O ne of the greatest imagined lm univers- es of all time has reached breaking point in the latest Avengers: Endgame lm. It isn’t accidental in the slightest that we are talking about a split, because this in no way rep- resents the end (far from it). This Russo brothers’ lm changes everything we’ve so far seen from Marvel at the foundational level and heralds the start of a com- pletely di erent direction. In the meantime, every fan of the world of heroes received at least a fraction of what they were seeking in Endgame, because this lm again tried to reconcile the myriad superheroes in such a way that no one felt neglected. This was done with some compromises, but packaged into this 181 minutes are references to all the lms we’ve watched so far. Marvel’s lm universe has released 22 lms in 11 years, and the dynamics are similar to those characteristic of the comic strip industry (the older but even more glori ed precursor to this universe). This means that Marvel learned from its own exam- ple, and the measure was top quality. It is clear that no other lm studio or comic company can keep up. Kevin Feige became the head of the studio in 2008 and represented the embodiment of that which the Marvel universe required. A man with a clear vi-
The third stage closed with the lm Avengers: Endgame, while we will receive a kind of postscript in July with Spider-Man: Far from home, which will bring the total time of all Marvel lms since 2008 to a running time of precisely 3,000 minutes. This is poor consolation, because whatever phase four brings, it will not include everyone’s favourite hero: the witty and brilliant Tony Stark, who was embodied so wonderfully by Robert Downey Jr. that he seems to have become Iron Man’s alter ego
sion, organised, methodical, dedicated and - above all - a huge fan of comics, he came up with a formu- la for success: to launch a new franchise every year and to continue existing ones with occasional“cross- overs”, i.e. lms that bring together multiple charac- ters (such as Avengers). Every lm managed to out- perform the previous release... And it all began with the famous Iron Man, which was the rst to change the view of such lms and lead to them no longer be- ing classi ed as mere entertainment for the young- est. The culmination of the rst phase was simulta- neously also its end: Avengers - the rst lm of its kind to present all the glamour and tribulations of superheroes, especially when it is necessary to rec- oncile so many egomaniacs. The second phase began with the nal instal- ment of Iron Man and ended with the rst appear- ance of Ant-Man, which has long been considered one of the greatest reboots of the entire galaxy of heroes. The third phase opened with Captain Amer- ica: Civil War, with the con ict between the two main characters (Tony Stark and Steve Rogers) dividing the biggest lovers of comics for a couple of years. Never- theless, all hatchets were buried at exactly the right time, and a full-stop was placed on the end of the
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