter Verstraten’s book called Film Narratology (2008). These two scholars and books provide a strong baseline on what makes a character and a story and are among the most prominent researchers in this particular field of study in the Netherlands. In the next chapter I will discuss what the concepts of “transmedia” and specifically transmedia storytelling entail. Moreover, I will investigate the notion of additive comprehension, elaborate on the term additive mystery, after which I will explain what time, space and character mean in the narratological sense, as well as briefly discuss the methods of analysis. Chapter 2 will, after a short summary of the case study, contain said analysis, first discussing the individual characters and how they are built through transmedia separate from each other, and finally discussing the relationship between them and how this has been and could further be built through transmedia. In chapter 3 I will conclude my findings before briefly discussing possible avenues for future research. To keep the analysis as concise as possible I will include an appendix containing summaries of all the stories from the MCU I will be referencing to, that contain the two subjects of the study.

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1. Theory: Transmedia and Narratology… Assemble!

1.1 Transmedia Transmedia on its own literally means ‘across media’ and there are many aspects and nuances to this phenomenon, which I will discuss here. 1.1a Distinctions There are many aspects to the transmedia field of study, which is why step one for most of the writings on transmedia storytelling is to make distinctions between the exact aspects of transmedia or transfiction that will be discussed. The first distinction I have to make is between transfiction and transmedia. They are related but not the same. Transfiction occurs when “two (or more) texts … share elements such as characters, imaginary locations or fictional worlds” (Saint-Gelais, 2005, as quoted in Ryan, 2013: 343). Transmedia, or, more appropriate, transmedia storytelling, is defined by Jenkins (2006) as “the flow of content through multiple media platforms”, the big difference being that transfiction does not necessarily cross different media. For example, a sequel to a film could be considered transfiction, but not transmedia, as both pieces of media are film. Ryan (2013: 366) expands on this by regarding transmedia storytelling as a special case of transfictionality, that it is a transfictionality that operates across many different media. Ryan (2013) argues that something becomes a transmedia narrative when it applies the different aspects of transfictionality, particularly expansion, to a text that involves a storyworld from not only a different text, but a different medium. The second distinction that should be made is between the different aspects of transmedia theory. This paper will talk about transmedia storytelling, whereas there are also phenomena such as transmedia branding, performance, activism etc. (Jenkins, 2011). Though it is very possible a text or a universe might incorporate more than one of these forms of transmedia, for the purpose of this research we will focus solely on transmedia storytelling.

1.1b Transmedia storytelling Transmedia storytelling is a form of storytelling in which a comprehensive narrative is told across different media, ideally with each entry adding new parts to that story. Where an author might begin their text in a novel, the story of the novel, or the world the novel describes, might be continued or expanded upon in a film, a video game or a comic. This expansion can happen in two ways: it can be conceived from the very beginning as a multimedia storyworld by its creators, or it results from a so- called snowball effect. In the latter case, a story becomes so popular it naturally generates expansions in other media (Ryan, 2013). The MCU fits into the first category: it was planned from the beginning to become a shared fictional universe that would eventually cross media borders as well (Forbes, 2018). Examples of the ‘snowball effect’ are the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings

5 franchises, as they were originally just meant to be books, but due to their immense popularity they were adapted and expanded upon in different media, including, but not limited to, films and video games. Christy Dena (2009) further defines the different approaches to creating a transmedia universe by proposing the following terms: intercompositional, that involves separate processes of composition, and intracompositional, that involves only one process of composition. She defines a composition as any single work. That could be a film, tv show or book, but could also be a transmedia work, such as an Alternate Reality Game, or ARG, that might not use film or TV at all. The intercompositional transmedia phenomenon is defined as several separate compositions, or stories, told within the same world, while an intracompositional transmedia phenomenon refers to one and the same composition told through different media. They aren’t mutually exclusive, as an intracompositional transmedia narrative can also relate to another composition in the same world, making it intercompositional. In other words, if one considers an intracompositional transmedia composition as a single narrative told with different media, but this narrative takes place in the same storyworld as other, single medium compositions, like a book or a film, it can also be considered an example of an intercompositional transmedia phenomenon. The example Dena (2009: 106) provides is I Love Bees, which is an Alternative Reality Game, i.e. a transmedia fiction that is told through, among other things, web articles, videos and payphones, set in the world of the Halo franchise and released in anticipation of the video game Halo 2. The composition itself is intracompositional, but it also relates to other media in the Halo universe. Dena (2009: 106) goes on to say that scholars can study the transmedia fiction I love Bees on its own or how it relates to the rest of the Halo franchise. What both inter- and intracompositional transmedia phenomena have in common, is that they exist because multiple compositions share the same storyworld. The storyworld is what allows transmedia storytelling to become real, as both writers and readers have a strong desire to explore every inch of that world (Jenkins, 2007). While the definition of storyworld is difficult to put in a single sentence, Ryan (2013: 364-365) defines it with a list of components and dynamic components: Static 1. An inventory of existents comprising (a) the kinds of species, objects, and social institutions that populate the storyworld and (b) the cast of individual characters who act as protagonists 2. A folklore relating to the existents, such as backstories, legends and rumours 3. A space with certain topographic features 4. A set of natural laws 5. A set of social rules and values Dynamic

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6. Physical events that bring changes to existents 7. Mental events that give significance to the physical events (i.e., the motivations of the agents and the emotional reactions of both agents and patients), affect the relations between characters, and occasionally alter the social order. (Ryan, 2013: 364) Ryan (2013: 365) distinguishes three relations between world and text: 1) one text/one world, where there is only one text that gives access to the world, i.e. a self-contained story, something that is becoming increasingly rare in the current age of the internet and fanfiction, 2) one text/many worlds, where a single text can inspire a plethora of different outcomes that would situate it and create parallel worlds. For example, when two people look at The by Edvard Munch without knowing the backstory, they might think of completely different reasons for why the man screams and/or covers his ears, thus creating two completely different worlds from the same text/painting. And finally, 3) one world/many texts, which is where we find most transmedia narratives. I say most, because, as Ryan (2013: 367-370) points out, there is nuance between two texts that share the same world and two texts that share similar worlds. She concludes that a text that expands the world and is written by the same author as the original text can be considered the same world, where other forms of expansion, such as sequels from a different author, plus modification and transposition, can consider to use similar worlds to the original. She adds to this by providing the example of transmedia adaptation, that inherently falls under a similar world, as different media have different affordances. Besides this inherent difference, adaptations can also change the world with the above mentioned transfictional operations. One of the main reasons transmedia storytelling is becoming more and more prominent in the current media climate is the synergy of modern media. Modern media conglomerates hold an interest in multiple forms of what once were separate industries, giving an incentive to these companies to take advantage of as many of the media markets as possible (Jenkins, 2007), plus it might make customers that are generally fixed to one form of media dip their toes in other markets, further expanding revenue for the main corporation (Jenkins, 2007). According to Jenkins (2007), an ideal transmedia story would have each episode offer some additive comprehension (more on this later) and would have either one person or artist independently write the story over the different forms of media or have strong collaboration between creators of different media, an idea which is similar to Ryan’s one world/many texts theory. In the case of the MCU, Feige and his team of producers are almost always credited as executive producers on every MCU chapter to ensure as much continuity as possible and can therefore be considered as the authors of the MCU storyworld. Some final important aspects of transmedia storytelling cover what has been called “collective intelligence”, a term that describes how a text comes about through different people with

7 similar interests, opinions and knowledge working together to create new ‘knowledge communities’ (Jenkins, 2007). Information is also dispersed in such a way that no one person can know everything about the world, meaning they have to work together to have a complete image of a world, see for example the now hundreds of species present in the world of Pokémon. Jenkins (2007) describes it as such: “consumers become hunters and gatherers moving back across the various narratives trying to stitch together a coherent picture from the dispersed information.” Besides dispersing information, a text also creates a set of roles and goals that consumers can pursue in their own lives or create gaps in the story that consumers can fill in by themselves or that could be filled in on a later date. The latter we will discuss in the next part. Some of the important terms and debates from collective intelligence within transmedia are those of interactivity versus participation, and continuity versus multiplicity. The first pair is described by Jenkins (2011) as a difference in properties, interactivity having more to do with the technology and participation more with culture. Interactivity is preprogramed entertainment, allowing the consumer to have a strong but controlled and predetermined influence on the story they are consuming, while participation is more related to fans indulging in the story and its world in their own way, without intervention of the producers (Jenkins, 2011). Continuity versus multiplicity is also a distinction between the creators and the fans. Continuity has become almost sacred to both transmedia producers and fans and if a new addition to the transmedia narrative breaks continuity of earlier instalments in any way, creators will immediately be called out for it. At the same time, it can be one of the most difficult aspects to maintain once your universe starts expanding. Input from fans is therefore heavily monitored and if a producer applies “user-generated content” to their world, they do so only if it protects the ‘integrity’ of the continuity (Jenkins, 2011). Some recent examples of continuity issues are the 8 year jump in Spiderman: Homecoming, which directly contradicts the rest of the MCU timeline, and the final season of The Clone Wars in the Star Wars Universe, where Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex were previously believed to be on Mandalore during Order 66, but this ended up happening on a battlecruiser in hyperspace (Screenrant, 2020). Multiplicity, on the other hand, celebrates fan culture by allowing them to create stories told from radically different perspectives than what is considered canon and could make the producers consider including some of those stories in the canon (Jenkins, 2011).

1.1c Additive comprehension and mystery Additive comprehension is for Henry Jenkins an integral part of a transmedia narrative, as it justifies the existence of every new piece of media added to the storyworld. This is somewhat of a contentious point, however, as Christy Dena (2009: 108) criticizes Jenkins on this by saying anyone

8 could do it, which would make it difficult to keep an overview of what is and isn’t part of the actual story. The term, coined by game designer Neil Young, describes how a new text adds “a new piece of information that forces us to revise our understanding of the fiction as a whole” (Jenkins, 2007). Creators can write texts that follow some basic narrative functions to add to the story as a whole. Jenkins (2011) offers the following functions: offering back story, mapping the world, giving another character’s perspective on what has already happened and/or deepens audience engagement. A good example of this in the MCU is the comic Avengers Prelude: ’s big week, in which we see the perspective of and his Agents of on everything that happened in phase 1, or at least everything that happened in present day, i.e. events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible , Thor and leading up to the final scene of Captain America: The First Avenger. Here we not only get a different perspective on the action, but also the understanding that all these events happened within roughly the same week and explains SHIELD’s (lack of) involvement in these events. Scolari (2009, as quoted in Ryan, 2013: 369) proposes different terms for similar concepts: interstitial stories are stories that take place between instalments, which can offer back story and map the world, parallel stories are stories told from a different perspective than the original text, e.g. Fury’s Big Week, and peripheral stories are, according to Ryan (2013: 369), the myths and legends relating to objects within the storyworld, for example the stories of the Wakandan culture and the origins of in the MCU.2 These types of expansion are the main focus of this paper because there are two sides to it, one of which is not covered much in the existing literature. Additive comprehension adds to the story in a significant way, but to make room for answers first questions must be asked. To allow for additive comprehension, first there must be some mystery created in other texts.

1.1d Additive mystery Before I discuss the ways in which this research will be conducted, I would first like to dedicate some time to additive mystery and where it comes from. Jenkins (2007) defines additive comprehension as “the ways that each new text adds a new piece of information which forces us to revise our understanding of the fiction as a whole” and gives the example of Neil Young talking about the origami unicorn in the Blade Runner director’s cut that causes the audience to wonder if Deckard is a replicant. An example for our case study could be Captain America: First Vengeance, which shows Barnes being inspired by Steve standing up to bullies even though he was clearly outnumbered and outmatched. This gives the audience a better

2 Ryan (2013: 369) also concludes that prequels and sequels can fall under interstitial stories. 9 understanding of how the two became such close friends and it reinforces Abraham Erskine’s idea of Steve first and foremost being “a good man”. However, if you consume everything the MCU has to offer, you start to notice that they have a tendency to throw out certain lines or terms that haven’t featured before, at least not in a major theatrical release. Some of this can be contributed to writers ‘pandering’ to fans who have a deeper knowledge of the Marvel Comic universe the MCU is based on, but move forward a little in the timeline and you start to notice those little lines being expanded upon. A good example is the mention of in Avengers: Age of . It’s a small and quick reference to the origins of Vibranium, but it ended up being the main location for the movie Black Panther, released a few years later. Moreover, Black Panther made over a billion dollars and was nominated for, among other nominations, the Academy Award for Best Picture that year (IMDb, 2018), showing that that initial reference paid off. There are more examples of this, some more obscure and some more explicit, but it happens quite often. I believe this shows that additional information in a new text could function as more than just revising the understanding of the original text, a perspective that isn’t talked about as much in the existing theories. Something like the origami unicorn starts to make the audience wonder about the original text, but additive mystery like the mention of Wakanda could start to make the audience wonder about the rest of the universe that they do not know yet or does not exist yet, a seemingly quite useful aspect for someone building a transmedia universe and hopes to expand the audience’s interest.

1.2 Narratology In order to study how Marvel builds their characters in time and space through transmedia and additive comprehension/mystery, it is necessary to first understand how to build a character in time and space in the first place. The study of narratology can be used as a base for understanding how a story is constructed and how a character is built within a narrative. Narratology will be used in this thesis as a way to anchor some of the close reading of the case study and use its principles to discover how additive comprehension and mystery are employed to add to these principles.

1.2a Time The notion of time in narratology is of a multi-faceted nature. Mieke Bal (2009: 77-112) divides it into three distinct expressions: sequential ordering, rhythm and frequency. Though the following chapter will devote time to all three, the main focus will be sequential ordering. Sequential ordering in a story can occur on two different levels, that of the fabula and that of the suzjet, or story. The former describes the sequence of events that occur within the story and the

10 latter describes the way this sequence of events is told (Bal, 2009: 5). Take for example Memento (Nolan, 2000). For the audience the story partially unfolds backwards, interspersed with black and white scenes that are told linearly. This is the suzhet. But the fabula is still completely linear, the opening scene is the final action of the main character and the final scene is the one that sets the rest of the story in motion. When there is a disparity between the story and the fabula it is called anachrony. As Bal (2009: 82) explains, all literature contains anachrony. A film doesn’t necessarily follow this, films can be exclusively chronological, but this is still often not the case, as most films jump around in time a lot, mostly to progress the story or tell it on a grander scale than just the 2 hours. Bal (2009: 85-96) describes different aspects of anachrony. The first is direction. A deviation from the primary fabula can happen in two different directions, to the past or to the future. If the story goes to the past, it is called a retroversion, if it goes to the future it is called an anticipation. Bal prefers to use retroversion and anticipation instead of the more commonly known terms flash-back and flash-forward because of the psychological connotations connected to these terms. The second aspect is distance. Verstraten (2008: 39) builds on the idea of differentiating between objective and subjective retroversions, i.e. the difference between a retroversion and a flash-back, by emphasising that the distance between the time an event happens and the time a character is talking about it plays an important part in the reliability of the retroversion. If a middle- aged character is remembering an event that happened during their childhood, it can be extremely unreliable. The large distance between the event and when it is being told can influence the way it is represented in the story (Verstraten, 2008: 39). Bal (2009: 88-89) divides the idea of distance in sequential ordering into the three following terms: external retroversion/anticipation, where an event is shown that starts and ends before the primary fabula, internal retroversion/anticipation, where an event is shown that starts and ends within the primary fabula, and mixed retroversion/anticipation, that started before the primary fabula but ended within, or started within and ended outside (Bal, 2009: 88-89). Verstraten (2008: 40) also describes ‘false’ anachronies, where an anachrony might harken back to the past, but it is still ongoing, like a bunch of letters that were written in the past but are still lying on the bedside table in his case study of The Comfort of Strangers. Retroversions can serve different functions than anticipations. External retroversions, specifically subjective retroversions, are usually applied when an explanation is required generally regarding the motivations of one or more actors. Flashes of a troubled youth could explain an antagonist’s bitterness, a scene of a previous relationship could explain tensions between two characters etc. For internal retroversions, Bal (2009: 89-91) singles out three different functions: filling in an ellipsis, where there was a gap in information, for example when a particular night is

11 skipped but is shown in the story when the fabula is already at the next day, filling in a paralipsis, a gap of information in a side-track, like a side character explaining their absence during a particular scene, or repeating a scene already shown to shed a new light on it or to emphasise its importance, for example in Rian Johnson’s Knives out, where a previous scene of the dogs barking at Ransom is shown, revealing him to be the main perpetrator. Mieke Bal also distinguishes between distance and span. Distance is how far away in time the event is from the main fabula, span is the duration of the event. For example, if a line says: I didn’t leave my room for a week last month, the distance is a month, the span is a week. If the span is short or does not line up with the present, i.e. when the main fabula began, it is incomplete. They can become complete if there are enough incomplete retroversions to fill in the entire gap between the first retroversion and the beginning of the fabula, this happens a lot in detectives for example (Bal, 2009: 91). She also describes the distinction between punctual and durative span. These terms originate from linguistics, specifically grammar. Punctual is similar to the preterite and durative to the progressive form in English grammar. A punctual retroversion is a short but significant event, a durative retroversion often covers a longer time span, which can result from a punctual retroversion. Though the distinction of punctual versus durative can be likened to that of incomplete versus complete, durative retroversions are not always complete (Bal, 2009: 92). Mieke Bal gives the example of the novel Of Old People by Louis Couperus, where the memory of a murder is a punctual retroversion, but the period of guilt and blackmail that follows it is a durative but incomplete retroversion. Favouring one over the other can give insight into the style of the author. If punctual is dominant it can create a ‘businesslike’ style, a mix of the two can illustrate a clear causative structure in the story and a dominant durative style can leave the impression that the story is just a series of inevitable events (Bal, 2009: 92-93). Although most of the examples above concern retroversion, the terms also apply to anticipation. Anticipations are much less common, however. Allusions to a future are traditionally of a fatalistic nature, such as in the summary. Although they may answer the question of ‘what happens?’, they prompt new questions such as ‘how did it happen?’, creating a new type of tension where the one stemming from the question of ‘what’ is immediately relieved (Bal, 2009: 93-94). An anticipation might benefit from a degree of uncertainty, to retain some of the tension that a summary might fully relieve. For example, an iterative anticipation describes an event that is presented as the first in a series. However, the more detail this event is given, the more it takes away from the anticipatory aspect, as our belief that all that detail would happen in exactly the same way over and over decreases (Bal, 2009: 95). If an anticipation is explicit, it is an announcement, if it is implicit, it is a hint. If something is an announcement, the audience is aware of it and know that it will

12 be realized at a later point. A hint will only be recognized as an anticipation once the event has already occurred, a common aspect in a detective narrative (Bal, 2009: 95). Besides sequential ordering, there are two other aspects of time within narratology: rhythm and frequency. Rhythm describes the relationship between the time of the fabula and the time of the story (Verstraten, 2008: 41). There are three different ways in which fabula and story can differ with regards to rhythm. First, it can speed up, telling the events of a week within a single page of a book. A cinematic equivalent of this is the montage, where a minute of the film can tell a process that happens over weeks, maybe months. Second, if certain stretches of time in the fabula are completely left out in the story we speak of an ellipsis. In films this happens a lot, for example in Spider-Man: Homecoming, after the first scene ends the screen says “8 years later”.3 The final way rhythm can be affected is by slowing down. In literature it is for example when multiple pages are spent on describing the scenery or the looks of a newly introduced character, but in film slowing down is a little more difficult, as it could be challenging to show a five minute scene that would only cover one minute of the fabula (Verstraten, 2008: 41). Frequency basically describes the difference between how much an event is repeated in the fabula and how much it is repeated in the story. If a story describes an event with “each afternoon…”, but only describes it once, there is an implication that it happens every day but is only worth mentioning once. Verstraten (2008: 41) explains that this could also be used to convey meaning by explaining that this is used to show how the main couple from The Comfort of Strangers has gotten stuck in their relationship, as it hinges on a certain structure, i.e. each afternoon they are woken up by the same noise.

1.2b Space Definitions of space in narratology boil down to the dichotomy between place and space. If someone speaks of a place, it is meant as a ‘category of fabula elements’ (Bal, 2009: 134). A place can be a house, a city, a country or a planet, and it is nothing more than just that. A space, on the other hand, is generally considered symbolic. It is inextricably linked to characters and is defined by how they perceive the space. A large city can be overwhelming, a desert can evoke despair and a house in the woods can be peaceful or scary based on the way the woods and the house are perceived. A space in which a character is or is specifically not situated is called a frame. A frame can have meaning on its own, usually culturally defined, or it can be given meaning by its opposition to another frame or by the way it is filled (Bal, 2009: 136-137).

3 As mentioned before, this is technically a continuity error, but it still counts as an ellipsis. 13

A space can also function differently. Bal (2009: 139) first distinguishes between frame-space and thematized space. Frame-space is a place of action. In this case it can be entirely in the background and have no real impact on the fabula. A thematized place, however, is an acting place and can have a strong influence on the fabula, to the point where the fabula becomes subordinate to the presentation of space. Mieke Bal (2009: p 139) puts it as such: “The fact that ‘this is happening here’ is just as important as ‘the way it is here’, which allows these events to happen.” Another function of space is whether it acts steadily or dynamically. A steady space is fixed, it does not matter if it is or isn’t thematized, it is simply a frame in which events take place. A dynamic space allows for movement. If a character needs to get from A to B, they need a space to get there, like a road. If it is a long way, then the space needs to accommodate for that by being a canyon or even a country. In summary, the defining aspect of space is the way it is experienced by the character to whom it is presented, i.e. what it means to them rather than what it could generally mean to an audience. Verstraten (2008: 41-42) illustrates this link between space and perception by talking about how the characters from The Comfort of Strangers experience the unnamed city they are vacationing in. As their relationship has gotten stuck, the city is represented as annoying and suffocating, because the narrow streets force them to rely on each other. Those narrow streets are also used to represent how the main antagonist of the book captures them in his ‘web’ and how he influenced the outcome by presenting himself as the one that would lead them out of the labyrinth, when in actuality he was leading them to the centre, as it were.

1.2c Character “Character is intuitively the most crucial category of narrative, and also most subject to projection and fallacies.” (Bal, 2009: 113). Audiences respond to characters and (the success of) a narrative is dependent on that response. A character, as defined by Bal (2009: 112), is an anthropomorphic figure that is provided with specifying features the narrator tells us about. An important distinction Bal makes is that between character and actor. Character usually portrays mainly human features, where an actor doesn’t have to. The character is ‘the effect that occurs when a figure is presented with distinctive, mostly human characteristics.’ With this in mind, an actor has more of a structural position within the fabula, whereas a character is a complex semantic unit. The audience connects with characters in various ways, actors only serve the fabula. The first aspect of character Bal (2009: 113) describes is their resistance to the reader. Characters are a representation of a human being. They cannot think and act by themselves, yet they appear to. An author’s goal is to create character-effects, where the audience does forgets they are reading/watching someone that does not exist and begin to identify and empathise with them, though Bal warns that too much character-effect might distract from what the author is attempting

14 with their art and causes the viewer to ask irrelevant questions and the critic to judge unfairly (Bal, 2009: 113-114). Due to what she calls ‘flattening tendencies’, she adopts a more descriptive rather than prescriptive method, focusing only on what the texts provide, as she believes characters are at their best when they go against expectations instead of conforming to them.4 These expectations cause us to see characters only as how they are presented, while not recognizing that they are being presented to us, or as binary, meaning either round, i.e. complex, or flat, i.e. one-dimensional, characters. Bal (2009: 114-115) argues that for example Proust’s Albertine is consciously presented as flat and that this is precisely what makes her complex and interesting. By keeping her as nothing more than an image, a paper person, the reader understands exactly what perspective the novel adopts, i.e. that of Marcel, and how he perceives her and the group of girls she is with when he first sees her.5 Bal (2009: 119) states that the character is an effect that makes us believe in the humanity of something that always resists that humanity, in favour of other important insights it has to offer. She attempts to create a framework for characterization of specific narrative characters, to explain character-effect, by summarizing the information readers are given and the information they actually use to form an image of a character. This does create problems on multiple levels, she admits, as this could vary from person to person based on their background. The anthropomorphism of characters creates an environment where they are being viewed as closer to reality than they are, which causes problems for example for characters that are based on real people, as the image a reader/viewer has of that person can greatly influence how they view the characterization of the person in the book/film, no matter how far away from reality that characterization might be. In addition to general audience, critics tend to be unaware of their own biases and attack or defend characters as if they are real people that they like or dislike, sometimes even equating author and character as the same person. These problems should not be ignored, however, but brought to the forefront and discussed alongside everything else (Bal, 2009: 119-120).

The second aspect with regards to character concerns predictability. Based on the info provided a character becomes more or less predictable, and this info, though determinative for the character, is usually processed subconsciously by the audience. If a consumer realizes there is a gap in information in the text, they fail to make a connection by lack of information. The section of ‘reality’ to which the information about the person refers she calls frame of reference. By this she

4 In linguistics, a prescriptive approach assigns rules to a language, think of books that tell you how to spell a word. A descriptive approach simply describes what a language does and tends to see difference only as a change, rather than it being right or wrong. 5 Bal here goes a lot more in depth into Albertine and Marcel, but to keep this part relevant and concise I will leave it out. 15 means what some refer to as ‘common knowledge’, ergo not knowledge that is specific from person to person but can generally be assumed to be part of everyone’s catalog, such as who is the current president of the US, but also thematic links such as north equating to colder weather and south to warmer weather. This is not only relevant to historical characters, but also legendary and mythological ones, such as Thor and . These might even have a stronger frame of reference as they exhibit stereotypical behaviour and are generally assigned specific attributes from conception, rather than building a reputation over time. This results into a situation where, if an author were to deviate from those attributes, the character might not be recognized anymore. This could also benefit a story, however, as they would be subverting expectations, e.g. depicting Hercules, the manliest of men, knitting a pink scarf for comedic effect (Bal, 2009: 120-121). These types of subversions can in turn become a certain stereotype because it is copied over and over, for instance depicting large, muscular men as kind souls with a heart of gold has become almost as expected as their original menacing image. Historical characters generally possess a slightly wider range of possibilities with regards to deviating from the public perception. Showing a different side to a historical figure does not necessarily destroy our image of that figure, although there are always limits to this due to the frame of reference. There can however always be a disparity between the assumptions of an author and the reality of a reader, especially regarding mythical characters, because some people might be generally aware of a character, but they might not know certain details that an author might consider common knowledge. Depicting Hercules with a sword instead of a club might mean nothing to someone who is not aware he is associated with a club but could be problematic for someone who is. Choosing such a referential character means choosing the confrontation between what we know and the expectations this knowledge produces and the realization of the character in the text (Bal, 2009: 121-122). There is another side to this, however, where what we think we know about a character might have been distorted by other media that use the name. Bal (2009: 123-124) gives the examples of Oedipus and Narcissus, both of which have a psychoanalytic concept named after them, while not actually exhibiting symptoms of that concept. Oedipus didn’t know it was his father that he killed and his mother that he seduced, even though the complex states this is the one thing that every boy is aware of. Narcissus at first didn’t recognize himself in the image he fell in love with, nor did he realize it was a mirror he was staring into, and he was not wrong in doing so because ‘he admires everything that makes him admirable’ (from Ovidius’ Metamorphoses in Bal, 2009: 124). Once he does realize it is his reflection he’s enamoured with, it destroys and ultimately kills him, which is the opposite of the general idea of narcissism, where one over-indulges in self-love and admiration. Bal does clarify she used this example not as a judgment but proposes it as an allegory of readers who conflate character and person. Every character has some degree of predictability simply due to the nature of their

16 existence. Every mention of a character’s identity has information that narrows down possibilities, e.g. personal pronouns limiting gender and all the implications that brings. For example, a she is unlikely to have a beard and a he can’t be unintentionally pregnant, though these limitations are, if traditionally determined, subject to change (Bal, 2009: 124). Classic Hollywood shows specific instances of this: male characters are generally introduced as objects of admiration, someone the audience would want to be, whereas female characters are generally introduced as objects of desire, that the audience would want to possess (Cinefix, 2016). Every aspect of a character creates expectations: their names, their age, their profession, even the genre in which they appear, and it is up to the author to either fuel or frustrate these expectations. Predictability is one of many ways we can use to create an image of a character. It doesn’t necessarily have to be at odds with suspense, it can also create it. If something is set up early on to be relevant to an antagonist, it can create suspense later in the story. For example, in Avengers: Infinity War, every time acquires an infinity stone, the audience expects him to use it at some point, creating tension in later scenes of conflict.6 There are four ways a text can construct a character. The first is repetition. Repeating relevant characteristics can clarify those characteristics and help emphasise them for the audience. The second is piling up of data. If certain characteristics that may seem odd on their own complement each other, they can create a more complete image. The third way authors can construct a character is relations with others and itself in an earlier stage. These relations tend to be processed into similarities and contrasts, such as with semantic axes. The final way is change. Once a character’s most important attributes are selected, they help in tracing the transformations a character has gone through (Bal, 2009: 126-127). However, the effect of these four ways can only be described when there is at least a rough outline of a character. These four ways also show the importance of time and space when analysing character. Time is a way of incorporating the first two ways Bal singles out, by combining frequency with repetition and rhythm and sequential ordering with piling up of data. For example, with repetition you can say or show something like “each morning he wakes up dreading the day.” You can just say this once, which shows how the frequency of the story differs from the fabula, but it does also show a characteristic, by showing how he likely suffers from some sort of depression or anxiety and by incorporating it into a time aspect you help form an image of the character. Piling up of data can be done in a number of ways that include involving the aspect of time. Speeding up with a montage, multiple retroversions and a disparity in frequency all can help with showing the different aspects of a character that eventually create a whole image. Although space might not be as relevant for the

6 This could also be referred to as Chekov’s gun. 17 first two ways to construct a character, it does come into play with the latter two, specifically change, as the spaces a character occupies can not only signify, but also bring about change. A cluttered house generally represents a cluttered mind, and if that house is clean at the end of the film or becomes progressively cleaner throughout it, this can also signify change in the occupant’s mind, showing how they start to (re)gain clarity in their life. I will talk about it a bit more in the analysis, but the changes in the places Tony Stark calls home throughout the MCU are indicative of the changes he goes through as a character. It is interesting to me that Bal doesn’t seem to link the aspects she analyses together, at least not in the chapter regarding story and its aspects, on which I base most of this chapter. The third way, how an author can construct a character by relating them to others, is what Verstraten (2008: 42-45) focuses on. In his analysis of The Comfort of Strangers he shows how McEwan, the author, positions his two main protagonists, Colin and Mary, both towards each other and in contrast to the two antagonists, Robert and Caroline. Colin and Mary have become too similar, both in the way they act (at some point their steps are completely in synch) and the way they are perceived by others (Caroline even calls them twins). This equality is also related to gender relations, with Colin and Mary being on the same level and Robert and Caroline depicted as a more traditional and patriarchal relationship. Deciding which are relevant characteristics can be done with semantic axes. These are pairs of contrary meanings, such as large-small, young-old, selfish-selfless etc. Selecting the relevant axes is determined by focusing on those that determine the image of the largest possible number of characters, positively or negatively (Bal, 2009: 127-128). If certain axes are only relevant for one or a few characters, only the ones that are striking or are related to an important event should be analysed. This selection, however, is strongly dependent on the ideological position of the analyst and can very easily be criticised. Once the relevant axes have been selected, they can help with mapping out similarities and differences between characters. Though this isn’t a perfect system, this information can help determine the qualifications of a character (Bal, 2009: 128). In her chapter, Mieke Bal gives the example of a family dynamic with a farmer father, which would often be qualified as strong and strict, and would probably be accompanied with a lenient wife and a supposedly lazy and weak son. This type of binary opposition is problematic and highly ideological. It boils a complex field down to two terms as polar opposites and unequal, i.e. positive and negative. One could try and build on it by applying a scale and comparing characters based on how strongly they are marked with a certain qualification. Though this model is based in ideology, recognizing this can help notice the ideological positions the text possesses. This also comes back to Verstraten’s chapter (2008: 42-45), where he puts two couples also as ideological opposites, specifically in relation to gender roles, but shows how this is mostly from a story standpoint and that

18 it is used in the novel to give motivation to its characters. It does not matter if they are opposites, what matters is that they perceive each other as such, which is part of the reason why Robert chooses Colin as his victim. How we come by the information needed to qualify a character has different levels. It can be done explicitly or implicitly. If provided explicitly, it can be said by a character to itself, by itself to others, by others to either itself or others, all of these are mostly unreliable, or by a third party, i.e. the narrator outside the fabula, this can be reliable or unreliable. When provided implicitly we deduce the qualifications from their actions, Bal (2009: 131) calls this qualification by function. The reader’s frame of reference is crucial to these qualifications, a classic example of this is the difference between terrorist and freedom fighter. Characters can also act in a way that qualifies other characters, this can either be done explicitly or implicitly, depending on the action.

1.3 Method For the analysis itself, I will close read certain scenes, such as the argument scene in Civil War or the first time they meet in The Avengers and analyze specific aspects from the films and comics, such as their places of residence or the people they surround themselves with, that contain/discuss our two main characters with the theories of narratology in mind and look at how the stories setup and build upon the aspects of time, space and character in relation to both Iron Man and Captain America. Through this I can also construct an idea of how the creators employed transmedia and additive comprehension and mystery to further build and add to the time, space and character aspects of both heroes. I will first discuss Captain America as an individual, then Iron Man as an individual and finally their relationship. I have split them up to create a complete image of both characters so that it becomes easier to also get a complete image of their relationship, since their personal development is also relevant to the development of their friendship. The analyses of the individuals will be split up in the subchapters time, space and character, to give a clear structure to the way the creators fill in the characters. During each subchapter, references will be made to the way transmedia and specifically additive comprehension and mystery are employed to enhance and explore the relevant narratological aspect. The analysis of the relationship will be slightly different. This will be split up into two parts. The first will focus more on the narratological side of their relationship and how it is built. This will look similar to the individual’s chapters. The second part, however, will focus more on the transmedia side of the discussion and go deeper into what is used and what can be used to fill in the story of the relationship. This chapter will be split up because this allows for a better overlook of the analysis as a whole and gives a clearer distinction of the two parts of the research question.

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2. Analysis: Captain America and Iron Man: A tale of two superheroes

Before we begin the analysis, a quick rundown of the actual media that will be used. The case study will consist of any release by from 2008 to 2019 that feature the characters of Iron Man and/or Captain America, plus some additional media that do not feature them specifically, but contain characters that are important to their story and have a large influence on their development. The main case study involves all official Marvel releases, both canon and non-canon (the latter will be addressed in the analysis). This is made up out of the following films, in order of release: Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Besides the films, the following media are also part of the analysis: the TV series Agent Carter (2015), the comics Iron Man: Fast Friends (2008), Iron Man 2: Public Identity (2010), Captain America: First Vengeance (2011), Marvel’s The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week (2012), Iron Man 3 Prelude (2013), Iron Man: The Coming of the (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier Infinite Comic (2014), Captain America: Homecoming (2014), Avengers: Operation (2015), Captain America: Civil War Prelude Infinite Comic (2016), Captain America: Road to War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming Prelude (2017), Avengers: Infinity War Prelude (2018) and Captain Marvel Prelude (2019) and the Marvel One-shots (2011), Agent Carter (2013), All Hail the King (2014).7 Throughout the analysis some references may be made to other media that are not included in this list, but their relevance will be explained and will only be included to further explain a reference made from a piece of content in the list or as a footnote. For a summary of what happens in each story, see the appendix attached.

2.1 Captain America: Fragile body, Strong mind Rogers was July 4, 1918 in Brooklyn. He grew up weak and sickly but after trying to enlist in the US army numerous times, he was selected for Project Rebirth, where he was injected with a serum that enhanced his physical abilities to superhuman levels. He is strong enough to bend metal, he can run faster than most cars and he can jump from helicopters down to the ground without a parachute. With these new powers he possesses, and a shield made from vibranium, the strongest metal on earth, given to him by the inventor , he starts fighting the Nazi R&D division Hydra, who killed his and the man behind Project Rebirth, Abraham Erskine. After losing his best friend to a fall into a deep and icy ravine, he tracks Hydra down to a

7 Marvel One-Shots are short films released in conjunction with the DVD release of a feature-length film 20 mountainside compound, but while trying to save New York from a devastating bomb, he crashes the bomber and himself in the ice of Greenland, leaving behind his first and only love, Agent . 70 years later, operatives of SHIELD found him still alive in the ice, and he wakes up in present day New York. In this new time, he first struggles to adapt but quickly takes on a leading role in the team of the Avengers. After saving New York again, this time from an alien invasion, he finds out Bucky is still alive and goes after him in hopes of saving him from Hydra’s grasp. Eventually he succeeds, but in doing so, loses the already quite fragile friendship he had with Tony Stark. Due to this separation, the Titan Thanos is able to defeat the Avengers and snap half the universe out of existence, including Bucky and Steve’s present day best friend Sam Wilson. After recovering all the from a past time, he leads all the Avengers in a against Thanos and his army, wielding the magical hammer in one hand and his shield in the other. When Thanos is defeated, he goes back in time to first put the stones back, and finally settling down with Peggy in her time and have a ‘normal’ life, before briefly returning to present day to hand the shield over to Sam. In this chapter I will explore how Steve’s character and the times and spaces he occupied are built through transmedia with the help of additive comprehension and mystery.

2.1a Space I will first list off some places that are relevant to the story of Captain America. The most important one is , specifically Brooklyn. He was born here both as Steve Rogers and as Captain America, as the SSR compound where he was given the serum was placed in Brooklyn. Besides Brooklyn, there is one other place that is vital to his story: Camp Lehigh. This is where he was trained, where Peggy founded SHIELD and where SHIELD was found out to be infiltrated by Hydra. This is also likely to be the place where he decided to return to Peggy after defeating Thanos. Other than these two, some of the places relevant, but less important to his story are the Italian Alps, Washington DC, Sokovia, the Avengers facility in upstate New York, Berlin, the Siberian Hydra compound and Wakanda. These places are mostly from the films but overlap with the comics as well. Some comic- exclusive places include the Danish Straits and Syria. These are simply the places Rogers visits and that hold some sort of significance to him. However, there is some overlap with the spaces that are integral to story, starting with New York City. A lot of events that happen within this space are a direct cause of Steve becoming the of the Avengers. He was born in Brooklyn, both as Steve and as Captain America, met Bucky in Hell’s Kitchen, heard the news of the US joining the war, woke up 70 years later and first led the Avengers in . NYC has always been a thematized space for him because that is where he learned his values, values that make him the good man Erskine believed he was. His connection to New York is very prominent in the early days of his story and features in every piece of media from Phase 1 (and

21 some from phase 2) that he appears in: the films Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers, the comic Captain America: First Vengeance and the TV show Agent Carter. Although the first film does set up Steve as a character, it serves mostly as an for Captain America, i.e. the he will be going forward, but the comic First Vengeance explores the origins of Steve Rogers, the man, and how much New York City has an influence on him as a man. In this comic, interspersed with scenes of the Captain leading the Howling Commando’s on a mission in the Danish Straits, we see him and his mother on her deathbed talking about his dad, he meets Bucky after a fight in Hell’s Kitchen, he learns about the US joining the war at art school in Manhattan and first tries to enlist at the New York Harbor. A lot of the grassroots values that remain consistent in Steve’s arc stem from his upbringing in the burrows of NYC, an aspect also explored in comics that are not considered canon, but are inspired by the MCU, like Captain America Homecoming, where Steve returns to Brooklyn with Natasha Romanoff to stop a group of mercenaries from kidnapping an important professor. After New York, the most important thematized space is Camp Lehigh. Situated in Wheaton, New Jersey, this is where “the idea of [Captain America] was born”, so Steve says in Avengers: Endgame. He was trained there, met Peggy Carter there and S.H.I.E.L.D. was born there. It was also the place where Hydra had started to grow as a parasite within SHIELD. , the ’s second in command, was recruited for SHIELD and uploaded his brain onto a computer in one of the camp’s bunkers to ensure the of not only him but Hydra as well. The camp was destroyed when the Captain and Black Widow found Zola in The Winter Soldier, but was later in the timeline revisited by Tony and Steve, while performing the Time Heist in Endgame. Tony and Steve travel to the camp in 1970 to secure the Tesseract/space stone and additional Pym Particles to fuel their way home. During this mission Steve finds himself hiding in Peggy Carter’s office and is almost caught by her as she walks into the next room with a colleague. It is possible that, while staring at her from the other side of the window, he makes the decision to return to her after they have defeated Thanos once and for all. Where NYC is the root of everything regarding Steve as a person, Camp Lehigh is the root of him as a soldier. It was here where he not only learned the ways of the military, but also where he first showed to his superiors and dr. Erskine that he is the one for the serum, as he relies on his wits to overcome in battle, shown by him obtaining a flag at the end of a tall pole by taking out the pole’s bottom bolt and letting it fall down, where his fellow trainees failed to climb the pole, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for others by throwing himself on a dummy grenade. Where NYC and Camp Lehigh could be considered thematized spaces, i.e. spaces that actively shape the character of Captain America, the rest of the places he visits are more frame-spaces, i.e. places of action, where the significance of the space is defined by the actions that are taken within the space rather than the space actively influencing the story. Some important examples include the

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Triskelion in Washington DC, where he completely loses faith in government agencies as he sees the one he trusted the most, SHIELD, being corrupt from top to bottom, the Barton family farm, where cracks start to show in his friendship with Tony, Berlin and Siberia, where said friendship fully breaks, and Wakanda, where he makes his last stand to Thanos, alongside the Avengers and the Wakandans. Perhaps an important thematized space that isn’t necessarily tied to a specific location is in the presence of his team. As Mieke Bal (2009: 139) points out, if characters need to travel, they need a path, so if a character (needs to prove he/she) is a leader, they need a team to lead. The definition of what his team is varies from text to text and each version holds a different level of significance to his development as a character, but all of them do hold at least some form of significance. One use of space that is present in the whole MCU and that signifies his relation to a team is the image of the Captain leading from the front. The two most iconic images of this occur in the pan around the team in The Avengers and the shot of him and king T’Challa literally leading from the front as they charge towards Thanos’ army in Avengers: Infinity War. This is a good example of Marvel using the medium to their advantage and showing a character trait by utilizing their space.

2.1b Time At face value, the introduction of the time stone in Dr. Strange and time travel through the quantum realm in Avengers: Endgame would make the concept of time in the MCU a complex matter, but when looking at the narratological definition in combination with the explanation given to the audience by the in-universe characters, it becomes clear it isn’t as complex as it might seem. Even though Captain America travels to multiple points in time throughout Endgame, his fabula is completely linear, because he experiences everything as linear. As Bruce Banner explains it, if they travel from 2020 to 2014, what they see as their ‘present’, i.e. 2020, is now their past, and 2014 is now their present. In other words, it doesn’t matter what point in time you go to, you still perceive it as linear. So, for Steve, he is born in 1918, becomes Captain America in the 1940s, wakes up in 2011, lives his life and eventually settles down with Peggy. In Endgame, he travels from 2023 to 2012, then to 1970, back to 2023 with the stones he and Tony were sent to collect, then back to 2012, 2014 and 1970 to put all the stones back where/when they came from, to finally go to 1949 to reunite with Peggy and live a normal, domestic life together, before briefly returning to 2023 to give his shield to Sam Wilson. To him, this is all completely linear. His return to Peggy does create an alternate timeline, however, but since, for Steve, this timeline is now his present, the sequence of events, i.e. the fabula, is still linear. His story, on the other hand, is not told completely linear. The most obvious example of retroversions in his story is Captain America: First Vengeance, where Steve and his Commandos fighting their way to a Hydra base is interspersed with flashbacks to before his time as Captain America, showing how he got to where he was at the start of Captain America: the First

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Avenger. The rest of his story, both in films and comics, only contains a few retroversions, usually regarding Bucky. Anticipations are rare in Steve’s story, with no explicit anticipations and a few implicit ones. Implicit anticipations, or hints, are sprinkled throughout, e.g. a setup of SHIELD keeping secrets in Captain America: The Winter Soldier Infinite Comic, where Cap finds out SHIELD labeled the virus as destroyed when they knew it wasn’t, and he is not happy about this. This unhappiness with SHIELD’s ‘need to know’-policy is continued in CA: The Winter Soldier, where it turns out his suspicions were justified as Hydra has been thriving inside SHIELD for years. Most of the other hints within his story are in relation to his friendship with Tony, more on this in chapter 2.3. The main strategy creators employ in the MCU with regards to adding mystery to a Captain America text is adding ellipses in the story. Big jumps in time create gaps in both the story level and the fabula level, which can then be filled in by a different type of media. The films of the MCU are the main backbone of the entire story and get in front of the most eyes, but to allow for a transmedia universe, these films are told with large jumps in time between them, where, usually, comics, particularly the preludes, can fit and fill in any gaps of knowledge in the story and the fabula. For Captain America, most comics, both canon and non-canon, bridge the time gaps between films that he appears in.8 First Vengeance acts here as the exception, because the main thread of this comic takes place during the events of CA: The First Avenger, with flashbacks added to further dive into the background of Steve, Bucky and the other main players of the film. Similar to the gaps they fill in the story, the release of the comics usually fall in the months between release of the films, to build anticipation for them. Winter Soldier Infinite comic was released in January 2014, 3 months before the film, and tells the story of a mission that takes place between The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War prelude Infinite Comic was released in February 2016, again 3 months before the film, and recounts the events that occurred between The Winter Soldier and Civil War, particularly regarding Steve and the Avengers just before Civil War, and Bucky and Rumlow in the full time between the two films, and the first issue of Avengers: Infinity War Prelude explains what happened with Steve and the rest after Civil War and leading up to Infinity War. If there are gaps of knowledge that the producers decide not to show in a different piece of media, they leave it up to the writers and directors of a specific film to answer any questions the fans might have that will not be answered anywhere else, which can create some confusion. For example, when asked about the technicalities of Steve returning to Peggy in Endgame, the directors of the film said he created an alternate timeline and returned to the current one after living out his life, but when asked the same question, the writers of the film, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely,

8 With non-canon comics I mean the comics that do take place in the MCU but are inspired by it rather than being an official part of the continuity. 24 stated that Steve didn’t create a new timeline, but traveled to the past in the same timeline, which means he was always Peggy’s husband and father to her two kids.9 In general, the strategy with regards to time and time jumps in the MCU seems to be to create enough mysteries or gaps in the timeline to allow themselves to decide which ones to answer. This does pose some issues as well. Continuity is difficult to maintain when writers create gaps too big to fill and a universe that is too big to keep an eye on details. This is illustrated by some of the problems with continuity that the story of Steve has in the MCU. Besides the aforementioned disagreements regarding his fate at the end of this life, the start of his life also suffers from contradictions. In The Winter Soldier Steve has a flashback to his mother’s funeral, where he and Bucky talk and Bucky utters the important line “I’m with you till the end of the line.”, a line that not only will reappear later in the same film, but also in later texts. However, in First Vengeance, a comic that is considered canon, the two meet after Steve’s mother had already passed, which makes it unlikely for them to be at her funeral as young adults. The concept of time in narratology is a great way for transmedia producers to incorporate additive comprehension and allow for additive mystery in their story, and the MCU has tried to apply this idea many times, leaving space for future interpretations and stories by creating anachronies that can give both the creators and the fans a window of opportunity to develop new stories with regards to the Captain. These gaps can also help to build his character and reinforce certain aspects that remain implicit in the films. In the next part we will discuss this aspect and the ways additive comprehension and mystery is used to explore Steve’s character traits.

2.1c Character Steve lost his father in WW1 before he was born and his mother to tuberculosis at a young age. He was tiny and sickly, but showed resilience when he was, inevitably, bullied by the bigger kids. This courage was recognized by his mom, who, in First Vengeance, says “you got no quit in you”, but also warns him to always use his head, stating it was foolish bravery that got his father killed. This advice appears to take a while before it settles in, as he is shown to stand up to bullies twice his size in both First Vengeance and The First Avenger. The incident shown in the comic, however, inspired another kid named James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes to intervene and chase the bullies away, stating “Never even occurred to me to stand up to those bums until I saw a shrimp like you do it. You’re a real inspiration, you know that?” The scene in the film goes in a similar fashion, with Steve standing up to

9 To me, the Russo explanation makes more sense within the rules of time travel as they are explained in Endgame. Plus, the writers’ explanation means he had a relationship with his own niece, , and seems to disregard the events of Agent Carter, which ends with her in a relationship with someone else, at around the same time Steve would travel back to. 25 a man twice his size and not giving up, even though he is clearly outmatched, until Bucky steps in and chases the man away. First Vengeance also demonstrates that his admiration for soldiers was born from admiration of his father. He carried this with him throughout his life, eventually being one of the reasons he was selected for project Rebirth. His perseverance is shown time and time again in the beginning of The First Avenger. The first time ever we see Steve on screen is when a fellow aspiring soldier reads a paper talking about the horrors of war while waiting for the physical check and says that it would make you think twice about enlisting, to which Steve simply answers with “nope”. While discussing his endless pursuit of enlistment with Bucky he is overheard by Abraham Erskine, a scene shown from Steve and Bucky’s perspective in the film and from Erskine’s perspective in the comic, showing the parallel nature of that comic. Erskine then decides to perform the physical on Steve himself to find out more about his resilience. He asks Steve one important question: “do you want to kill Nazis?” Steve answers: “I don’t want to kill anyone; I don’t like bullies.” This gives Erskine enough reason to nominate Rogers for the program, and he keeps showing his determination during his training, even though he has a serious physical disadvantage, causing him to go to the top of Erskine’s list. The Captain’s resilience is perhaps best personified in his iconic line: “I can do this all day.” A line and a sentiment he will carry with him throughout his story in the MCU, to the point that he himself even mocks it during the fight with himself in Endgame, when his older self says it and his newer self interrupts with “yeah, I know… I know”. His apparent inability to quit extents also to his relationships. One of his defining features, incidentally also the one that causes him the most trouble, is loyalty. Loyalty to his country, but, most importantly, loyalty to his friends and loved ones. He only decides to go on his first mission in Italy after learning Bucky was in need of rescue. His bond with Bucky is perhaps the strongest of all the people closest to him, to the point of risking his own life just to get through to Bucky in The Winter Soldier. This bond is so strong he starts questioning whether he can be objective when discovering an ex-Hydra agent is on a mission in Lagos, shown in Captain America: Civil War Prelude Infinite Comic. His loyalty to Barnes is also eventually the cause of the rift with Iron Man and Steve and Bucky becoming fugitives after the events of Civil War. He stands with Bucky even though he knew Barnes had killed Tony’s parents, fully believing in the fact that Bucky wasn’t himself when completing his missions as the Winter Soldier. Steve’s loyalty does not only apply to James Barnes, with the most notable one besides Barnes being Peggy, who he manages to track down after he is thawed out and keeps visiting until her death in Civil War. The most telling act of his undying loyalty to ms. Carter, however, is his decision to return to 1949 and live out his life with her after he returned all the stones in the timeline. Besides Peggy and Bucky, he also has a strong personal connection to the Avengers. In Civil

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War he never appears to hold a grudge or be angry at the people that sign the Sokovia Accords, even though he is principally against the Accords after losing his trust in political organizations, following the events of CA: The Winter Soldier and the fall of SHIELD. Even after Tony tried to kill Bucky, Steve sends Stark a phone with only his number and a letter explaining how he understands Tony’s anger and if Tony ever needs him he can call at any time, showing that he never gave up on their friendship. For the people that got in trouble because they followed him, he does everything in his power to free them, first shown in Civil War and elaborated on in Avengers Infinity War Prelude. Where in the film we only see him turning up at the Raft after fighting his way through, in the comic we see him and Bucky going from Siberia to the raft in the quinjet they took from Berlin. In the plane Cap explains that he’s with Bucky till the end of the line, but he has to save some friends who’ve done the same for him. We then see Steve free the prisoners, i.e. Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Scott Lang and Clint Barton, and they go their separate ways, with only Sam joining Steve and the others returning to their loved ones. The line he utters to Bucky before he enters the Raft is important because the Captain’s loyalty to his friends and loved ones also inspire their loyalty to him. Throughout the MCU there are signs of this, none more so apparent then Peggy. In the first season of the TV show Agent Carter it is revealed that Howard Stark kept a vile containing Steve’s blood, showing how even after two years he could not let him go. This is eventually revealed to Peggy, who after this discovery keeps this vile for the entire season, before throwing it in the Hudson at the end. She also keeps a photo of him taken at Camp Lehigh, before the serum, which perhaps shows that she was and, at that point still is, in love with Steve, not the Captain, by which I mean she loves him for his personality, not his buff physique and heroic actions, the kind of superficial aspects that only the general public would see. Besides the people in his past Steve also inspires loyalty for the people in his present. Sam Wilson immediately decides to help him after only meeting each other twice, as far as the audience is aware, in The Winter Soldier and he has followed Rogers ever since. A similar relationship was built between the Captain and Natasha Romanoff in the same film and Natasha shows her loyalty to this relationship on numerous occasions as well. She helps him and Bucky escape the airport in Berlin during Civil War and joins up with him and Sam between Civil War and Infinity War, essentially making herself a fugitive in the process. The three end up fighting ISIS in Syria, shown in both Infinity War Prelude and Captain Marvel Prelude. Steve’s loyalty and ability to inspire make him a natural leader and his leadership qualities shine through in every piece of media he appears. In the films he leads the , all the iterations of the Avengers, up to Civil War, and, alongside king T’Challa, he leads the entire country of Wakanda during the final battle in Infinity War. In the comics his leadership is further established, with both in-canon and non-canon stories showing this aspect of him. A good example of

27 a comic not canon but inspired by this specific aspect of his character is Road to War. This story takes place between Age of Ultron and Civil War and shows how he goes about trying to make the new Avengers into a team. He asks Natasha to give a psychological evaluation of every member of the team because she has experience in that field after having to evaluate Stark for the original Avengers team in Iron Man 2. This shows that he trusts her expertise, generally a sign of a good leader. Character is one aspect of narratology that additive comprehension can shine, for example when a new text shows someone explaining the reasoning behind an action shown in a different text, revising or underlining that action. It can reinforce and expand upon characteristics of a person that the main text might leave implicit. If, for the MCU, we consider the films as the main text, then the comics are where this type of additive comprehension comes into play, and when we take a closer look this is exactly what we see. First Vengeance focuses on his resilience, Civil War Prelude Infinite Comic and Infinity War Prelude focus on his loyalty and Operation Hydra and Road to War show off his leadership qualities. Agent Carter season 1 also occupies an avenue in this, showing the effects of Steve and his assumed death on Peggy and Howard and showcases his ability to inspire loyalty in others. This aspect of his story, that additive comprehension is used mostly to reinforce the characteristics established in the films, is also particular to Steve because he remains quite morally consistent throughout his story in the MCU. Almost all of the qualities that are established in his , both on text and on screen, remain with him until the end. In contrast, many of the characteristics that apply to Tony in his first appearance barely survive phase 1 (more on this later). This consistency, however, causes additive mystery to be more difficult to incorporate into character. Some ways this is applied are a character doing something that, until that point, could be considered uncharacteristic for them. At face value, this can be interpreted as lazy writing, but, as long as the change isn’t so big it betrays the entire character, it could also give opportunity for creators to expand upon the supposed uncharacteristic action in a different text. For example, in The Avengers, Steve seems to blindly follow any order Fury gives him, but in the Winter Soldier he shows a mistrust of Fury and SHIELD and contempt for their dealings and how they tend to go behind his back when executing mission. For viewers of just the films this could seem like quite a sudden shift, but CA: The Winter Soldier Infinite Comic sets up this idea, showing a weapon that Cap believed to be destroyed. When asking Natasha about this, she says SHIELD’s secrecy was to discourage anyone from looking for it, but Steve is not convinced, since someone did find it. Another example of a seemingly sudden shift in character occurs in Endgame, but since this is in connection to Tony, this will be talked about in chapter 4.3. Captain America has many qualities that are supported by the different media he appears in, but his resilience also means he does not change much throughout his story in the MCU. The next

28 part will explore Iron Man, a character that has shown a lot of change and has an equal impact on the story as a whole.

2.2 Iron Man: Fragile ego, Strong suit Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark was born May 26, 1970 in Manhattan, New York, to Howard and Maria Stark and is a self-described genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist. He was as smart if not smarter than his already highly successful father and thus graduated summa cum laude from MIT at age 17, where he also met and became lifelong friends with James “Rhodey” Rhodes. Tony and his father never got along, and he was mostly raised by his nanny and his family butler . He lost his parents at age 21 to a supposed car crash and inherited his father’s company a few months after. Due to his friendship with Rhodes he landed a government contract that would earn him billions as weapons manufacturer, which also helped fuel his already massive ego. While at a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan his convoy was hit by an ambush, he was hit by a grenade of his own making and kidnapped by the terrorist organization called the 10 Rings. The blast left some shrapnel near his heart that couldn’t be retrieved in the cave that he was held so he created a miniature arc reactor that acted as a magnet and would keep the shrapnel away. To break out of his prison and powered by the arc reactor he would create the first Iron Man suit, which would become his mantle until his death in 2023. Throughout this chapter I will explore and discuss how Tony’s character along with the places and times he occupied are built and expanded on through additive comprehension and mystery.

2.2a Space First, I will discuss how space is used in the story of Iron Man. We will start with a short rundown of the places that he visits. As mentioned in the previous chapter, New York is an important place for many MCU characters, Stark being no exception. He was born there and built Stark/Avengers Tower there, eventually moving the Avengers to a facility in upstate New York. His primary residence for his personal adventures in the MCU, i.e. the movies and comics titled “Iron Man …”, is not in New York, however, but in Los Angeles, specifically Malibu. He lived here for most of his life, including his parental home, although he did attend boarding school for most of his childhood. His Malibu beach house is where many of the events of the three Iron Man films take place, until it gets destroyed during Iron Man 3. After this he moves to New York, with the Avengers’ facility seemingly being his primary residence from that moment on. His final home is a cabin in a dense forest, specific location unclear. This is where he settled down with Pepper after Thanos’ snap and subsequent death and it is where he raised his daughter, Morgan.

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Other than his homes some important places from the films are Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped and as a result became Iron Man, Sokovia, that was destroyed by a robot he created, Berlin and Siberia, where he fought Steve Rogers, the planet Titan, where he met the and was defeated by Thanos, and Camp Lehigh in 1970, where he reconciled with his (unaware) father. Some places from the comics include the Gulf of Aden, where he crashed a SHIELD mission, the Congo, where he rescued an air force pilot that was testing a suit designed by Hammer Industries, rival to , and Cairo, where he first met General Ross. As mentioned before, these are simply the places Stark visits, next we will discuss what spaces have an influence on Tony as a character. Some overlap will occur, this will be indicated as such. The first and perhaps most important space is the suit. Its perception evolves over time: it starts out as a thematized and dynamically functioning space (Bal 2009: 139), thematized meaning it enacts influence on the fabula and dynamically functioning meaning it allows for the movement of the character, but slowly becomes a frame-space, i.e. a space that has little to no influence on the fabula and is simply a place of action. Tony first sees the suit as a way to ‘become’ a hero, and the suit serves as both protection and an escape, protection in the literal sense that it prevents him from dying and an escape in the sense that it allows him to right the wrongs his weapons business has inflicted on the world. Eventually he starts to realize that the suit is just a vessel and can be easily replaced, he himself is the real hero. In Iron man the man and the suit are somewhat separate, you have the person of Tony Stark and the hero known as Iron Man. This doesn’t last long, as he announces to the whole world at the end of the film: “I am Iron Man”. In the second film and in the comic Iron Man 2: Public Identity the suit and the man are inextricably linked, as he now uses his suit for commercial and PR purposes as well as saving lives. This is also why, after numerous attempts of the government to take it from him, he does not give away the secrets of the suit. He believes the government is too slow and inefficient in saving lives. He says in the comic, after responding to a distress call “Another free market triumph” because he knows he will arrive there before the US government. In the film he is called to testify before congress because of his unwillingness to give up the suit. In this he proclaims “I have successfully privatized world peace” because he believes the suit is private property. In The Avengers the relationship between him and his suit gets explored through conflict, leading to the following exchange: Steve: “ in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?” Tony: “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” This shows, however, that there is still a difference between Iron Man and Tony Stark, as the perception remains that inhabiting the space of the suit, i.e. entering the frame of the suit, he becomes Iron Man. Only after The Avengers and Iron Man 3 does this perception change, not only for the audience, but for Tony himself. In Iron Man 3 Prelude, the Iron is revealed, a large and varied collection of different suits for different purposes, all with a remote-control option.

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This evolving perception is further explored in Iron Man 3, where he spends most of the film without any access to a suit. The Iron Legion is deployed only during the final conflict, where, in response to Rhodey asking for a suit, he also states that they are all only calibrated to him, and the film ends with a voiceover of him definitively stating “I am Iron Man”. This phrase and the way it’s said in the film shows that from now on, there is no separation between Tony and Iron Man, the suit has become a frame-space. This phrase is also his final line, which he utters just before giving his life to destroy Thanos and his army, solidifying the lack of separation between the two by emphasizing the sentiment from Iron Man 3. The second important thematized space is his home. His first home is the house in Malibu. It stands alone on a cliff and signifies mostly the billionaire and playboy aspects of his character, although the basement/workshop is where he exhibits his genius. Throughout the Iron Man films he spends a lot of time here, tinkering on suits, hosting parties or entertaining female guests. Its destruction in Iron Man 3 signifies a shift in priorities for Tony, where he now lives to save and improve the world, instead of living just for himself. This started with the construction of in New York, shown under construction in the beginning of Iron Man 3 Prelude and completed in The Avengers. Throughout Phase 2 and 3 of the MCU he appears to live mostly with the Avengers, first at the tower and then at the facility upstate. His final home is a secluded cabin in an undisclosed forest, where he lives with his wife and daughter, showing again that his priorities have changed to where his family is the most important in his life. The Malibu house was mostly for himself; the Avengers facility was of course for the Avengers and the cabin in the woods is for his family. One home that has not been mentioned yet is his childhood home. Though not clearly stated in any form of media, it is likely to be situated in Los Angeles. It only features in one comic, Iron Man 2: Public Identity. In this story, the house is the setting for three stages of his life, as a child, as a young adult at the time he lost his parents and as an adult in present day. In the present day he has installed JARVIS in the house, but he specifically mentions it is not home for him, alluding to his troubled relationship with his father, who a page before is shown abusing Tony as a child. He only installed JARVIS because he has always been there, referencing Edwin Jarvis, the family butler and the one person that was happy to see Tony when he would return from boarding school, according to Tony himself. It appears that this house only signifies a bad memory for Tony, memory of the rough relationship with his father and memory of losing his parents. Some examples of less prominent but still important spaces are the cave in Afghanistan and rooftops. The cave only features once, but it is a place of transformation for Tony, as he went in as a weapons manufacturer, profiting of off war, and came out as Iron Man, privatizing peace. Rooftops, on the other hand, are a recurring space in the Iron Man series, mostly in relation to his relationships. He jeopardizes his relationship with Pepper on a rooftop in the first Iron Man, solidifies

31 this relationship on a roof in the second and leaves on the roof in the third, thus creating the main antagonist of that film. In Spiderman: Homecoming he meets with Peter Parker on rooftops twice, both moments being important for their relationship, especially the second time, where he takes away the suit he gave Peter, saying “If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it”, relating back to his evolved perception of his own suit detailed above.

2.1b Time As mentioned in the previous chapter, the introduction of time travel might on the surface introduce a more complex notion of time within the MCU, but the way it is explained in Endgame shows that the fabula, i.e. the sequence of events within the story, is still linear. Professor Hulk explains that when they travel through time, the past you travel to becomes your present and the present you came from now becomes your past, which is a very linear way of looking at time. As such, if you change anything in that past, for example take an infinity stone, it will create a new timeline, one where the stone you take, does not exist anymore.10 Unlike Steve’s story (being frozen for 70 years and creating an alternate timeline), Tony’s is relatively straight forward. His fabula is completely linear, he is born in 1970 and dies in 2023. The way his fabula is told as a story, or suzjet, however, is not linear, but frequently employs retroversions and anticipations, both in the films and in the comics. Iron Man and Iron Man 3 open in medias res and then flash back to 36 hours earlier and 1999 respectively. You could also argue that these first scenes are anticipations, specifically announcements, and that the next scene is the start of the fabula. Either way, directional anachrony is employed to create suspense and get the viewer interested to see how Stark got to Afghanistan in Iron Man and why he started blowing up his suits in Iron Man 3. Iron Man 2: Public Identity has flashbacks to a younger Howard and Tony. Interesting to note, similar to CA: First Vengeance, these flashbacks are in turn told in a linear way, thus creating on a story level two distinct timelines: Present day and young Howard/Tony. Besides the sequential ordering of the story, there are many differences in rhythm that create anachrony. Iron Man 2 opens with a scene where Ivan Vanko, the main antagonist, is listening to the press conference where Tony announces himself as Iron Man, the film then jumps to six months later. Iron Man 3 Prelude jumps forward a lot as well, although this comic focuses mostly on the whereabouts of Col. Rhodes during the events of The Avengers. Endgame has a five-year jump, in which Tony’s daughter is born and raised and he seems to have reconciled with Steve after Civil War. The third and final way time is

10 At the way things are currently there are three distinct timelines in the MCU after Endgame: 1. The main timeline that will continue the story in the films, 2. The timeline where Steve returns to Peggy and lives out his life and 3. The timeline that is created in 2012 when escapes with the tesseract, which is the reason Tony and Steve go to Camp Lehigh in 1970. This timeline will be explored in the Disney+ series Loki. 32 affected in the Iron Man story is montage, a sequence of events that is told in a sped-up manner, showing a process but not devoting a lot of runtime to it. Some examples include building the Mark I and Mark II in Iron Man and creating Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. An example of a montage in comics appears in The Coming of the Melter, where Tony and Rhodey try to find the Melter in each their own way, Rhodey through the official channels and Tony with minimal regard for privacy. When it comes to additive comprehension and additive mystery, the devices applied to the story have different purposes. Flashbacks are generally meant for additive comprehension, showing new scenes that help us better understand a character and build the world, e.g. Public Identity’s flashbacks go more in-depth into the relationship between Tony and Howard, one that was only briefly touched on in Iron Man as a way to show how Tony came out from under Howard’s shadow, but became an important part of the story of Iron Man 2. In the latter, however, there isn’t much shown about this relationship, only told from Tony’s perspective, an aspect which Public Identity expanded upon by actually showing how Tony experienced this relationship. The flashbacks in the comics are told from a slightly more objective perspective, although not completely as the ones with Tony in them (the first two are only about Howard and Anton Vanko) do seem to focus more on his memory of the events, rather than showing both perspectives. The flashbacks in the films also serve as a way to add comprehension, as they give an explanation of “how did we get here”. An important anomaly relating to this subjectivity is the first scene with Tony in CA: Civil War. In this scene we are first lead to believe it is a flashback to the moment he says goodbye to his parents, right before they’re killed. It is revealed, however, that this is not really how it happened, but how he wishes it had happened, showing that he regrets his apathy at that moment, apathy that was shown in Public Identity, where he only seems to care about his tan while his father is trying to have a real conversation with him.11 This scene is a good example of additive mystery, as some people watching the film might wonder what actually happened and they can start looking for it, finding the answer in Public Identity. Besides the building of character, these flashbacks also serve a purpose for building the world, introducing characters that are important at a later point in the timeline, such as the flashback in Iron Man 3, where he not only meets the main antagonist of the movie, but also another important character from that film, , and one from a previous film, Yinsen, who in Iron Man already hinted at this exact encounter. Another example is the childhood home in Public Identity, one that has to date never been shown on screen, but has an important part in the grander story, as discussed in the previous subchapter.

11 Though not explicitly shown, it is suggested this scene happens at the same time the scene in Civil War is supposed to have happened. 33

These rhythmic anachronies seem to be more important for additive mystery, however. They allow for gaps that can be filled in, whether it be through flashbacks or through entirely new comics, films or series. Some examples include: Public Identity, which fills the space between Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Iron Man: Fast Friends, which takes place both before and after the events of Iron Man and The Coming of the Melter, which happens between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. The gaps that occur between the films, or even in the films themselves, allow for expansion on these topics in a variety of ways. An example of a space that has yet to be filled is the five years between the death of Thanos and the return of Scott Lang in Endgame, and there are numerous characters that a story could focus on. Other examples of additive mystery in the Iron Man story are hints and references to other events, such as the aforementioned moment with Yinsen or how the relationship between Anton Vanko and Howard Stark deteriorated, a question asked in Iron Man 2 and answered in Public Identity. Interestingly, this strategy is not employed as often, but could significantly enhance the transmedia experience of the MCU.

2.1c Character The character of Tony has had a lot of evolution over the years, and to understand this evolution, we must first look at how Howard is characterized, because he has had a lot of influence on who Tony was and has become. In Iron Man there is more of a focus on Tony coming out from under Howard’s shadow with regards to the company, but their personal relationship was explored more in Iron Man 2 and Public Identity. Up until that point Tony always believed his father hated him and remembered his experience with Howard as distant at best and abusive at worst. The character of Howard, set up in those early releases, very much mirrors Tony’s in the MCU, at least his early years. In the pieces of media that take place in the 1940’s in the MCU, i.e. Captain America: The First Avenger, First Vengeance and Agent Carter (both the TV show and the Marvel One-shot), he is portrayed as a brilliant but overconfident ladies’ man, often being the only solution for problems he himself created, not unlike his genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist son with a tendency to create his own demons/antagonists. Howard is recruited by the military in First Vengeance and helps create Captain America in The First Avenger, something he is very proud of, shown in Agent Carter. After Steve he keeps inventing and manufacturing, mostly in the area of weapons and energy. He is one of the co-founders of SHIELD, something Tony only finds out when Nick Fury tells him this in Iron Man 2. After Fury’s briefing he gives Stark a box with some of Howard’s belongings, including a video where Howard for the first time admits to Tony “my greatest creation is you”. This video also helps him synthesize a new element, one that Howard already discovered but was not able to create due to the limits of the technology of his time. From this moment on Tony

34 begins to reassess his perceived relationship with his father, before definitively forgiving him after their meeting at Camp Lehigh in 1970 during Endgame. During The Avengers Tony describes himself as a genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist. While certainly all true, they are not all the terms one could describe him with. He starts out as someone only serving himself. In the lead up to his abduction in Afghanistan he is constantly going after women and forgoing any responsibilities he has as owner of his company, choosing for example to gamble instead of accepting a distinguished award. In the Fast Friends comic, he brushes off any concerns that Rhodes has about his Afghanistan trip. He believes he will be fine, and should something go wrong, there are other people, mainly Rhodey, to protect him. In Iron Man, it is shown that he has very little disregard for other people, only doing what he feels like doing, and in Fast Friends it is shown that he also has little disregard for his own life, not caring about the dangers in Afghanistan and leaving the fighting, in this case with a disgruntled boyfriend of a former lover, to other people, mainly Rhodes. The additive comprehension of the comic is thus that not only does he not care about other people, he doesn’t care, period. This is the aspect of his personality that changes the most over time. In every piece of media he appears in, he gradually starts showing more and more compassion and starts caring about other people, even to the point where it is too much, which culminated in him creating Ultron. This type of change is the central component of Tony’s arc. In Iron Man, he says he’s not the sentimental type when asked by Pepper if he wants to keep his first arc reactor, but in Public Identity he has JARVIS installed in his parental home, claiming it was a force of habit, but just before, he says “you’ve always been here”, which can be interpreted as sentimental.12 It is not clear when he installed JARVIS there, but it is implied he did it before he went through his traumatic experience, showing he is more sentimental than he realizes or is willing to admit. In the same comic he saves that was captured by terrorists because the Hammer technology the government was testing, failed. He did this without engaging the enemy, because he knew general Ross would want him to do that, showing a mistrust of the government, a sentiment he would carry through into Iron Man 2 and the Avengers. However, this changes after numerous mistakes to try and keep the world safe himself, specifically after Ultron. He creates Ultron to ‘put a suit of armor around the world’, but he does not apply any nuance in the programming, something Bruce Banner recognizes when he says “… then, the only thing threatening people will be people”. After Ultron tries to make Sokovia into a meteor that would wipe out humanity, Avengers included, Tony is shaken to the core. When he is confronted with his actions by a mother who lost her child in Sokovia, he is speechless, a very rare state of being for him until that point. This rigorous wakeup call is the reason he signs the Sokovia Accords in Civil

12 He named his artificial intelligence system after his old butler, Edwin Jarvis 35

War. He no longer trusts himself to do the right thing, so he believes he needs to be put in check. After Civil War, he moves his focus away from any dangers on Earth and again turns to ‘the real threat’, i.e. aliens, as shown in Infinity War Prelude. His evolution as it pertains to caring about other people is a theme in most of the films and comics he features in. In the Iron Man 3 Prelude, he gave the armor to Rhodes, because the suit Rhodes was wearing at the time was mostly Hammer tech and had shown to be unreliable. In the film Iron Man 3, when his house gets blown up with him, Pepper and Maya Hansen still inside, he doesn’t make the suit go on himself, but on Pepper. In Infinity War, all he cares about is protecting Peter, and when Peter gets dusted, he seems disappointed that he is the one that gets to live. The first thing he says when he gets back to earth in Endgame is “I lost the kid”. When, after five years, Steve, Natasha and Scott come to his cabin with a possible solution, he refuses to help because he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. Even when he does decide to help, he makes it very clear that his family is everything to him and that he will not risk losing them, even if that means compromising the mission. In short, he goes from not caring at all, to caring too much, to caring only about the people that are most important to him, eventually finding a balance. As he lies on the floor, dying, after snapping Thanos and his army out of existence, Pepper says to him that they’ll be fine and that he can rest now, showing she understands that he could never fully settle down without being sure everyone is safe. Giving new entries into the universe additive comprehension can help the public, but also the writers, to see the character more clearly and to explore different aspects of a character that the main text might not have time for. In the MCU and particularly for Iron Man, the comics are a good way of explaining certain elements of Tony’s character that remain implicit in the films or that the creators didn’t have time to fully flesh out. Certain questions, i.e. additive mystery, that arise from the films are also usually answered by the comics. Those questions can be ‘where was X during the film?’, like Iron Man 3 Prelude explains what Rhodey was doing during the attack on New York, or they can answer more character driven questions, such as ‘why does Tony hate his dad so much?’, answered, partly, in Public Identity. Other examples veer more towards deepening the understanding of the audience with regards to the character or to set up certain points that are central to the film the comic is connected to. For example, Public Identity dives deeper into the conflict between Tony and the government and why Tony is so adamant on keeping his suit private, as he believes the government to be inefficient and diplomacy to be too slow. This comic also shows a general dismay of authority, which is a theme for multiple MCU films and a position that is central to some of the future conflicts, including Age of Ultron and Civil War. Marvel also decided to explore this aspect in relation to Rhodes with The Coming of the Melter, where both men try to find the Melter their own way, Tony with his ‘efficient’ methods and Rhodey through the official channels. They eventually

36 decide that working together is the best way. This comic is considered to be inspired by the MCU and not official canon, but it does show how important this aspect of Tony is for his character. A final way the comics are used is to explain certain aspects that could be considered plot holes. A clear example of this is Iron Man: Fast Friends, in which it is revealed that SHIELD took Tony in after his fight with Obediah Stane and, among other things, offered to teach him how to fight, an aspect not really focused on in the films but still important as Tony before Iron Man never really got into any fights, and he is still the driver of the suit, he doesn’t let JARVIS do all the fighting. Now that we have explored both characters separately and have discussed how each of them are built through additive comprehension and mystery, in the next part we will discuss how their relationship is built with these aspects in mind.

2.3 Steve and Tony: Fragile friendship, Stronger together Though previous chapters have explored how the individual characters of Iron Man and Captain America were fleshed out, this chapter will talk about their relation to each other, as this is a strong driving force of many of the conflicts that arise, from the first time they meet in The Avengers to almost every cross-over since then, with Endgame being the exception.13 Although they could not have come from more different backgrounds, they are both leaders in their own respective rights and sharing leadership will eventually birth conflict. How the creators construct and explore both their friendship and said conflict, and with which media they choose to do so, will be discussed here. This chapter will be divided into two parts, so that we can have a better overview of which parts of the research question the story answers. The first will look at the narrative itself and how the relationship is built through that. The second part will zoom out to explore how the relationship was built with, or without, different media and how this relates to previously discussed theoretical ideas on additive comprehension and mystery by Jenkins and some of his critics.

2.3.1 The narratological nature of the relationship 2.3.1a Space Many of the places that are significant to the individuals are also significant to the story of the relationship between them. Stuttgart is where they first met, the SHIELD is where they first worked together, New York, both Stark Tower and the Avengers Facility upstate, the Barton farm, Berlin, Siberia, Camp Lehigh (1970), all these places are a stage for or have a role in the

13 Apart from the first scene, there is very little conflict between them after the 5-year jump. One could argue Infinity War also falls under this category, but one of the main reasons Thanos wins is the separation between Cap and Iron Man 37 development of their relationship. Some of these places serve only as steady frame-spaces, where they are nothing more than a stage for what happens in them, namely Stuttgart, the helicarrier and, at least for the friendship between Tony and Steve, New York. The others take on more of a symbolic role and can be seen as spaces that were chosen specifically for what happens in them, making the decisions for mise-en-scene and cinematography relevant to the analysis of their relationship. On the one hand, there are those spaces that are more symbolic for the individuals and serve to show the difference between the two. Examples of this include the Barton farm and Camp Lehigh in 1970. The Barton farm is for both characters a reflection on what the ultimate goal is. Tony doubles down on his idea that ending the Avengers is the ultimate goal, but Steve pushes back on this as he has seen what happens when people try to end wars before they start in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There is another side to Steve’s argument, however. Earlier in the scene, Steve is shown staring at the entrance of the farm after having just met the Barton family. The scene is framed as Steve staring into a kind of abyss, invoking a sense of loneliness. This shows that, for him, his goal is that domestic life that Clint seems to have achieved, but he will probably never get as the person he wants it with, Peggy, is not available anymore, as she is very old and suffers from dementia. When the two visit Camp Lehigh in 1970, they both connect with an element of their past that they have not made peace with yet. However, they do come to different conclusions. Tony reconciles with his father and can move on from his legacy. Steve, on the other hand, realizes that he has never been able to move on from his past, i.e. Peggy, and will probably never be at peace without her, so he decides then and there to return to her when it is all over. The other spaces, specifically the Avengers facility and Berlin/Siberia, take on a more active role and become more dynamic and thematized spaces. The Avengers facility is a space where they are together, it is their headquarters and they work and occasionally live there. They are always framed together when they occupy that space, it is a space where they are Avengers, i.e. a team, rather than individual heroes. The party in Age of Ultron, the introduction of the Sokovia Accords in Civil War (the last time they are there together for quite some time), the of Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda with Rhodey and Bruce in Infinity War and the assembling in Endgame. With exception of Civil War, each time they are at the facility they are a cohesive team. Berlin and Siberia, on the other hand, are places of the destruction of the team. Although they only appear in Civil War, they are the places that broke up the Avengers. They both hold an opposite symbolic position to the Avengers facility, but they also hold opposing positions towards each other, especially from a film perspective. The airport fight in Berlin is an open space, filmed with a lot of wide and long shots to show off the action and with a lot of the typical Marvel quippy dialogue, as it doesn’t have a lot of emotional stake. It has the aesthetic of a final climactic battle while being only 2/3rds into the movie. The whole battle hinges mostly on a misunderstanding, with

38

Steve and Bucky trying to get to Zemo before he releases the other , while Tony and his team try to arrest them for Bucky’s escape from the CIA compound. This misunderstanding makes the stakes feel quite low, but the impact is very high, especially for Tony, because, at the end, he witnesses his best friend almost falling to his death. The Hydra compound in Siberia is very isolated, shot almost like a prison. The hall where the soldiers are kept is quite large, but most of the attention is drawn to a small tv screen in the corner. This is where Zemo plays the clip of Bucky killing Tony’s parents. Most of the shots are short and frantic, with a lot of close-ups and very little dialogue. Using the Siberian Compound as a space for the actual climax of the film focuses the attention of the viewers on the emotional impact of the fight and allows the camera to showcase the dark nature of the scene. The main hall is a silo, through which Steve and Bucky try to escape first, but Tony blows the hinges of the roof, causing it to close entirely. From then on, the fight is shot from the outside looking through bars onto the fight, again using the space to show the division happening, until eventually Steve and Bucky exit, leaving Tony alone with a broken suit and Cap’s shield. Using these spaces in the cinematic form as the directors did, both in Age of Ultron and Civil War, also gives writers and fans an opportunity to engage in the universe and write stories based on the symbolism the spaces were given in the material. For example, since the Avengers facility is a space that symbolizes the team, creators could also use this as a narrative device for painful moments if they write their story following Civil War. A way additive mystery could be used with these spaces is by introducing them in an early text and hinting at its significance but leaving it up to future projects to flesh out this significance, but in the MCU this has not been utilized as such. Giving each space additive comprehension is a slightly easier way to build its significance, for example making an event happen at that space that solidifies the symbolic nature a previous text had given it, such as the Avengers facility being the place where they finally defeat Thanos by working together, nailing home the idea that this space is where they act as a team.

2.3.1b Time The relationship between Tony and Steve evolves completely linear on both the fabula and story levels. Though the individual stories utilize some retroversion or anticipation, scenes in which the two characters appear together are always told through a linear timeline. The only instance in which there is some break in linear story time is when Tony talks about how he hated Steve when he was younger because his father would constantly talk about how perfect Steve was, but this is only a verbal recollection; it is not visualized or shown anywhere. Any anachrony in their story comes down to a disparity in rhythm, particularly in the form of ellipses. Since we only see Tony and Steve together in Avengers films, and comics, long stretches of time are absent in both their fabula and

39 their story.14 Since Endgame tells us that the years in which the films are released correspond to the years the films take place in-universe (2012 for The Avengers, 2014 for Thor: the Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy) we can assume that the ellipses that appear in the story are similar to the time between releases of the films that both characters appear in, at least from The Avengers onward. These ellipses can also span the years that happen within a film, most notably the five years post-snap in Endgame that we do not get to see. Marvel has a tendency to bridge these gaps with comics, generally the preludes, that would briefly show both men talking about and/or acting out their mindset during the years that aren’t put on film or that lead into the film the comics are a prelude to (more on this later).

2.3.1c Character The character of the relationship between Stark and Rogers can be considered as being one of perceived opposites. The two start out seeing each other as their respective opposite, Steve viewing their dichotomy as selfless-selfish, soldier-vigilante, whereas Tony sees it more as freedom-authority, true imperfection-false perfection. Over the course of the story they prove to the audience, themselves and each other that these semantic axes are not as black and white as they perceive it to be. Stark gives his life to save the universe and Steve is able to live a life away from the battlefield, and, what is more, they help each other in achieving this. The roles of Stark and Rogers can be regarded as each other’s anti-subjects (Bal 2009: 209), meaning they are not opponents, but, in a narrative sense, subjects with their own goals that sometimes and by chance stand in opposition to the subject’s. Although they seem to have very similar goals, i.e. saving the world/their loved ones, the way they go about this forms the strongest opposition in their relationship. Almost every argument they have in the entire Infinity Saga comes down to a difference of opinion on reaching the same goal and a mutual mistrust in their respective ways of reaching their goals.15 The first time they meet in The Avengers, when they are transporting Loki from Stuttgart to the SHIELD helicarrier, they immediately start showing signs of friction, as Tony doesn’t display the same level of trust in Fury and SHIELD as the Captain does, nor does he seem to trust the Captain himself. At this point he still only knows Steve as the legend his father made him out to be and shows a slight contempt for him with his typical snarky comments (“you missed a lot during your time as a Capsicle”). When Cap pushes back by mentioning Fury as an authority figure, Tony immediately shows distrust in Fury. When Thor intercepts them and captures Loki, they also show their difference in approach to battle: Steve: “Stark, we need a plan of attack!”, Tony: “I have a

14 Civil War acts as the exception to the Avengers rule as this is technically a Captain America sequel 15 This is not limited to just Tony and Steve, but for the purpose of this paper we will focus only on them. 40 plan: attack.” Their difference in approach to battle is perhaps best symbolized by their outfits. Tony’s suit is fitted with all kinds of offensive weaponry, where all Steve has is his shield, a defensive symbol. As mentioned in his own chapter, Tony’s perception of his suit changes, and he starts incorporating more defensive measures as well, which shows he does learn from his friendship with Rogers. Steve became the man he is at this point partly by relying on others, first inspiring Bucky to help him with bullies and after within the military structure. Tony, after his parents died, relied only on himself. This is emphasized further in their arguments on board of the helicarrier, with Steve focusing on following orders where Tony goes directly against them, due to his mistrust of authority. In their scepter-fueled argument inside the lab, Steve constantly falls back upon his ideas of a good soldier and how much Tony isn’t that, how he isn’t the guy to make the sacrifice. Tony spews back how everything that is special and useful about the Captain came out of a bottle, showing how he does not see Steve more than just muscle, whereas if you take the Iron Man suit away, he is still a “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”. A lot of this early friction is mirrored in the relationship between the people that have had the biggest influence on their respective lives, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. Tony describes in Civil War how much he hated Steve for the simple fact that Steve was all Tony’s father would talk about, claiming “God, I hated you” and “Sometimes I wish I could punch you in your perfect teeth”. Howard helped create the captain, but also saw him as a friend. In the first season of Agent Carter, it is revealed he kept a vile of Steve’s blood and kept this from Peggy. In the remainder of the season, Peggy keeps hold of it, but ultimately decides to throw it in the Hudson, symbolizing how they both are able to move on from Steve’s assumed death. In many ways, Peggy and Howard’s relationship in this show mirrors that of Steve and Tony, at least in the beginning. They often clash because Peggy wants to do things by the book where Howard does everything for the sake of innovation, but their biggest common ground was their love for Steve, set up in The First Avenger and expanded upon in the Agent Carter TV show. This is similar to Steve and Tony, because they share a common goal, saving the world, but constantly disagree on how to do that, as Cap was brought up within a military structure and relied on this training, where Tony was more of a freelance type hero, simply doing what he feels must be done, an aspect showcased in the Coming of the Melter comic. At the end of The Avengers however, they prove to the audience and each other that they were wrong, as Tony makes the ultimate sacrifice and lays down his lifeto save New York and Cap shows he is more than just muscle by taking the lead of the entire mission, not just in relation to the Avengers but to the NYPD and the rest of New York as well.16

16 Stark doesn’t die but he expects to, shown by him closing his eyes as he falls back down to Earth 41

From this moment on and during Phase 2, however, the dynamic of Steve relying on authority and Tony rejecting it starts to shift. Steve completely loses trust in any form of government once he sees how much the organization setup by Peggy, which he therefore trusted with his life, was corrupted by Hydra and he fully gives in to the private organization of the Avengers. Tony, on the other hand, begins acting not out of a place of confidence, bordering on arrogance, but out of a place of fear. His panic attacks in Iron Man 3 are triggered by his sacrifice at the end of The Avengers and he creates the Iron Legion and ultimately Ultron because of how much his worldview was shattered by the invasion of the . Stark’s ego vs. Steve’s military training was one of the reasons why Loki’s plan almost succeeded in The Avengers and the fear vs. the loss of faith is what started the ultimate collision in Civil War. A big motif in the Iron Man story is Tony creating his own adversaries, and none of those was greater than Ultron, but his creation of Ultron was completely fueled by fear, fear of being outmatched and overrun, and in doing so he lost sight of the nuances of peace, which caused Ultron’s programming to view the inhabitants of Planet Earth as its greatest threat. However, he and Banner went behind the backs of the rest of the team, mainly Steve, who already experienced a big breach of trust from the fall of SHIELD and feels very betrayed by Tony’s deception. During Age of Ultron, when they’re at the Barton farm after just being ripped apart by Wanda’s mind games, Tony and Steve shortly discuss why Thor suddenly left until the conversation shifts to Steve showing concern regarding the way Tony went about researching/creating Ultron and not telling the others, while Tony justifies his actions by talking about the ultimate goal: to end the team, create a world where there is no need for Avengers. Steve counters by arguing that “whenever someone tries to end a war before it starts, innocent people die”. Tony almost seems convinced, but we see later in the film that, at least in the eyes of Steve, he has not learned his lesson, due to his reasoning for creating the Vision. Though this turned out in Tony’s favor, Steve first has to be convinced of Vision’s nature, seeing it as a threat and has to be told otherwise (partly because its creation was started by Ultron). Their argument at the farm is a good example of the anti-subjects Bal (2009) talks about, because Steve refuses to answer Tony’s question about the true mission. He doesn’t outright deny it, but feels it is not a goal one can set, as it could lead to unintended consequences, something Tony at this point fails to realize. It has become clear that one of the main themes surrounding the relationship between the two heroes is trust. Trust in themselves, trust in others and trust in authority. After Age of Ultron, Tony has completely lost faith in himself, whereas Steve has a renewed sense of faith in the organization of the Avengers but does not extend this faith towards any other organization, particularly towards those of a governing nature. This comes to a breaking point in Captain America: Civil War. The Sokovia Accords, which would bring the Avengers under the supervision of a UN committee, are the ultimate symbol of their differences at this point. Tony barely gives it a second

42 thought before signing, as he feels they need to be reeled in. Steve is immediately against them, claiming he cannot put faith into ‘people with agendas’ who pick and choose where they are or aren’t deployed. He only trusts himself and the people directly around him to make that judgment. When he is confronted by some of the destruction that occurs when they’re saving the world, he says that they can’t save everyone, that it’s important to keep your eyes on the bigger picture. In contrast, when Tony is cornered by a grieving mother talking about how he murdered her son, a charity worker who died in Sokovia, he is speechless. Throughout this film, as well as the previous two Avengers films, Steve talks about how Tony withholds information that would benefit the team, where Tony justifies these decisions because he trusts himself to make the right one. When he loses this confidence in himself, he hopes to bring Steve closer as well, almost convincing Rogers to sign the accords, until Tony mentions Wanda’s involuntary confinement. Worth mentioning here is the blocking of this scene. They are at a large table with office chairs. In the beginning Steve is sitting and Tony stands. As the discussion progresses, their movement signify when they are at odds. If they are both sitting down or standing up, they are in agreement, when one sits and the other stands, they are not, and it ends with Tony sitting and Steve standing/leaving. Because of this argument, Steve chooses to escape with Bucky rather than bring him back into the hands of Stark and the CIA, a decision that ultimately causes them to clash at the airport in Berlin. However, the true breaking point of their relationship comes at the hands of Zemo, who blames the Avengers for losing his family in Sokovia. His plan boils down to getting tensions between the two leaders to a boiling point and using the video of the Winter Soldier killing Howard and Maria to make those tensions boil over, effectively ending the Avengers and hopefully killing its two main characters. This video is for Stark the ultimate sign of betrayal, partly for its content, but mostly because Steve knew. This is best shown right after the reveal by the actors. Tony barely gives Bucky a look, then turning towards Steve, first not being able to look him in the eyes but then staring straight into them as he asks if he knew. After Steve’s ‘yes’, he looks away, briefly regaining his composure, before he starts fighting. All this time, Steve has been criticizing him for withholding information, making decisions for other people and using protection as justification, but for Steve to do the same thing with a piece of information that is vital to their understanding of Bucky and of each other, is the ultimate betrayal for Tony and he completely shuts down, doesn’t want to hear anything from them anymore, he just wants Bucky dead. Steve tries to plead to him, saying “Tony, he is my friend!”. Stark replies: “So was I”, showing not only how much he feels betrayed, because he saw him as a friend, but, by using the past tense, also that that friendship is no more, that this betrayal is unforgivable (at least at that moment). An important aspect of the breakdown of their relationship is the one-sidedness of it. At the end of the film, Rogers sends Stark a phone with a single number on it and a letter attached detailing

43 how Steve sees their fallout and recognizes his own failings in it, saying he is just a phone call away. This is emphasized in both the Infinity War Prelude, where Stark says he has to take care of the real threat alone once more, and the Captain Marvel Prelude, where Fury and Hill attempt to bring the two together, but Cap puts the ball at Tony, saying he gave him a way to contact them if he needs to, and Stark brushes off Hill’s pleas, barely even acknowledging Rogers, and just tries to get rid of her. In Infinity War Tony almost decides to call but is interrupted by the arrival of the Children of Thanos, and it is Bruce Banner who ends up making the call and alerting the Captain and his team of the threat. When Stark goes into space, he is missing to the world, and when Steve arrives at the Avengers facility, he refers to Tony as such: “Earth just lost its best defender”, which reinforces the idea that he was never angry with Tony. Steve seems to recognize that they are at their strongest together, and this idea is reinforced by Thanos’ victory in Infinity War. They are only able to ultimately defeat him by working together in Endgame’s conclusion. The disparity in response to their fallout also comes back to the way the two characters are setup with regards to their relationship with other people. One of Cap’s defining characteristics is his undying loyalty to the ones he cares about. This loyalty was one of the main causes of his rift with Stark, because he chose to protect Bucky rather than to side with Stark, but his loyalty towards Tony wasn’t affected. Tony, on the other hand, has had shifting loyalties throughout his arc, mostly based on emotional responses. His ego took a hit in Iron Man, so he started to care about others rather than just himself, but from the trauma that was The Avengers, he overcompensated, became obsessed with preventing catastrophe before it happened, something Rogers criticized him for because he saw how a similar plan from SHIELD, project Insight, blew up in their face and led to their destruction, as Ultron almost did with Stark. After Ultron Tony started focusing a bit more on his personal life, eventually taking a break from his relationship with Pepper. From here his loyalty was to the Avengers, but when they did not showcase the same loyalty in siding with him over the accords, he struggled, and when the man he trusted the most committed the ultimate betrayal, lying about the death of his parents, particularly his mother, he went back to working mostly alone. Not entirely alone however, because in the same film he established a new relationship, one he never experienced before. He took on the role of a father figure to Peter Parker, bringing him in to help during the fight at the airport and immediately sending him back afterwards to keep him from any more harm. Subsequently, in Spiderman: Homecoming, just as Peter struggles with being a hero and making Mr. Stark proud, Tony struggles with guiding him in that journey. This did give him a newfound purpose, the idea of family. This is alluded to in the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War by a dream he had of him and Pepper being pregnant, which was realized in Endgame, since after the snap he retreated completely into the family life. This is also where his loyalty remained until his death. Once they find the solution to bringing everyone back (time travel), family is all he cares

44 about, constantly reiterating that they cannot take that away from him, eventually even reconciling with his (unaware) father, and only when Pepper assures him that they are safe can he truly let go. Iron Man and Captain America are complex characters with a complicated relationship. In this part I have talked about the nature of this relationship, in the next part I will analyze and discuss how Young and Jenkins’ additive comprehension as well as my previously coined term of additive mystery are employed to explore and build upon that complexity.

2.3.2 Exploring and expanding on Stony with additive comprehension and mystery There are multiple ways to look at how a relationship is characterized and developed in a transmedia universe, one of which is how fanfiction perceives it. In the world of fanfiction, a term that is central to most, if not all independent stories based on an existing world is the term shipping. This is the act of assigning two characters existing in a storyworld to a relationship of varying degree. This could be through taking two characters who have not (yet) met but seem very compatible as (usually) a couple, or through taking an already existing relationship a step further, e.g. making what is perceived as a platonic relationship into a romantic one. Fans refer to their preferred ship usually with a portmanteau of the two names. In this case, Steve and Tony become Stony.17 Modern fanfictions, specifically ones found on the popular site Wattpad, have a tendency to explore these relationships, and this one as well, with a romantic angle to them, e.g. creating a story in which the two characters indulge in their increasingly romantic feelings towards each other, often resulting in a cathartic experience. An interesting aspect of Stony fanfiction is that many stories include Peter Parker growing up with Steve and Tony as his fathers. Although these stories fall under what Jenkins calls multiplicity, they often choose to adhere to some of the continuity of the text they base their story on. For example, I found a fanfiction that describes both the psychological effects of Steve’s betrayal after Civil War on Tony and Tony adapting a parental role for Peter. This story gradually develops Tony and Peter’s relationship as becoming increasingly that of father and son, but the writer chose to first explain why Peter was with Tony at all by writing about how , Peter’s legal in the MCU, is away for business, showing some adherence to the original story. Although this is an example of an independent writer choosing to continue a particular story thread, Marvel also allows their own writers to write both canon stories and stories that are inspired by the text (Richards, 2015). Some examples of this are Iron Man: Fast Friends and Avengers: Operation Hydra. These comics take place within the MCU but are not part of the official continuity. Important to note here is that these stories are assigned a specific slot in the MCU timeline that have yet to be explored. For example, Fast Friends tackles the before and after of Iron Man, Operation

17 There is no rule as to how these names are created, Stony is simply the most popular one I have found. 45

Hydra takes place between CA: The Winter Soldier and Avengers Age of Ultron and Road to War is set between Age of Ultron and CA: Civil War. As the artist in the Richards interview mentions, these comics are for Marvel’s artists to have fun and explore the characters without them being considered in-canon. Operation Hydra is particularly interesting, as the artist Will Corona Pilgrim states in the article that that story was a continuation and a culmination of ideas that had previously been established in other MCU media, namely The Winter Soldier and the reveal of Hydra still being alive and the Marvel One-Shot Item 47, a short film detailing a story about two criminals robbing banks with leftover Chitauri technology. To circle back to the main issue of Tony and Steve, Marvel allowing their own artists to add a story to their world without worrying too much about it being in line with the larger story being told, gives validity to the idea that as long as a story adds something to the whole universe, i.e. possesses some additive comprehension, it becomes part of that universe, no matter who actually makes the story, as even the people ‘policing’ the world allow their own artists free reign to have fun with the world they helped create.18 Additive mystery comes into play here as well, as these stories, whether they’re fan created or officially commissioned, tend to play into parts that are not yet explored within the universe without having to worry too much about asking their own questions, instead opting to answer some that the source material has left open. Operation Hydra is a good example of this because it not only occupies a gap in the timeline that had not been explored yet, it also answers questions raised by previous entries in the franchise, namely The Winter Soldier and Item 47, while also leaving room for more stories like it. The stories considered “inspired by the MCU” can explore parts of the world that have previously been undiscovered, but they can also play with some of the personality traits that the main text/film may leave implicit. A good example of this is Coming of the Melter, where Stark’s relationship with Rhodey is explored, along with Stark’s tendency to do anything to succeed, which includes breaking some laws, a tendency that carries over to his arc in the films. With regards to the stories inspired by the universe, it is important to note that they mainly play off the additive mystery from the original text, rather than adding mystery themselves. They can choose to add some mystery, but it is not as important to their story because they are not meant to be part of the official narrative. Should they choose to add some mystery of their own however, it could lead to future stories based on their text as well, further building the universe. In the case of the MCU, however, they seem to have chosen for simply answering some of the mystery that stories of the official continuity leave open. A striking observation is the surprising lack of stories centering around the relationship outside of the films that those relationships were established in, Stony being no exception, even with

18 Will Corona Pilgrim, for example, has also been responsible for most of the preludes. 46 it arguably being the most important relationship in the MCU. Getting the actors to appear in other media such as TV and One-Shots might proof difficult due to budgetary restrictions, same goes for voicing their characters in video games, but comics and other written stories pose no such problems. One possibility could be that Marvel decided to streamline their output of media just as the relationships between the two Avengers started becoming more important in the films. Phase 1 and the beginning of Phase 2 of the MCU shows a large and varied output of different media accompanying the films, in-canon or not. The majority of the comics discussed before, that were inspired by the MCU, especially the ones focusing on a single character (as opposed to the Avengers together), were released in this period. The One-Shots, the TV shows more directly related to the films and the video game adaptations all were first released in this period as well, with only ABC’s Agents of SHIELD still running, although it’s final season will be released at time of writing.19 Only the prelude comics have consistently continued to be released in anticipation of its film. This development could mean that they were trying pretty much everything at the start and only kept the things that caught on with audiences, but this offers some opportunity as well. With the large amount of releases in the first half of the Infinity Saga there seems to be little room for additional stories, as the gaps that they filled, crowded the timeline. In the latter half they started creating larger gaps and Civil War was a good way of giving room for additional stories, official or not, because the whole Avengers roster was dispersed, which created additive mystery that lead to questions like “what was ___ doing between Civil War and Infinity War?”. These questions can be answered in numerous ways, some I’ve already discussed (Infinity War Prelude and the fanfiction previously mentioned) and others are slated to be released, specifically the (now delayed) Black Widow movie. Circling back to the relationship between Steve and Tony, there are many gaps waiting to be filled. The most notable one is the 5-year gap during Avengers: Endgame. After their fight in Siberia, when Steve and Bucky were walking away, Tony said Steve didn’t deserve the shield, as it was made and given to Steve by Howard. When Tony returns to Earth in the beginning of Endgame, he is still furious with Steve for leaving him alone. However, when Steve, Natasha and Scott visit the Stark cabin 5 years later, they mostly seem to have resolved their differences. Once Stark decides to help them and goes to the Avengers facility the first thing he does is give Steve the shield back, accompanied with a musical cue from Captain America: The First Avenger and from that moment they work together seamlessly. The 5-year jump creates a massive gap that spawns a plethora of questions, but for the grander story, how Tony resolved things with Steve is definitely one of the more important

19 The shows , , , , The and The are also technically part of the MCU and were first released from 2015 onwards, but their only engagement with the rest of the Universe are passing comments on rare occasions. The last video game adaptation was Captain America: The Winter Soldier from 2014, but in fall 2020 a video game adaptation of The Avengers will be released. 47 ones, because they work closely together for the rest of the film, without ever falling out, and teamwork is one of the major themes in the Avengers films. Every entry into the MCU roster that takes place during the Infinity Saga from here on out, whether that is canon or non-canon, officially commissioned or developed by fans, would have some additive comprehension if they filled in one of the many gaps that still exist. However, it is made clear by both Infinity War and its Prelude, plus Captain Marvel Prelude, that the two years between Civil War and Infinity War the two did not speak to each other, so it would be difficult in that particular timeframe to explore their relationship from their own perspective, but this is where the different terms of transmedia and additive comprehension come into play. Multiplicity allows for fans and creators to imagine a world where there is still some relationship left between the two in these two years. The fanfictions surrounding Tony and Steve as Peter’s dads show just that, since Peter’s introduction into the MCU happened in Civil War, therefore any text displaying this type of Stony story would take part in an alternate universe. There is also room for parallel stories that would show different characters’ perspective on the situation, whether that be Pepper and Sharon Carter or the other Avengers, like Rhodey, Vision or, of course, Peter. The Captain Marvel Prelude is a perfect example of such a story, showing everything that happened to the Avengers from Age of Ultron onward, but from Fury and Hill’s perspective. This and the Infinity War Prelude give us enough additive comprehension on the Stark-Rogers relationship to start asking follow-up questions, such as how Pepper views the breakdown of Stony, as she is mentioned by both Tony and in Captain Marvel Prelude, which would suggest both are still in contact with her, but we don’t ever see or hear her personal opinion. These types of follow-up questions therefore could be considered additive mystery. Avengers: Endgame gives a great opportunity to first deliver some interstitial stories focusing on Stark and Rogers, to then start exploring the multiple layers of the story through transmedia by introducing some parallel texts as well that, for example, could show the role of Pepper and/or , Tony’s daughter, in their reconciliation. Thanos’ snap was such a catastrophic and consequential event that some fans were hoping that they would get to see stories in the post-snap universe without the Avengers undoing it almost immediately (Cinemawins, 2018), even after the loss of some of their favorite characters, and the subsequent five-year gap between the death of 2018 Thanos and 2014 Thanos gives so much additive mystery and gives rise to so many questions that it is a good opportunity to perhaps expand the universe further than it already has.20

20 With 2019 Thanos I refer to the one that dies in the first scene of Endgame, 2014 Thanos is the one that dies at the end. 48

There is also an argument to be made that with every story and entry into a transmedia narrative there is an inherent additive mystery that simply asks the question “ …?”, e.g. what if Howard survived the crash, or what if Steve did tell Tony about Bucky and the Starks as soon as he found out? These types of questions are inherent to a story because with every sentence, a writer has to make a decision of which way their story goes, which narrows down the possibilities of how the story progresses and eventually there is a complete story. The inherent multiplicity of a story is therefore that there is an alternate universe where a writer decides that their story goes the other way than what we know it as. This is a way in which especially fanfiction is employed. Though a common theme in fanfiction can be “what if Tony and Steve fell in love?”, generally speaking the what if-question is a way of testing out possible ways of exploring different parts of the universe.21 The way Disney and Marvel Studios have developed the relationship between two of the most important heroes of the MCU is a strong example of not only how a transmedia narrative can help build and add layers to characters over multiple entries in a universe, it also shows a great potential of future expansions of the MCU by giving every entry both some additive comprehension and additive mystery.

3. Conclusion

At the start of this thesis I asked to what extent additive comprehension and additive mystery are employed in building the relationship between the narratological characters Iron Man and Captain America in time and space in the MCU. I have explained what exactly additive comprehension entails and what I mean with additive mystery. Subsequently, I have shown that Marvel incorporates both principles in a variety of ways, with additive comprehension helping to build the characters and expand the world that they occupy and additive mystery helping to connect the dots between media and enticing fans to further explore the universe to create a complete image of Tony, Steve and their friendship. By introducing the term additive mystery, I hoped to further explore some of the nuances that are present within transmedia research, particularly pertaining to additive comprehension, and I believe I have shown how the creators of the MCU apply this concept throughout their universe. Every hint, reference or perceived throwaway line can be interpreted as adding mystery to the universe and to the character and can move the audience to start looking for any answers they might have after watching a film or reading a comic. By also focusing on the relationship between Tony and Steve I not only found the ways Marvel has built their friendship through multiple media, using each medium’s strengths to create a full image, but also avenues Marvel has not (fully) explored yet,

21 Disney and Marvel have recognized this avenue and have decided to capitalize on it by announcing the What if… series that will air on Disney+ in 2021. 49 showing a potential expansion of the understanding of additive comprehension and additive mystery. The MCU has had a massive impact on the current pop culture scene and it appears that Marvel and Disney have no plans for ending it soon. Phase 3 had just finished when they announced their plans for phases 4 and 5, which include sequels, new origin stories and several tv series meant for Disney+. The release of Disney+ has also given them a unique opportunity to further build their universe by applying a tv format without having to worry too much about licensing. It will be very interesting to see how they keep applying additive comprehension and mystery to these series as well. It has already been announced that some of the shows, like Loki and Wandavision, will tie into the next film in the Dr. Strange series, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but everything has been delayed due to the novel coronavirus, so not much news has been released so far.22 Although it seems unlikely that they will continue the story of Tony and Steve, it will be very interesting to see which relationships will be central to the next phases. When looking back, Endgame feels slightly ironic. On the one hand, I cry just thinking about the final scene, but on the other, I know there are still stories to tell with Steve and Tony, as the MCU will keep expanding and perhaps return to these characters in one way or another. A good sign for transmedia scholars then, as without a true end to a transmedia narrative, would there be an end to transmedia study?

Coda: Discussion and suggestions for future research

This final part will contain a short discussion on some of the limitations of this research, leading into some suggestions for future research. There are a few areas which future research could elaborate on. First, it could investigate different characters and/or relationships that span multiple entries of the MCU. Some examples could include Natasha Romanoff and Bruce Banner, Thor and or Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Another avenue could be Peter Parker. Spider-man is technically still property of Sony (at least the film version), and they might have a different approach to incorporating him into a larger universe, as they are planning to expand their own “Spider-verse” soon (Marshall, 2020). Another aspect of this research is the relative narrow focus of the theory. Transmedia is a wide concept with many different ways of incorporating it in research and this paper is only a small example of that. Other researchers could look into the more economic aspect of the MCU and conduct quantitative research on the impact of, for example, the two main characters of this paper.

22 I planned on watching Black Widow while writing this thesis, to see if there was anything interesting there, but its theatrical release has also been delayed due to the pandemic to after my deadline. 50

An example could be comparing their impact to that of other characters and see if people are more inclined to consume different media if they know their favourite character is involved in some way. In general, further research could be done in transmedia franchising, specifically in the MCU, as a lot of papers that I have been able to find that discuss the MCU are a few years old, even though the Universe is bigger than ever and will only continue to expand, especially with the addition of Disney+. Though this paper had more of a focus on the transmedia aspect of the narratological characters, future research could have a stronger focus on the narratological aspect of transmedia. In this research only the theories of Mieke Bal and Peter Verstraten were used, but these are not the only narratological theories around. Other academics could look into discussing the different sides of the narratology debate and see how this relates to transmedia, perhaps look at the differences between the relative success of the MCU and lack thereof with the DC Extended Universe. Such a study could yield interesting results regarding the importance of a strong narratological base for an interconnected universe. A final suggestion is continuing on the notion of additive mystery. By coining this term I hoped to show some of the nuances that are present within the study of transmedia and particularly additive comprehension, and although I believe I have given this term validity in this thesis, it will be interesting to see whether future research takes this idea further and perhaps explore it alongside other transmedia narratives, such as Star Wars or Halo.

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Appendix

All MCU properties discussed, in order of release. Iron Man After a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, eccentric billionaire and playboy Tony Stark gets abducted by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings. Because a grenade from his own factory blew up right beside him, he needs a reactor in his chest to keep shrapnel from his heart. To escape and with the help of man named Yinsen, he builds the Mark I Iron Man suit. Upon his return home he decides to stop making weapons and start focusing on clean energy, based on the palladium reactor he also built in the cave to keep him alive, a decision that his business partner Obediah Stane is not happy with. In the meantime, an agent Coulson from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division keeps trying to talk to him, to no avail. Tony starts building and testing the Mark II Iron Man suit, while keeping Stane and his personal Assistant in the dark. The

53 first real life test is in Gulmira, Yinsen’s hometown, where the Ten Rings attack some villagers. This puts him on the radar of the US military and his best friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes. After he gets caught by Pepper while he tries to take his suit off. Stane is revealed to be the brains behind Tony’s abduction. Pepper finds plans for the suit on Stane’s laptop but almost gets caught, but for the help of agent Coulson. Stane goes to Tony to steal his arc reactor, which he needs to power the suit. While Coulson and Pepper go to arrest Stane, Rhodes goes to Tony’s house where he finds him knocked out without a reactor, only to be saved by the first reactor Tony made, a gift from Pepper with the words “Proof Tony Stark has a heart”. Stark goes to fight Stane in his Mk II armour. He wins by outsmarting Stane. At the press conference after he reveals he is Iron Man. After the credits Nick Fury meets him in Malibu to reveal he has become part of a bigger universe.

Iron Man: Fast Friends Issue 1: While in Las Vegas, Tony and Rhodes discuss going to Afghanistan. Rhodes tries to dissuade Tony from going, Tony cares more about the girls they meet at the casino Issue 2: Tony and Rhodes get taken to a SHIELD office right after the Iron Monger fight, to show Tony that he needs help if he wants to continue. They offer to teach him how to fight and to help him keep the whole incident under wraps and ask Tony’s help in return. Tony agrees, but immediately after tells the world he is Iron Man.

Iron Man 2 Public Identity The first issue deals with Howard Stark convincing Anton Vanko of working together on the arc reactor technology and Vanko being concerned with the costs of the project, before the story moves to present day where Tony Stark lives his life as the ‘first celebrity superhero’, while being monitored not only explicitly by the US government and Lt. Col. Rhodes, but covertly by SHIELD as well. After he saves a news crew from the Ten Rings terrorist organization, the story moves to senator Stern, Lt. Col. Rhodes and general Thadeus Ross discussing the problems Stark poses for the politicians and Ross revealing plans for their own suit to the senator and Rhodes, a suit they have been building with Hammer Industries. In the second issue Stark crashes a SHIELD mission in the Gulf of Aden, more details about this are in the comic series Iron Man 2: Agents of SHIELD, before the story moves to the past, where Anton Vanko is being arrested for fraud and Howard is convinced by Obadiah Stane to shelve the arc reactor project. After a jump of a few years Tony disturbs Howard during his work with an RC car, which causes Howard to become very angry and destroys the car. Tony sulks at the pool and is consoled by Edwin Jarvis, the family butler. In present day, Tony visits his family home and talks with the AI JARVIS, who he installed there for seemingly sentimental reasons, before he is called away by

54 hero business. At the US military compound, Rhodes meets with , designer of the new government aircraft, and the commander that will be piloting the craft in a field mission. While Pepper is trying to keep the Stark Industries board happy, she gets a call by Tony who says he won’t be joining, because he is in Kabul helping the locals with a minefield, using a drone he designed to clear the field without detonation, he later explains that he designed this to save the dogs that were helping sniff out old soviet mines, while still being monitored by SHIELD. The field test from Hammer and the government begins in the Congo, but while Rhodes fills Tony in on the government’s workings, the mission goes south: the craft was shot down and the pilot was captured. #3: After Stern is filled in on what happened, the story moves back almost twenty years, where Howard, who is about to leave, tries to talk to Tony, who just got back after graduating summa cum laude from Cambridge and is not interested in what his father has to say. It is implied that this was the last conversation they had, as the next panel is Howard’s and Maria’s funeral. We then move back to present day, where Tony is called by a senator Turner to help rescue the pilot. Stark figures out the government wants him to go in guns blazing, but he decides not to play by their rules and rescues the pilot with no casualties. Ross oversees everything and is not happy with Stark’s decision. Tony makes it clear he wasn’t happy with them putting the pilot in harm’s way and warns them not to do it again. He then goes home to celebrate, while SHIELD still keep an eye on him.

Iron Man 2 Ivan Vanko, son of Anton Vanko, Howard’s former disgraced business partner, is planning on taking revenge on Stark for his father’s misfortunes by building his own suit. Meanwhile, Tony Stark revels in his fame as Iron Man. He has reopened Stark Expo, a park showing all the technological advancements of Stark Industries, a project first executed by his father and calls himself the greatest personification of the Phoenix metaphor during the presentation. After, he checks his blood toxicity level, showing that the palladium reactor in his chest is slowly poisoning him. In the Capitol in Washington DC, Stark is called in front of the senate in a government attempt to make the technology public, but Stark refuses, claiming he successfully privatized world peace. After, Tony and Pepper look for a new assistant for Tony as Pepper was promoted to run the company, and Natalie Rushman introduces herself by impressing Tony with her martial art skills. We then move to Monte Carlo and the Monaco Grand Prix, where Tony decides to start showing destructive behavior by getting in his own F1 car. During the race, the cars are attacked by Vanko, or and Tony manages to defeat him with a little help from Happy. This whole ordeal impresses Justin Hammer, Tony’s rival, and he decides to hire Vanko to make him a suit. While they are starting their venture, Tony is slowly unraveling, showing more signs of his palladium poisoning and getting extremely drunk during his birthday, treating it as his last, but gets into a fight

55 with Rhodey because of this. Rhodey gets sick of his antics and decides to get into one of Stark’s suits and, after the fight, takes it to the US air base. While hungover, Tony meets with Nick Fury and Natalie, who reveals herself to be Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, and working for SHIELD. They try to convince Tony to start looking for a cure, and tell him, contrary to his belief, he has not tried everything. While Hammer confronts Vanko because he isn’t happy with their suits, as Vanko decided to make them drones instead, the US military decides to enlist Hammer’s services to weaponize the suit Rhodey brought back. Back in Malibu, Fury delivers some of Howard’s old possessions, as he is revealed to Tony and the audience as being one of the founding members of SHIELD. After watching some of Howard’s videos, in which he reveals how he struggled to show his affection to Tony and Tony starts crying, he goes to Pepper to try and make amends. He fails, but just before he leaves, he notices Howard’s old layout of the Stark Expo. With the help of this model, which turns out to be a formula for creating a new element, he does so, an element which immediately cures him, as he uses it to power his arc reactor instead of palladium. The final showdown between Tony and Rhodes and Vanko and Hammer happens at the Expo, during Hammer’s presentation of their drones. Without Hammer knowing, Vanko starts his assault on the expo, while Happy and Natasha go to arrest him. Vanko also took control of Rhodey’s suit, because that was also strengthened by Hammer Industries, but after Vanko escaped, Natasha manages to give Rhodey control back. Stark and Rhodes fight the drones and ultimately fight and defeat Vanko. Tony and Pepper, who was almost killed by a drone, finally kiss on a rooftop. Tony is assessed for the Avengers initiative, who decide that Iron Man is qualified, but Tony is not. They offer him a place as consultant instead. After the credits it is revealed that agent Coulson discovered a mysteriously Norse looking hammer crashed in the New Mexico desert.

Captain America: The First Avenger Steve Rogers is a meek and sickly guy with a habit of getting in fights he can’t win and a determination to enlist in the army during WW2. Johann Schmidt, on the other hand, is the leader of Hitler’s R&D division called Hydra. Schmidt finds a glowing cube called the Tesseract in Nazi occupied Norway. He uses this to power his weapons and his ambitions. Meanwhile, Steve gets overheard by Abraham Erskine, who helps him enlist in a program called Project Rebirth. While in training at Camp Lehigh he meets a British agent named Peggy Carter and the leader of the camp Colonel Phillips. In his training Steve shows determination, intelligence and sacrifice, which causes Erskine to choose him for his project. While in New York, at a facility from the Strategic Scientific Reserve, he gets injected with the Super Soldier Serum, which enhances his physical attributes to superhuman capacities. After the successful injection Hydra blows up the facility and kills Erskine. After pursuing the perpetrator and a show of his powers, Steve catches him, but the Hydra agent kills himself before

56 he could give any information. After this debacle, the SSR gets reassigned and Steve gets recruited by the government for propaganda presentations. While at such a presentation in Italy, he overhears a message that the 107th battalion was captured at a nearby Hydra facility. Because his best friend James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes is in that division, Steve decides to get them out himself, which he does. During this, Schmidt reveals himself to be a failed former experiment of Erskine’s, causing him to become the Red Skull. From this mission Steve gathers a few soldiers from the 107th to create the Howling Commando’s with the aim of crippling Hydra one mission at a time. Howard Stark, eccentric inventor, gives Steve a shield made of vibranium, the strongest metal on earth, and Peggy and Steve start exhibiting feelings for each other. During one such mission, they capture Schmidt’s leading scientist, Arnim Zola, but lose Bucky from a fall down into an icy ravine. Zola is questioned and reveals Hydra’s plans to blow up major cities from both allied and powers. With the help of the SSR, Steve and Peggy infiltrate Hydra headquarters and Steve gets on the bomber plane right as it is taking off. He overpowers everyone and during their fight, Schmidt picks up the Tesseract, which seems to disintegrate him. The Tesseract falls through the floor of the plan and into an icy earth. Steve can’t stop the plane so decides to crash into the ice. Presumed dead, Howard Stark leads an expedition to find his body, but they only find the Tesseract. Finally, Steve is taken out of the ice and wakes up in present day (2011). After the credits Nick Fury recruits him by showing a file about the Tesseract.

Captain America: First Vengeance Interspersed with a Howling Commando’s mission in the Danish Strait, the background of several characters from Captian America: The first Avengers is explored. First, a young Steve Rogers is shown trying to help his mother, who dies. His father was already gone, dying in WW1, but he still motivates Steve. He meets Bucky after he saves Steve from a group of bullies and is inspired by Steve’s courage. They attend art school together when the war breaks out, which motivates them both to enlist. Bucky is immediately successful, Steve isn’t. Second, Johann Schmidt’s rise to power is shown. He meets Hitler, who is interested in his ideas and employs Heinrich Himmler to recruit Schmidt. He first meets Arnim Zola and then finds Erskine and forces him to work on his serum for Schmidt. Third, Colonel Phillips meets with Howard Stark to help him set up the SSR after a demonstration of vibranium. Meanwhile, Schmidt injects himself with the serum, which goes horribly wrong. Before he could do anything to Erskine, the latter escapes with the help of Agent 13, aka Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark. The fourth and final issue details the capture of the 107th, finalizing project Rebirth and Erskine looking for a subject and finally overhearing Cap and Bucky talking.

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Fury’s big week Nick Fury and his agents of SHIELD attempt to juggle the events of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and the excavation of Captain America, all in the same week, while Fury is also trying to justify his Avengers Initiative to the World Security Council.

The Avengers Nick Fury, agent , Dr. and Clint Barton, a.k.a. , talk at a secluded SHIELD compound about the research regarding the Tesseract, when they are attacked by Loki, the Asgardian God of Mischief, who steals the Tesseract and, with the help of a magic scepter, brainwashes Selvig and Barton. This motivates Fury to start gathering the Avengers. First, they call on Natasha, who was on mission but was extracted because of her history with Barton. Then she moves to India to recruit Bruce Banner, who has been helping the local population while trying to keep his alter ego Hulk under wraps. Next, Fury travels to Brooklyn to deliver the mission to Steve Rogers. Finally, Coulson arrives at Stark tower to fill a reluctant Tony Stark in on the mission. Loki, Selvig and Barton try to create a portal with the Tesseract, so that the Chitauri army that Loki was put in charge of could enter the planet. To do this they need a certain type of metal. Loki goes to Stuttgart to get the eyeball from the director of the facility that holds this metal but gets captured after he reveals himself to the world. While Natasha, Rogers and Stark try to deliver Loki to SHIELD but they get intercepted by Thor, who wants to take his adopted brother back to to make him answer for his crimes during the Thor movie (Loki was presumed dead after this movie). After a short fight between Thor, Stark and Rogers, they all move to a SHIELD aircraft carrier where they hold Loki and try to figure out what his plan is. As Selvig completes the portal and Barton moves to break out Loki, the scepter seems to influence everyone on board and create discord between them. Their argument is interrupted by Barton blowing a hole in the side of the airship, causing Natasha and Banner to fall down a level, which results in enough stress to bring out the Hulk. Thor tries to contain the Hulk, Stark and the Captain try to get the engine that was damaged in the explosion back online and the rest try to stop Barton and his team. Barton gets a hard hit to the head, which gets him out of Loki’s spell, Thor gets tricked by Loki to get into his cell and tumbles down to the earth and during his breakout Loki kills Coulson. Loki escapes, the Hulk falls down to the earth as well and Thor manages to escape just before the cell hits the ground. Fury uses Coulson’s death to motivate what is left of the team to stop Loki. During their mourning they figure out that Loki and Selvig will use Stark Tower in New York to project the portal to the sky and thus the battle of New York begins. The portal opens and the Chitauri army enters New York and starts destroying the city. While the Avengers try to contain the threat and find a way to close the portal, the UN security council decides to override

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Fury’s objections and send a to destroy the city and the Chitauri army. Natasha manages to get to the Tesseract and Selvig tells her only the scepter can close the portal. Just as Natasha can close it, Stark redirects the nuke to the mothership of the Chitauri, destroying it and killing all Chitauri in the process. He falls back down to the earth just before the portal closes and gets saved and woken up by the Hulk. The final scene shows a newsreel talking about how much destruction to the city this cost, Fury talking to the Council and the Avengers going their own way, with Thor and Loki returning to Asgard with the Tesseract. Mid credits: it is revealed that Thanos, a large alien from the planet Titatn, put Loki in charge of the Chitauri and ordered the attack. Post Credits: the team has some shoarma in New York right after the battle.

Iron Man 3: Prelude Pepper and Tony hold a press conference to announce the building of Stark Tower in New York. After, Tony and Rhodes discuss the War Machine armour and Tony gives Rhodes an upgraded version, as his previous armor was built by Justin Hammer and had shown several malfunctions during the final battle in Iron Man 2. Rhodey takes the suit but refuses to become Iron Man, choosing his own path instead. The rest of the story details Rhodey dealing with the Ten Rings on the other side of the world during the events of The Avengers. Afterwards, Tony reveals he has been working on an of suits called the Iron Legion to help their efforts after the battle of New York.

Iron Man 3 The film opens with Tony’s basement in Malibu and his collection of suits blowing up with Tony on voiceover talking about creating your own demons. We then jump back to 1999, on a conference in Bern, Switzerland, and Tony flirting with Maya Hansen and talking to her about her experiments on rapid healing and restoring of organic material, with the purpose of regrowing limbs on disabled people. She calls it . On their way up to their room they are met in the elevator by a meek looking guy with a walking who introduces himself as Aldrich Killian and who tries to recruit Stark and Hansen for a thinktank he is setting up called AIM. Tony says to meet him on the roof, but he leaves Killian there waiting for him. Once in their room, Hansen gives Tony a look at her experiment with a plant, but it blows up, which she calls a glitch. Present day: Tony has been awake for 72 hours working on a new way of getting on his suit with magnetic implants on various points in his body. He is interrupted by footage of the Ten Rings on the tv and their leader, the . While Rhodes is briefing Tony on the Ten Rings situation in a diner, Tony experiences a panic attack for the first time. Meanwhile, Pepper has a meeting with Killian, who looks like he somehow managed to get better. He and Pepper know each other, and he shows her his plans with his thinktank and a demonstration of Extremis.

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Tony is struggling with his anxiety and trauma from New York, which puts a strain on his relationship with Pepper. Meanwhile, Happy is following one of Killian’s companions because he found him to be suspicious. This , called Savin, meets with a terrified looking man, who proceeds to blow up. While Happy is lying on the ground, losing consciousness, he sees Savin standing up and regrowing his arm on the . With Happy in the hospital, Tony loses composure and taunts the Mandarin, giving his home address away to confront the Ten Rings. While he is researching the Mandarin, Maya Hansen enters his home in Malibu to warn him, but before she can the house is blown up. Tony manages to save Pepper, who in turn saves him and Maya. While getting Pep and Maya out of the house he gets trapped under rubble and falls in the ocean with his suit on. Jarvis takes over and flies him away, while he’s unconscious in the suit. He wakes up as he makes a rough landing in Hill, Tennessee, coordinates he put in beforehand because an incident similar to Happy’s happened there. The suit falls apart and Jarvis powers down. He drags himself and his suit to a nearby barn/workshop and meets a young boy named Harley, whose family owns the workshop. While Tony is in Tennessee dealing with a broken suit, researching the incident, the kid and his panic attacks, Maya Hansen persuades Pepper to go to Killian, but he is revealed to be working with the Mandarin. Savin and an associate arrive in Rose Hill to try and bury evidence of the incident, but Tony tries to fight them off and the associate blows up in the process. He manages to get information from AIM that shows they are working with extremis. Afterwards, Jarvis returns, but Tony leaves the suit with Harley to continue repairing it while Tony goes to Miami to infiltrate the Mandarin’s headquarters. Here he finds out the Mandarin that has been appearing on the tv is a disgraced British actor called Trevor Slatery, who reveals it was all Killian’s idea. Tony gets captured, as Maya Hansen, who works for Killian, believes Stark is the only one that can fix the glitch. After a disagreement Killian kills her. Rhodes arrives just as Tony gets some of his suit back and manages to escape. They call the vice president to warn him about Killian’s plans of killing the president with Savin in the suit, which is supposed to be Rhodes’ suit, but the VP works with Killian. Tony attempts to rescue the president, but he gets captured as Air Force One crashes down and Tony has to save the passengers instead. The final showdown happens at the harbor. The president is strung up above some oil, Pepper is infected with Extremis and Tony and Rhodes are without any suit. Tony calls in his Iron Legion and the fighting begins, with Rhodes trying to save the president and Tony jumping from suit to suit to fight the bad guys. Pepper almost dies but Extremis saves her, Killian dies, everyone else lives. Final scene is a montage of happy endings, Extremis being extracted from Pepper, Tony getting surgery to get the shrapnel out of him to negate the use of the reactor, Happy waking up from his coma and Harley getting a brand-new workshop from Tony. Post credits: Tony talks with Bruce Banner who says he’s not a psychiatrist.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier Prelude Infinite Comic Captain America, Natasha Romanoff and Brock Rumlow work to retrieve a weapon called the Zodiac, which has fallen into enemy hands. They succeed, but Steve questions SHIELD’s actions surrounding the reporting of the Zodiac as destroyed when it’s not.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier The film opens with Steve Rogers jogging around Washington and meeting Sam Wilson, an annoyed veteran. Steve is picked up by Natasha and together they go on mission to a secret SHIELD ship that was overrun by pirates led by a man named Batroc. They go in silent and the pirates, rescuing , among which is , one of SHIELDS leading operatives. During the mission Steve finds Natasha extracting some data from a computer, something Steve didn’t know was part of the mission and is not happy with, as it could have jeopardized it. After debriefing back in Washington, Steve confronts Nick Fury with this, who tries to explain their motivations. He shows him project insight, a project that is meant to recognize threats before they become threats, as New York showed that Earth was hopelessly behind. Cap is strongly against this project, claiming it is not freedom, but fear. Steve tries to live a normal life, visiting his own exhibition in the Smithsonian and visiting Peggy, who is still alive, but very old and suffering from dementia. He also visits the V.A., where Sam regularly spearheads a meeting with veterans talking about their experiences. Meanwhile, Nick Fury is looking at some of the files Nat recovered from the ship and notices some discrepancies, which he brings to , a senator and Fury’s boss, but Peirce brushes them off. While on the road Fury gets ambushed and barely manages to escape. When Steve arrives at his apartment, he is greeted by his neighbor Sharon, who mentions that he left his music on. Steve enters and sees Fury sitting in his chair who gestures to be silent, as he knows the room is bugged. Fury gives Steve a usb-drive, but before he can explain everything he is shot. Sharon bursts in the door, trying to get Steve save and introduces herself as Agent 13. Steve goes after the shooter, but fails to capture him, as he seems to have similar powers but with a metal arm and a facemask. Fury dies on the surgery table in front of Steve, Maria Hill, Rumlow, Sitwell and Natasha, who talks about the shooter, who she thinks is the Winter Soldier, a legend in spy country. Hill takes Fury’s body and Rumlow calls Steve back to SHIELD, but before he leaves, he puts Fury’s flashdrive in a vending machine at the hospital without telling anyone. Back at the , SHIELD headquarters, Steve and Pierce talk about Fury, but Cap starts getting suspicious. When in the elevator back down, it gets increasingly crowded with muscle, until they start attacking him. He defeats them and escapes the building, as Sitwell tries to frame him as a traitor.

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Pierce officially labels him a traitor and a fugitive after his escape. Steve, undercover, goes to the hospital to retrieve the drive, but finds Natasha there with it, as they together move to find out what’s going on, while Pierce is convincing the Security Council to reactivate Project Insight after Fury shelved it following Cap’s concerns. Nat and Steve open the flashdrive in an Apple Store and find they need to go to the now abandoned Camp Lehigh. Here they find a Hydra office beneath the place where SHIELD was founded, and a lot of computers which turn out to be the ‘brain’ of Arnim Zola, who was recruited by SHIELD after his capture but also rebuilt Hydra during this time, growing inside SHIELD. He uses his story to stall the pair, as a missile blows up the building and buries them, but they survive. As Rumlow is looking for them, he calls in the Winter Soldier, who goes to Pierce to find out his mission. Steve and Natasha go to Sam Wilson to lay low and discuss their next move. They figure out Pierce and Sitwell are Hydra and Sam offers them his assistance, as he was part of Project , an advanced exoskeleton with wings and weaponry. They capture Sitwell, who was talking to Senator Stern (also Hydra), and he gives away Hydra’s plan of Project Insight targeting possible future threats to Hydra, names like Bruce Banner and Stephen Strange. On their way back they are ambushed by the Winter Soldier. They fight and, in the struggle, he loses his mask, revealing that he is Bucky, Steve’s childhood friend, but he does not recognize Steve or the name Bucky. This rattles Steve so much all three get captured. In the prison car two guards are taken out by a third who reveals herself to be Maria Hill and who breaks them out and brings them to a warehouse where Nick Fury is revealed to still be alive, though quite hurt. Meanwhile, the Soldier is showing flashes of memory of a previous life and starts asking questions, but Pierce orders his memory to be wiped to avoid losing him. Cap, Nat, Sam, Fury and Hill discuss their plan, hacking all three airships that are part of Project Insight and Steve goes to the Smithsonian to retrieve his old WW2 uniform in an attempt to get through to Bucky. Hill and Natasha infiltrate the Triskelion, with the latter disguising herself as a member of the Security Council, as Pierce invited them in person to eventually kill them to grab power. Fury reveals himself to Pierce and Pierce dies. Sam fights Rumlow, who gets blown up by a crashing helicopter but barely survives. Steve tries to override the three airships part of Project Insight, but almost dies fighting Bucky on the third and final ship. Bucky saves him from drowning but leaves him bloody on the shore. The final montage Steve waking up in the hospital, Fury laying low, Hill working at Stark Industries and Natasha at a court martial, trying to explain everything. Steve convinces Fury not to rebuild SHIELD and goes after Bucky. Mid credits: Baron Von Strucker discusses his work with Loki’s scepter and a pair of peculiar twins. Post credits: Bucky visits Steve’s exhibition in the Smithsonian to try and get some memory of his old life back.

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Avengers: Operation Hydra In this comic the five Avengers are on a mission to stop Hydra from capitalizing on Chitauri tech left behind after the Battle for New York. Natasha discovers the Hydra operative Doctor Jensen putting together an army with weapons powered by Chitauri technology and calls in the rest of the Avengers to put an end to it. While Clint ponders his place in the team, he ends up making the deciding shot that defeats .

Avengers: Age of Ultron All the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye, fight their way to a fortress in the middle of the country of Sokovia occupied by Hydra and Baron von Strucker to retrieve Loki’s scepter. The rest fight on the ground while Iron Man attempts to find a way inside, as the castle has a force field around it. Von Strucker orders the ‘twins’ to be released, two Sokovians called Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Pietro has superspeed and disrupts the fighting on the ground, particularly annoying Hawkeye. Wanda has telepathic and telekinetic powers and roams around the castle trying to stop the Captain and Iron Man. The latter finds a secret door which leads to a laboratory where among a number of Chitauri equipment lies the scepter. Just before he grabs the scepter, he gets manipulated by the ‘weird’ twin into a vision of fears visualized. This vision contains the entire group of Avengers lying dead while the earth is being overrun by Chitauri and Cap with his dying breath saying to Tony: “you could have done more”. Cap arrests the Baron and, once his mind clears, Tony secures the scepter. The team moves back to Stark Tower, where Maria Hill meets them to give info on the twins to Cap and Hawkeye, who was shot during the fighting, gets put under care of doctor Helen Cho, who has a way of regenerating tissue. Stark and Banner scan the scepter and find a gem inside that they don’t recognize as being of Earth. Stark sees it as the key to creating Ultron, his idea of putting ‘a suit of armor around the world’, i.e. an A.I. that protects humanity from extraterrestrial threats. Banner is hesitant, but Tony manages to convince him to try and construct the AI. After a while of failing to create it, they go to a party Stark is holding. Once they leave, Ultron springs into life. Jarvis’ AI first tries to help him, but sees he’s learning some wrong lessons, but is too late and gets integrated/’killed’ by Ultron. Meanwhile, after most of the civilians have left, the Avengers hang around talking about the nature of Thor’s hammer and why only he can lift it, for only they who are worthy, can lift Mjolnir. All male Avengers try to lift it, but only the Captain seems to even be able to give it a slight budge. Ultron enters with the help of an old and broken Iron Legion suit and starts taunting them. After Thor destroys the drone, Ultron launches the rest of the Iron Legion to attack the team. Ultron escapes with the scepter and the team argue with Stark, who stands by his decision,

63 though he did not foresee (even if Banner tried to warn him) that Ultron would see the biggest threat to humanity to be the Avengers and humanity itself. Ultron meets with the twins, who explain why they hate the Avengers/Stark (their parents were killed and they almost along with them by a Stark Industries grenade). Ultron recruits them and shares his plan to use Wanda to tear them apart from the inside. The Avengers figure out his plan of getting better armor by buying Vibranium from Ulysses Klaue, a South African arms dealer with the only known supply of vibranium, which he stole from an African country called Wakanda. Ultron and the twins get to Klaue first, but are soon joined by the Avengers. While fighting both Ultron and Klaue’s goons, Steve, Thor and Natasha get brainwashed by Wanda and start experiencing visions. Steve is at a party with young Peggy, supposedly when the war is over, but he only sees war. Thor is back in Asgard, but his people are being destroyed and is killed, but for a brief second he gets a flash of a group of colourful stones. Natasha is back at the facility where she was trained as assassin. Bruce Banner was not called into action, but while fleeing the twins see him and Wanda mindtricks him as well to bring out the Hulk, who proceeds to wreak havoc in the nearby city. Stark abandons his fight with Ultron to contain the Hulk with the Hulkbuster armor. This eventually works, but their defeat is clear. Hawkeye takes the wheel of the quinjet to bring them to a safehouse. This turns out to be a farm in the US countryside, where he has a family, a fact previously unknown to everyone else other than Natasha. Thor leaves to return to his vision to find answers, Nat and Bruce discuss their future together and Tony and Steve argue some more. Meanwhile, Ultron kidnaps and brainwashes Helen Cho with the scepter and grabs her cradle of life (the machine that regenerates tissue). Eventually, Nick Fury joins the rest of the Avengers to try and piece them back together. They figure out Ultron’s plan to evolve with Cho and the cradle and go to Korea while Stark goes to Norway to find out who has been fighting Ultron from the inside. Ultron breaks open the scepter to reveal a yellow stone inside and places this in the body he is building with the cradle. However, when Wanda reads his mind, she sees that Ultron’s plan is to destroy the world, rather than just the Avengers, which causes the twins to no longer support him. The Avengers arrive, Ultron tries to escape with the cradle, though its creation process is interrupted, dr. Cho gets knocked in the head and escapes from the scepters mindcontrol to tell the team what to do and they go after Ultron, with the twins soon joining the battle to save civilians from the line of fire. The Avengers manage to secure the cradle but Ultron leaves with Natasha in captivity. Wanda figures out and tells Steve that Tony might use the cradle to create another Ultron, something Steve strongly disagrees with. And yes, Tony found that Jarvis was still alive and has been trying to fight Ultron from the inside, and he decides to put Jarvis in the body Ultron was building, but, with the help from the twins, Steve stops him. However, Thor comes crashing in and uses his lightning to give the cradle enough power to animate finish and animate the body, and thus Vision is born. Vision claims he is on the side of life,

64 where Ultron isn’t, and is therefore against Ultron. Though the team is still skeptical during his philosophical musings, he convinces them by immediately lifting Mjolnir, while Thor explains that the stone on his forehead is an infinity stone, one of 6 primal stones that were created during the big bang. This one is Mind, the others are Space, Time, Power, Soul and Reality. Natasha manages to get a message out to them from her cell that they are in Sokovia, and the team gets ready. Tony brings a new AI to life to assist him and names it Friday. Ultron plans to lift the city surrounding the castle from the first scene to the sky to create a meteor that would decimate the planet and render it inhabitable. While the rest confront Ultron head on, Bruce sneaks in the castle to free Natasha. After she is freed, she pushes him of a ledge to bring out the Hulk. While the city starts lifting in the sky, the team try to save as many civilians as possible while fighting Ultron’s army. Ultron put a core in the center of the town that, once he touches it, will bring the city crashing down back to earth. When things start getting desperate, Fury and Hill arrive with an old SHIELD helicarrier to evacuate all citizens, along with Rhodes to provide more . While SHIELD starts the evacuation, the Avengers defend the core after Tony figures out a solution to bring the city down without destroying the world. While the last of the people move to be evacuated, Ultron starts dwindling in numbers and starts retreating by taking over a quinjet. He starts shooting the final evac and Hawkeye goes to save a young boy from Ultron’s bullets, but just as they get to him, Pietro moves him behind cover, taking the bullets himself instead and dying. This causes Wanda to out in grief and destroy pretty much everything that was left of Ultron’s army. The Hulk gets into the quinjet and throws out Ultron’s final body, before leaving Earth himself as he does not see a place for him there, even after Nat tries to convince him to return. After all the citizens are safe, Tony disintegrates the city, almost killing himself in the process. Vision goes after and kills the final body Ultron had left. Peace has returned, Hawkeye retires to his family and the rest move to a new Avengers facility in upstate New York. Steve and Nat lead the new Avengers, Thor returns to Asgard and Tony goes back home to try and find some stability in his life with Pepper. Post Credits: Thanos puts on a golden glove with six slots and says he’ll do it himself.

Captain America: Road to War The story begins with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff sparring together while Steve asks Natasha to psychologically evaluate the new Avengers, i.e. Falcon (Sam Wilson), War Machine (James Rhodes), (Wanda Maximoff) and Vision. They are interrupted by a message that Hydra is attacking a small town in Eastern Europe with a large robot built from Ultron scraps. Steve first calls Tony but he turns down his offer to participate and Steve leads the others to Europe. They first try to fight the robot itself but are unsuccessful. Only after they discover it is being controlled by

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Hydra agents do they manage to take them and it down. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is revealed to be working on a prototype mini-Iron Man watch.

Captain America: Civil War Prelude Infinite comic This comic follows three people in the aftermath of Age of Ultron/Winter Soldier: Captain America, Bucky Barnes and Brock Rumlow. The Captain and his team of new Avengers, i.e. Black Widow, Wanda Maximoff (a.k.a. Scarlet Witch) and the Falcon discover some intel on an ex-Hydra operative moving to Lagos, Nigeria and Steve contemplates whether he can stay objective if it turns out to be Bucky. After Barnes escapes from the of the Triskelion, he goes to the scientists that scrambled his brain and erased his memory to punish them for it but decides to keep them alive so that he can get away from that life. While struggling to keep his demons at bay, he goes to lay low in Romania. Once Rumlow wakes up after his surgery for his extreme burns he hears a news story about the death of his boss Alexander Pierce. This motivates him to discharge himself from the hospital and setup an operation on his own. He completely disavows anything to do with Hydra, all he wants is revenge. Once Cap and the team arrive in Lagos, they find out it wasn’t Bucky, but Romlow that they were after.

Captain America: Civil War The film opens in 1991, with the Winter Soldier being conditioned to serve the KGB and being given a mission to kill a man and his wife and recover some serum. In present day, the mission to stop Rumlow and his crew in Lagos has begun. Rumlow, or as he is now known, seeks to acquire a bioweapon, something extremely toxic and deadly. During the mission Natasha and Steve keep coaching Wanda, as she is still quite new to this. They manage to take out Rumlow’s crew and recover the , but once Rumlow gets cornered, he blows himself up. Wanda manages to contain his explosion in a force field, but she struggles to contain so she throws it in the air, but it hits a building, destroying it and killing a lot of people in the process, including some Wakandan emissaries. Tony Stark demonstrates a new type of Augmented Reality called BARF at MIT. The scene he chooses to show is one of his last conversation with his parents before their fatal car crash. A scene where he expresses his feelings towards them, but it turns out this was only how he wished it went. Afterwards he announces that with his foundation he funds all the projects the people at MIT are currently running or are planning to run. Then the teleprompter wants him to announce Pepper, who is not there, as they took a break after the events of Iron Man 3. While quite upset by this, he moves

66 downstairs to leave, where, at the elevator, he is confronted by a mother who lost her son in Sokovia, accusing a stunned Tony of murder. At the Avengers facility, the whole team listens to a lecture by secretary Thaddeus Ross, about the destruction their missions leave behind. He proposes the so-called Sokovia Accords, already approved by the United Nations. These Accords will make the Avengers a part of the UN, rather than a private organization, and will be given missions by an oversight committee. Every individual needs to sign it themselves. If they don’t, they cannot go on missions themselves or they are in violation of the accords and will be considered an . Steve and Sam are strongly against, Tony and Rhodes strongly support it. The rest are a little in between, especially Natasha, who has been on both sides throughout her life as a spy. Meanwhile, a man named Zemo hunts down a former KGB agent to ask him about the mission report of December 16, 1991. While the discussion of the accords is heating up, Steve gets a text that Peggy has passed away. He and Sam attend the funeral in London, where Sharon holds a eulogy, revealing her to be Peggy’s niece, something Steve was not aware of. Once most people have left the church, Natasha joins Steve to comfort him and to tell him Tony, Rhodes and Vision will sign the accords, as will she. She attempts to convince him to join him to the UN assembly in Vienna, but he refuses. Once in Vienna, we are introduced to king T’Chaka and his son and crown prince T’Challa of Wakanda, who lead the ratification of the accords because of the Wakandan emissaries who died in Lagos. During T’Chaka’s speech a car bomb goes off, killing many, including the king. Shortly after, Sharon Carter gives Steve some info about Bucky’s whereabouts, when the news reveals that it is believed Bucky was behind the bombing as he was caught on camera. T’Challa vows to kill Bucky himself, while Steve and Sam go to Romania to get to Bucky before everyone else. In the meantime, Zemo teaches himself the words that were used to condition Bucky as the Winter Soldier. In Romania, Steve gets to Barnes first, and he tries to get him to go with, but they are interrupted by the police. Bucky escapes, with Steve chasing him, and they are intercepted by a man in a suit resembling a Black Panther. They chase eachother through the city until they are cornered by Rhodes and the police. Here the black panther reveals himself to be T’Challa. Back in the Avengers facility, Vision and Wanda start showing something more than just a friendship. Bucky, heavily contained, and the rest are moved to Berlin, where a CIA agent named Everett Ross meets them to take custody of Barnes, while Zemo gets an EMP device delivered to a nearby power station. Tony and Steve argue some more about the politics and Tony almost convinces Steve to sign, until he mentions that Wanda is basically on house arrest. Meanwhile, Zemo disguises himself as a psychologist tasked to interrogate Bucky, and, once the EMP goes off and the power in the facility goes down, he starts listing all the Russian words to turn Bucky back into the mindless Winter Soldier and they try to escape. Zemo manages to slip away in the confusion, but Steve manages to catch up

67 to Bucky. He and Sam move him to an abandoned warehouse, unknown to the rest of the Avengers, where Bucky talks about how he wasn’t the only Winter Soldier and we see a flashback of Bucky getting beat up by some other people injected with the super soldier serum. They figure out Zemo would probably want to break them out too. Ross gives Tony and Natasha 36 hours to bring in Steve and Bucky, but, same as the Captain, they will need backup. Sam brings in Scott Lang, a.k.a. the Ant- Man for Steve and his team and Tony recruits Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spiderman. Clint Barton aligns himself with the Captain and goes to free Wanda from the facility and Vision. Sharon Carter meets with Steve to supply everyone on his team, and they kiss. At Berlin airport the two teams bud heads, all suited up. Tony’s objective is to arrest Steve and Bucky. Their mission in turn is to get to a plane that would take them to Siberia, where the other Winter Soldiers were put on ice. Fighting begins. During the scuffle Steve and Bucky manage to break away to get to a plane. They are met by Natasha, who first tries to stop them, but once Black Panther catches up to them, she stuns him to let the others escape. They do, and while they leave, Tony asks Vision, who was distracted by a hurt Wanda, to get Sam of his and Rhodey’s tail. However, Sam evades Vision’s blast and instead it hits Rhodey, who falls to the ground. Both Sam and Tony try to catch him, but they are too late and he ends up paralyzed from the waist down. The body of the psychologist Zemo pretended to be in Berlin is, with help from Zemo himself, discovered. After Rhodey’s examination, Tony and Vision being surprised Vision could even be distracted and Tony and Natasha argue, he gets a message showing the body. Stark then goes to the Raft, a highly secure prison in the middle of an ocean, where Wilson, Barton, Maximoff and Lang are being held. While in the jet to the prison, Friday gives Tony all the intel surrounding the psychiatrist and Zemo, which confirms that Zemo was also behind the Vienna bombing, impersonating Bucky. Meanwhile, Zemo arrives at the facility in Siberia and finds the mission report from Dec 16, 1991, as well as the frozen Soldiers. At the Raft, Tony shuts down the cameras to stop secretary Ross to in, so that Sam could tell him where Rogers and Barnes are headed. Tony goes to Siberia and, unbeknownst to him, T’Challa follows him. At the facility, Barnes and Rogers run into Stark and together they go to the soldiers. However, they are all dead, shot in the head by Zemo, who, hiding behind a steel door, taunts them and starts a video. This video is of a security camera, showing the death of Howard and Maria Stark at the hands of the Winter Soldier, i.e. Bucky. Tony is completely shocked and asks if Steve knew. He did, and Tony snaps. They fight Stark with red in his eyes and the other two just trying to disable the Iron Man suit to stop him. Eventually they do and they exit, leaving a furious Tony, Cap’s shield and Bucky’s metal arm (which was shot off by Tony during the fight) behind. Outside, Zemo reflects with T’Challa approaching him. The prince stops Zemo from killing himself and arrests him instead, as T’Challa has

68 learned not to let vengeance consume him anymore, for he has seen what that did to Tony and Zemo. Zemo’s arrested and Tony helps Rhodes with his rehabilitation when a package arrives with a letter from Steve and a phone with only his number, should Stark ever want to contact him. Steve, meanwhile, goes to the Raft to break out the rest. Mid credits: Rogers and T’Challa discuss letting Bucky recover in Wakanda, with princess , T’Challa’s sister, spearheading his psychological recovery. End credits: Peter Parker discovers mr. Stark has provided him with a brand new spidersuit. Spiderman: Homecoming Peter Parker struggles to juggle his personal life and asking his crush to the Homecoming dance with his life as Spiderman. He is extremely excited to be working with mr. Stark and keeps asking Happy, who was assigned as his contact, if mr. Stark has another mission for him. While being the friendly neighborhood Spiderman, i.e. stopping small robberies and helping cats out of trees, he finds out a crew has been stealing technology left from previous Avengers encounters and repurposing them into very dangerous weapons. He catches this crew, led by a man named Adrian Tombs, in the act while he is supposed to be at a party held by his crush, and almost drowns after he gets attacked by Tombs in an advanced suit named the . He is rescued by one of Tony’s drone suits while Tony is in India, and he tells Peter to stick to low level crime. But when Peter finds out a deal is happening on a ferry between Tombs and another crew, led by a man called the , he goes there to put a stop to it. However, in his attempt the ship gets split in half by a laser and has to saved by Iron man. Tombs escapes and Peter is upset, accusing Tony of not even being there. Tony steps out of the suit and gives him a lecture about responsibility, taking away the Spiderman suit as he does not deem Peter fit to wear it anymore. This causes Peter to completely give up on being Spiderman, choosing instead to focus on school and asking his crush Liz to Homecoming. She accepts and he picks her up at her house. However, Adrian Tombs opens the door and introduces himself as Liz’s father. He drives Liz and a very nervous Peter to the dance and during the drive he figures out Peter is Spiderman. As they arrive, he warns Peter not to interfere in his business again, only letting Pete live for the sake of his daughter. That night a large shipment, the final shipment out of Stark Tower, will be moved and Tombs plans to hijack the cargo plane carrying the shipment while in the air. Peter figures this out and, while failing to warn Happy, who was leading the move out of Stark Tower, he goes to stop him. Eventually he succeeds by crashing the plane and saving Tombs from accidentally killing himself due to a malfunctioning Vulture suit. Afterwards, at the new Avengers facility, Tony congratulates Peter and offer him a place there, with the Avengers, as he holds a press conference for this. However, Peter refuses and chooses to remain the friendly neighborhood Spiderman instead. Though it does impress

69 both Tony and Happy, it takes them off guard, as even though Peter thought it was just a test, the press conference is still happening. Stark instead decides to ask Pepper to marry him then and there. Mid credits: While in prison, Tombs is asked by Scorpion if he knows who Spiderman is and he says he doesn’t. Post credits: a reel of videos showing Captain America intended for the high school children.

Avengers: Infinity War Prelude It begins with the Scene from Civil War where Zemo baits Iron Man to fight Steve and Bucky. After the fight, Rogers and Barnes meet with T’Challa, who offers his apologies and his assistance. He first goes off to deliver Zemo to the right authorities, while Rogers and Barnes go to the Raft to break out Sam, Clint, Wanda and Scott. Clint and Scott go back home to their respective families (though not shown, they end up in house arrest instead of prison), Wanda goes to Glasgow with Vision and Wilson joins the Captain. In Wakanda, Steve delivers Bucky to T’Challa, who explains that the best way to help Barnes is to put him into cryo-sleep for a while, so that Shuri can figure out a way to help him flush out Hydra. While Bucky is under, Shuri explains to her brother how difficult it is to delete his Hydra conditioning while maintaining important parts of his personality. Meanwhile, Steve, Sam and Natasha are executing missions on their own, stopping Chitauri tech to fall into the hands of the terrorist organization ISIS. Back at the Avengers compound, Stark ponders on his own how he became distracted from the real threat, i.e. from space, and starts preparing on his own by building a nano-suit. Issue 2 is a summary of several films leading up to Infinity War, told by , Master of the Mystic arts, to doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme.

Avengers: Infinity War The film opens with a distress call from a ship filled with Asgardian refugees after their home planet was destroyed (in Thor: ). The Titan Thanos and his henchmen, called the Children of Thanos, have decimated the ship, killing almost everyone on board, to find the Tesseract. The only people left alive are Thor, Loki, Heimdall and the Hulk (who ended up in space after Age of Ultron). To coax Loki to give up the Tesseract, Thanos tortures Thor with the (which he already required after destroying another planet). His plan is to collect all six Infinity Stones (even wielding two stones would make him the most powerful being in the known universe), so that he can bring balance to the universe by getting rid of half of all living beings in it. Loki reveals the Tesseract but tries to trick Thanos by letting Hulk attack him. They go toe to toe for a while, but Hulk seems hopelessly outmatched and gets knocked out. Heimdall, with his last breath, summons the Bifrost (the rainbowbridge Asgardians use to get around the universe) to send Hulk down to Earth to warn

70 them of Thanos. Thanos kills Heimdall and, after Loki tries to trick and kill him again, kills Loki as well. He and his children leave after he uses the Power stone to blow up the ship. As Hulk falls down to Earth, he crashes through the roof of the New York Sanctum, the home of dr. Strange and Wong. As he shrinks down to Bruce Banner, he says “Thanos is coming”. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts talk about a dream Tony had where they have a child together and says how real it felt. A portal opens in front of them and Strange steps out to call upon Stark. They’re confused until Bruce steps out behind Strange (no one on Earth knew where Bruce was for two years). Tony goes with them and Strange and Banner start explaining the stones and Thanos. Bruce asks Tony to call Steve Rogers but Tony refuses, saying the Avengers broke up. Bruce almost convinces him, but they’re interrupted by commotion outside. A large circular spaceship comes down and two Children of Thanos come out. Meanwhile, on their way to a field trip, Peter Parker and his class see the ship, his friend Ned causes a distraction so Peter can suit up as Spiderman and help out. Tony starts taunting one of the Children, , to give the Hulk a chance to appear, but no matter how hard Bruce attempts to get angry, the Hulk refuses to come out. Wong takes Bruce and Strange and Tony engage the enemy. The goal of the Children is to acquire the Time Stone from Strange, who has it in a locket around is neck. Spiderman joins the fighting and eventually Strange gets knocked out and taken to the spaceship, as he put a protection spell on his locket to prevent anyone from touching it. Tony and Peter go after them and, as the ship starts leaving atmosphere, Peter almost loses consciousness due to lack of , but Stark sends a suit to him similar to the Iron Man suit (called the ) that saves him. Stark orders his AI Friday to send Peter back (cause she has some control over the suit), but Peter is too stubborn to actually go back and gets onboard the ship, as does Tony. Tony calls Pepper one last time but can’t reach her, and, due to the altitude, also loses contact to Friday. Back on the ground, Bruce picks up Tony’s phone to call Captain America. Back in space, the Guardians of the Galaxy (Peter Quill/Starlord, , Drax the , , Mantis and teenage ) are on their way to respond to the Asgardian distress call, but when they arrive there is only rubble. They float around for a while until the body of Thor hits their windshield and shows signs of life. They bring him on board and wake him up. Thor explains what happens and Gamora, who is the adopted daughter of Thanos and used to work for him, explains where he might go next (, to collect the Reality Stone from a man called the ). Thor says he needs to go to Nidavellir, where his hammer Mjolnir was forged, to create a new weapon. Wanda and Vision walk around the streets of Edinburgh when they see the news story about New York and get attacked by two other Children, called and , to collect the Mind Stone from the forehead of Vision. They fight and Wanda and Vision start losing, when

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Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon join and overwhelm the Children, seemingly killing Corvus Glaive in the process. They’re alive, but the spear Corvus wielded dealt a lot of to Vision. On their way to Knowhere, Gamora thinks back on how she met Thanos, who took her under his wing after he murdered half her planet. She asks Quill, her lover, to kill her if Thanos captures her, as she knows something he cannot, the location of the Soul Stone. They arrive at Knowhere and it seems Thanos has just gotten there and is interrogating the Collector. They ambush him and Gamora stabs him, but Thanos lifts the illusion he put in place with the Reality Stone, showing he already got to it and just used the illusion to capture Gamora. Quill tries to shoot her at her request, but Thanos turns his ammo into bubbles and he leaves with her. Back at the Avengers Facility, James Rhodes has a discussion with Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, when Team Captain America enters. Ross orders their arrest, as they are still fugitives, but Rhodey disconnects and greets them. Banner enters and they contemplate their next move, while they bring Bruce further up to speed with what has happened in his absence. Vision proposes to destroy the stone with Wanda, whose power derives from it, but this could kill him too. Bruce proposes a solution to extract the stone from Vision, as he is not just the stone, but he can’t do it. Cap thinks back on how Shuri managed to cure Bucky Barnes and so they go to Wakanda. In Wakanda, T’Challa delivers a new metal arm to Bucky and tells him a fight is coming. Meanwhile, on Maw’s ship, Maw tortures Strange to give up the Time Stone, while Tony thinks of his next move when he is joined by Peter and Strange’s magic cloak. They device a plan similar to the movie Aliens, i.e. blow a hole in the ship to suck Maw into the vacuum of space and seal the hole before anyone else gets sucked out. This works, Maw dies and Strange is free. They argue a bit as to their next plan, because Strange wants to go back to Earth to protect the Stone, but Tony thinks it’s a better idea to ‘take the fight to [Thanos]’, so they go to Titan and Tony reluctantly inducts Peter into the Avengers. We then move to Thanos and Gamora on his ship. He attempts to simply ask her, appealing to their parental relationship, but when Gamora refuses he reveals that he has been holding her sister and tortures her to get Gamora to talk. This works and Gamora reveals the Soul Stone is on Vormir. In the meantime, Thor, Rocket and Groot are on their way to Nidavellir. As they arrive, they see that the star that was the heart of the has gone out and all the dwarfs are dead. However, they are attacked by the last remaining dwarf , who reveals they made the glove that allows Thanos to wield the stones and he killed so that they could never make something again, leaving only Eitri alive but taking away his hands. Thor manages to motivate Eitri to help him make a new weapon. Back on the mothership, Nebula manages to escape and tells the Guardians to meet her on

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Titan. Stark, Strange and Parker arrive on Titan and are ambushed by the Guardians, they fight for a while before they figure out no one is with Thanos and they contemplate a plan. Nidavellir: Eitri reveals that they could make Stormbreaker, a magic axe that could, in theory, summon the Bifrost, but to do this they need to reignite the star. Titan: The Avengers and the Guardians devise a plan, while Strange uses the Time Stone to look into the future. He sees 14.000.605 possible futures, and only one in which they win. Thanos and Gamora arrive on Vormir, where they are greated by the Red Skull, who, after being sent to space in Captain America: the First Avenger, was cursed to lead people to the Soul Stone without ever being able to get it himself. He explains that the stone requires a sacrifice, a soul for a soul, as the person asking for it needs to give up the one thing they love the most. For Thanos, this is Gamora and, after a few failed attempts by her to stop him, he throws Gamora down and wakes up with the Stone in his hand. Wakanda: Steve and the rest arrive in Wakanda, Vision gets put under Shuri’s care and she figures out a way to get the stone off him without him dying, but this will take a lot of time, time they do not have as Thanos’ army arrives outside the borders of Wakanda with the Children, sans Corvus, lead the assault. While Thor is still trying to get the star going, the Avengers on earth, with Banner in Tony’s Hulkbuster armor, meet with the Children to negotiate. This fails, the Children release their army and the fighting begins, with Steve and T’Challa leading the charge, followed by the Wakandan army and the rest of the Avengers. On Nidavellir, Thor manages to ignite the star just enough to create the axe head. However, Eitri can’t find the handle and instead Groot grows his arms out to create a handle. As the axe is now complete, Thor uses its power to wake up, for he took the full force of the star to get it to ignite and got knocked out. Just as the Avengers in Wakanda start getting overwhelmed, Thor, Rocket and Groot arrive through the Bifrost and tip the battle back in their favor. Meanwhile, Thanos arrives on Titan and is met by Strange, who talks to him for a bit before the rest of the team manage to ambush Thanos and pin him down enough so that they can get his glove off. They almost succeed, but Quill loses composure once he finds out Thanos killed Gamora, which causes Thanos to regain the upper hand. Back in Wakanda, Wanda, who previously was protecting Vision and Shuri, joins the fight and ends up killing Proxima Midnight. Bruce, still struggling to bring out the Hulk, manages to kill the fourth Child, Cull Obsidian. However, Wanda leaving gives Corvus Glaive, who was still alive, enough time to get to Vision before Shuri succeeds. He and Vision fight and he almost wins, but for Steve interfering. Because he is distracted by Steve, Vision stabs him in the back and he dies. Back on Titan, Thanos throws one of the moons towards the others, which causes to lose balance and Peter has to save the Guardians while Strange and Tony engage with Thanos. Thanos

73 totally overpowers them, and just as he is about to kill Stark, Strange says he will give him the stone as long as he leaves Tony alive. He reveals he hid the stone in a star and gives it to Thanos, who leaves to go to earth, leaving the defeated Guardians and Avengers behind on Titan. As Thanos arrives on Earth, the other Avengers attempt to hold him at bay to give Wanda enough time to destroy the Mind Stone. Thanos overpowers everyone, but Wanda manages to hold him at bay as she destroys the stone. However, Thanos uses the Time Stone and restores the Stone and Vision, forcefully taking it from Vision, killing him in the process. Thanos now has all the stones, but before he can use them, he is hit by Thor in the chest. He says to Thor he should have gone for the head, as he snaps his fingers and leaves earth. Half of the universe starts turning into dust, leaving only the original five Avengers and a handful of others alive, with Tony stranded on Titan with Nebula. The final scene is Thanos in a beautiful garden, smiling as he has won. End Credits: Maria Hill brings Nick Fury up to speed on everything that has happened, when everyone around them starts turning to dust. Just before Fury does so himself, he manages to send a distress call out to Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel Prelude This comic follows Nick Fury and Maria Hill during and after the events of Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. They try and bring Steve and Tony back together before something big happens, but it doesn’t work, as they eventually get dusted after Fury just manages to call Captain Marvel.

Avengers Endgame The film opens with the Barton family at a picknick, as all but Clint himself turn to dust. We then move to the Guardians’ ship, the Benatar, floating through space as it ran out of fuel. Tony and Nebula only have a few hours of oxygen left and an underfed and dehydrated Tony leaves a message for Pepper in his helmet, as he falls asleep. However, Captain Marvel arrives and takes them back to Earth. She brings them to the Avengers compound, where Tony stumbles out, first into Steve’s arms and then to Pepper. They bring him inside while Nebula and Rocket mourn the loss of their team. Back inside, they mention it has been 23 days since the snap and Tony gets furious at Steve for leaving him alone, as he collapses and loses consciousness. While Pepper and Bruce tend to Tony, the others devise a plan to get to Thanos and get him to reverse the snap. Nebula and Rocket know where he is, a planet called the Garden, because a power surge similar to the one from the snap happened there a few days ago, meaning he used the stones again, though they don’t know why. So, they go to him, they being , a.k.a. Captain Marvel, Thor, Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Nebula, Rocket and Rhodes. Once they arrive, they ambush him, force him to give up the stones, but he says

74 he used the stones to destroy the stones, so they can’t be used anymore, as they don’t exist. Thor lashes out in anger and chops Thanos’ head off. 5 years later. Steve leads a counseling session in New York with people trying to move on. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a rat pushes a button that returns Scott Lang back to the real world from the Quantum Realm, where he has been stuck ever since his companions were dusted before they could bring him back. He stumbles around the city trying to figure out what happened, and once he does, he goes to find his daughter Cassie. Because time moves differently in the Quantum Realm, he hasn’t aged a day, but when he finds Cassie, she has grown up significantly. Back at the Avengers compound, Nat holds a meeting with the Wakandan general (T’Challa’s second in command and now leader as he was dusted), Rocket, Carol and Rhodes. The latter gives her intel on the whereabouts of Clint, who has been going around the world killing criminals. After the meeting, Steve enters and tries to comfort her. While they are talking Scott arrives and starts talking about the quantum realm being a possible solution, but they need to build a time machine. They first go to ask Tony for help, who has been living with Pepper and their daughter, Morgan H. Stark, nickname Maguna, in a cabin in the woods. Stark talks to his daughter, who has a blue Iron Man helmet. Stark mentions that was a gift for Pepper, as they go inside. Steve, Scott and Natasha arrive to ask his help, but he refuses, scared of losing his family. They leave and go to the next mind they know, Bruce Banner, who has fused himself with the Hulk, causing him to have the body of Hulk, but the brains and consciousness of Banner. He agrees to help them. At the cabin, Tony contemplates his decision and starts working on a solution of his own, which he finds. Back at the compound, Steve, Bruce and Natasha start testing by sending Scott through time, but they can’t work it out. Tony arrives and gives them the solution, plus he returns Steve’s shield to him. Soon after the other Avengers start arriving, plus Rocket and Nebula (Carol is too busy helping the rest of the universe). Hulk and Rocket go to find Thor, who has settled with some friends and the remaining Asgardian citizens in New Asgard. They find him seriously overweight, alcoholic and depressed, but convince him to go along anyway, only by mentioning they have beer. Natasha, on the other hand, goes to Tokyo to get Clint, who has been tearing his way through the Yakuza. Back at the compound, the time machine is finished and Clint offers to be subject of the first test. They send him back in time to his own farm, so that he can retrieve a baseball glove, to not only test whether they can go back in time, but that they can take objects with them as well. It works, and they start figuring out where the stones were at particular points in time. Thor knows the reality stone, also called the Ether, was on Asgard in 2014 (Thor: the Dark World), possessing the body of Jane Foster, his then girlfriend. Rocket knows that Quill once stole the Power Stone from the planet Morag (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Nebula knows of Vormir, where the Soul Stone presides. The

75 rest figure out that the other three stones were in New York in 2012 at the same time during the Battle of New York (The Avengers): the Time Stone with the , the former Sorcerer Supreme, the Mind Stone in Loki’s scepter and the Space Stone in the Tesseract. The Time Heist begins. Banner, Steve, Scott and Tony go to 2012, Thor and Rocket to 2014 Asgard, Nebula and Rhodes to 2014 Morag and Clint and Natasha to 2014 Vormir. 2012: Steve, Scott and Tony send professor Hulk to retrieve the Time Stone at the New York Sanctum, while they go to Stark Tower for the scepter and Tesseract. Hulk arrives at the sanctum and argues with the Ancient One about giving up the stone. 2014, Asgard: Rocket tries to keep a struggling Thor together, as Thor knows this is the day his mother dies. Rocket almost succeeds, but Thor cannot overcome his trauma and hides. 2014, Morag: Rhodey and Nebula stay, while Clint and Natasha take the Benatar to Vormir. Meanwhile, old Gamora and old Nebula meet their father at his ship, when Nebula, who is a , starts glitching and shows new Nebula on Morag, while she talks to Rhodey about their plan to get the Power Stone from Quill. 2012, New York: we see the aftermath of Loki’s final capture, with the Avengers, bar old Hulk, take him and the Tesseract down in an elevator, while agents Sitwell and Rumlow take the scepter for SHIELD. They are soon joined by Steve, who tricks them into giving the scepter to him. Downstairs in the lobby, Alexander Pierce argues with the Avengers on the custody of the Tesseract when Scott distracts them by short-circuiting old Tony’s arc reactor. New Tony grabs the case with the Tesseract but gets knocked down by a furious Hulk exiting the stairwell. The cube falls out of the case and Loki grabs it and escapes. Meanwhile, New Steve is confronted by Old Steve, who thinks he is Loki in disguise. They fight and new Steve wins by distracting old Steve with the mention of Peggy and Bucky. At the sanctum, Bruce convinces the Ancient One by telling her that Strange gave it away willingly, knowing it was the only way. 2014, Thanos’ ship: Thanos, Maw and Gamora access old Nebula’s memory files, as they have become entangled with new Nebula’s memory. 2014, Asgard: , Thor’s mother, discovers Thor lurking around and talks to him as she sees the turmoil in him. While they’re talking, Rocket extracts the Ether from Jane and returns to Thor. Before they leave, Thor summons Mjolnir in the hopes that he is still worthy. He is and they leave with the Ether and Mjolnir. 2014, Morag: Rhodey and Nebula knock out Quill and Rhodes leaves with the stone, but just as she is about to go after him, Nebula experiences a glitch that reveals to Thanos that he will succeed in the future. Because she knows that he knows, she first tries to contact Clint and Natasha to warn them, but she fails to establish a connection and gets captured by Thanos.

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2012, New York: the four regroup and discuss what to do about the lack of a space stone and the fact they only have enough Pym Particles for one trip through time. Knowing it has always been in SHIELD’s hands, Tony and Steve figure out that it could be with SHIELD at Camp Lehigh in 1970, where Peggy Carter, Howard Stark and , creator of the Pym Particles, all work together. Scott and Banner return while Tony and Steve go to 1970. 1970, New Jersey, Camp Lehigh: they arrive, Stark goes for the Tesseract and Rogers goes to find Pym Particles. Tony finds and hides the Tesseract, when he bumps into Howard, who is looking for Arnim Zola. Tony isn’t born at this point, so Howard doesn’t recognize him, but Tony manages to not raise any suspicion. While Howard and Tony talk about family, as Howard’s wife is expecting, Steve lures Hank Pym out of his office to steal some particles. Pym’s office is next to Peggy’s, and Steve almost gives himself away while staring at her. They rendezvous on the surface and Tony says goodbye to Howard, who steps into a car driven by Edwin Jarvis. 2014, Mothership: Thanos tortures new Nebula, who tries to convince old Gamora of her good side, while new Nebula disguises herself as old Nebula. 2014, Vormir: Clint and Natasha arrive, are greeted by the Red Skull who explains the rules to them. Since they both love each other a lot, they can’t decide on who goes down, as they both want to sacrifice themselves for the other. They both make a run for it and eventually Natasha bites the dust and Clint wakes up with the Soul Stone. 2023/Present day, Avengers Compound: Everyone arrives at the same time, realizing quickly that they lost Natasha. The original Avengers mourn the loss of their friend, but quickly start building a glove to use the stones. They finish and start arguing who will use it. Thor volunteers, as he is desperate to redeem himself, but the others stop him, saying he is in no condition, both physically and mentally. Professor Hulk steps up, saying he is the only one powerful enough to do it. While they are arguing, old Nebula sneaks away to the time machine to bring Thanos’ ship to present day. Tony imprints into Bruce that he cannot change anything from the last five years, he can only bring everyone back to present day. They put the building into lockdown and Bruce puts on the glove. Just as Nebula gets Thanos to present day, Hulk manages, with all the strength he has, to snap his fingers. The lockdown stops and Clint gets a call from his wife, signaling their success. Just as Scott looks out the window in glee, he sees Thanos’ ship, which starts bombing the compound. The team gets separated, with Hulk holding up a large part that could crush Rocket and Rhodey and Clint with the glove including the stones. While Ant-Man goes to rescue Rhodes and Rocket, Clint defends the glove from Thanos’ army and old Nebula. Meanwhile, new Nebula manages to convince Gamora of her good nature and Gamora sets her free. Iron Man, Captain America and Thor meet outside, looking out over Thanos, who has just been sitting around. Thor summons both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir and they go to confront Thanos.

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Before they fight, Thanos talks about how he has decided he needs to destroy the entire universe and start anew, as the current one is to stubborn to let it go. While Thanos and the three Avengers fight, Scott reaches the others and Clint gets chased by Thanos’ army. He manages to evade but runs into old Nebula. When she takes the glove from him, Gamora and new Nebula arrive. They first try to talk her down, but when this fails, new Nebula kills her old self. Back outside, the three Avengers start losing to Thanos, but just as he is about to kill Thor, Captain America summons Mjolnir, showing he is worthy, and regains the upper hand. However, soon Thanos again starts winning, and just as Steve gets ready to be totally overwhelmed, Sam calls in and all previously vanished heroes start arriving. They stand together and the two armies clash. The goal for the Avengers is to get the glove to a van with a scaled down version of the time machine. As Thanos starts losing, he calls in an airstrike from his ship, completely overwhelming the heroes including the one currently in possession of the glove, Spiderman. Captain Marvel arrives and destroys the ship, restoring balance to the fight. Just as she is about to get the glove into the van, Thanos blows it up. He shrugs off Tony, Steve and Thor and starts fighting Carol. She holds her own as her powers also stem from one of the stones, but eventually she loses. Just before Thanos can snap again, Tony attacks him. Thanos knocks him back, says “I am inevitable” and snaps, but nothing happens. Tony, while engaging him, took the stones. He says: “I am Iron Man”, as he snaps his fingers and dust Thanos’ entire army, including Thanos himself. Tony collapses as the power from the stones is too much for him. First Rhodey arrives, then Peter and finally Pepper, who comforts Tony as he dies in her arms. Normal life returns, as Barton meets with his family and Peter goes back to school. A final message from Tony, recorded just before the Time Heist, plays to his family at the cabin and they release a memorial with his first arc reactor into the lake, as everyone Tony has ever come in contact with looks out over it, including Harley from Iron Man 3. Thor and , his second in command, look out over New Asgard as he gives her the lead while he joins the Guardians on their quest to find Gamora, who vanished after the battle. Steve, with help from Professor Hulk and support from Sam and Bucky, steps into the time machine to return every artifact they took back to their respective timelines. Just as they want to get him back, he doesn’t, and Bucky notices an old man sitting on a bench nearby. Sam goes to him, sees its Steve, who talks about how he went back to Peggy and lived out his life, before giving the shield to Sam. The final scene is Steve dancing with Peggy to their song.

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