Infinity Jest: The Marvel Universe’s Thematic Incoherence and Why It Matters

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of this decade’s greatest achievements, with a huge flaw threatening to derail everything

I walked out of the theater after Infinity War feeling stunned, amazed, emotionally drained. Two-and-a-half hours of bombastic entertainment, a modern pop opera working at the largest scale possible, the result of a risky ten-year investment paying off to the tune of billions of dollars.

As I was on the train home, however, a feeling of emptiness started to set in, like eating a bowl of ice cream: full of flavour, great for mood, low on actual nutrition.

I was surprised that this was happening with a movie like Infinity War, with all its varied characters interacting with one another and a plot that just blazes through and makes the running time feel an hour shorter.

Then I realised where that feeling came from, and it begins with Captain America.

The Best Avenger

My favourite character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is Captain America, and it all begins with my pick for best MCU movie, Captain America: The First Avenger. (The first Avengers and Black Panther are fighting for second place, in case you’re wondering.)

And it is because The First Avenger, more than any subsequent movie, shows us why Captain America is a hero.

We are introduced to Steve as a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who gets into fights he cannot win. At this early point in the film, with limited information about him and his goals, we could either think that he is courageous, he doesn’t know when to quit, or that he’s looking for a glorious cause to sacrifice himself for.

This character is solidified later on by the short scene at the World’s Fair where Steve is being questioned by Dr Erskine. Erskine asks Steve if he wants to kill Nazis and the film allows Steve a short pause, as though he is considering whether to lie or tell the truth. His answer: “I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t like bullies; I don’t care where they’re from.”

This is the core of Captain America’s character. As Erskine later explains, the superhuman serum amplifies everything in a man, including what’s in his heart. His superhuman strength doesn’t look like much among indestructible green monsters and literal Norse gods, but we can always count on him to do the right thing.

It is why the movie’s antagonist, the Red Skull, is the moral opposite of Steve, a man who seeks power to control others, not to protect them. Also a nice parallel: Red Skull is a Nazi, a quick cultural shorthand for bullies, who Steve really dislikes.

The First Avenger ends with Steve deciding to crash the Hydra plane with himself in it, preventing the destruction of New York. Notice how, when put in situations that require sacrifice, a lot of movies choose to show the hero hesitating for a moment, contemplating the massive decision ahead? That never happens here. Steve never gets that moment of contemplation, because he’s already decided. Same man, much bigger grenade.

That’s where Peggy Carter comes in, to put us in the position of watching Steve sacrifice himself. It really is a testament to the writing of their relationship, and Hayley Atwell, that this is still an emotional high-point for the whole series.

In his last moments, Steve tries to distract from the reality of what’s happening by setting a date both of them know he cannot make, but it doesn’t matter. We want to cling on to any moments we still have with him, to see these two characters reunited. The voice gets cut by static. The camera flows away from Peggy, grieving at the control board. This is the death of ‘good’.

The Betrayal of Captain America

Where The First Avenger spends its entire runtime establishing Captain America as an unstoppable force of good, The Avengers reaffirms him as the heart and soul of the team, as well as its obvious leader.

*Avengers leadership sidenote: Tony was still selfish and over-arrogant, Thor straight up left Earth as soon as they were done, and Bruce Banner didn’t even want to be there in the first place. Things were way different in Phases 2 and 3, but for the original team? It has to be Cap.

Then we get to The Winter Soldier and things start to get complicated. See, I really like The Winter Soldier and the introduction of shades of grey to Cap’s morality. Having that many secrets kept from you will make anyone skeptical. It’s even nice that he rallies SHIELD against the HYDRA sleeper agents by basically saying, “I’m Captain America, follow me.”

Where The Winter Soldier starts to hurt the overall story is with the introduction of, well, the Winter Soldier himself (Welcome to the party, Stucky shippers, the tea is still fresh).

Bucky Barnes provides an emotional connection to The First Avenger, since everyone else from that time period is either dead or has Alzheimer’s. I can understand why Steve is so attached to the one other person from his previous life, let alone his childhood friend. It’s just that I don’t feel it.

The film never shows us the development of that relationship. We start with Bucky not remembering anything at all, that he might as well be a totally different character. Without any prior build up, we’re suddenly supposed to believe that this person is deeply important to Cap?

The lack of build up between Steve and Bucky becomes really problematic in Civil War, betraying the fundamental character core from the first movie.

Civil War starts out with a botched mission, headed by Cap, after which the United Nations wants the Avengers to hand over control to them. This causes Cap and Tony Stark to take up different sides. Cap, uncharacteristically, takes up the side of retaining full autonomy.

Remember, the whole point of Captain America is that he will always be good and moral, otherwise he wouldn’t have his powers in the first place. Deciding whether civilian lives are worth sacrificing is something that should tear at his very soul, but the film never gives him a moment to contemplate the implications of his decision.

We have gone from the man who almost let a HYDRA agent escape because a boy got thrown into a river to someone who can cause innocent deaths and choose to keep going seemingly without hesitation.

Instead of reflecting or commenting on this character change, Civil War launches straight into its main narrative where Cap will throw away everything to protect Bucky. You could take the political implications out of the narrative and come to the same story beats, since all the Sokovia Accords does is give everyone a reason to choose a side.

Forget the heartbreaking issue of causing human deaths to save the world, and also forget about the political differences set up earlier. It’s actually all about this relationship that we haven’t built up much, aside from the queerbaiting. But hey, why stop a good ship that’s already charging full speed ahead?

There Was An Idea

There’s a reason I’ve been using Captain America movies as examples so far. All of them have been written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and The Winter Soldier and Civil War were directed by the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony. This is also the team behind Infinity War, and its sequel, and they’ve brought with them that same multi-movie inconsistency.

For starters, let’s look at the beginning of Infinity War. Thanos has already murdered all that’s left of Asgard and is about to obtain the Space Stone. This would be an effective opening sequence on its own to show the villain’s brutality, but as a continuation of previous themes, it spits in the face of Thor: Ragnarok.

Ragnarok ended with Asgard being destroyed and Thor learning that “Asgard is not a place, it’s a people,” with a beautiful message that wherever they end up, the Asgardians can build a new society that’s hopefully not rich from the horrors of colonialism.

Infinity War doesn’t even give a moment to acknowledge the tragedy of what could have been, how Asgard can never truly be rebuilt. We do get a moment much later in the movie, with Hemsworth perfectly portraying Thor gradually breaking down at the realisation of his loss. However, because it’s so far removed from the opening scene, it plays more as a motivational moment for Thor than an acknowledgement of the tragedy that occurred.

And if they cared about the Asgardians as a distinct race of characters, don’t you think we should see them fighting for their lives against Thanos’ forces? Again, we don’t start with the battle, we start the movie at the battle’s conclusion. It’s telling us that who the Asgardians are doesn’t matter, it only matters that Thanos murdered a whole bunch of people.

Speaking of the disrespect towards Marvel’s other space operas, what is up with Star-Lord in this movie?

I know it’s not the most popular of the MCU movies, but I really love Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with all my heart. James Gunn dived into each character and developed every single one of the Guardians, with varying results. Among those developments are Peter and Rocket learning not to be selfish assholes.

Their ship crash lands because the two of them engaged in an ego contest, competing to be the best pilot. Peter ignores warnings that something is wrong with his father just because he needs closure. Oh, and his father? An uncaring being called Ego, whose only purpose is claiming every planet in the universe as his own.

In Infinity War, not only does Peter wait until it’s too late to shoot Gamora, the one thing she made him promise, he also messes up at the most crucial point of the film. You already know the one I’m talking about: when he punches Thanos just as the Gauntlet is coming off. Not only is that the most futile, yet selfish, thing he could have done in that moment, it undoes his character development from the previous movies.

Now, I’m willing to grant that Peter is so filled with rage that he doesn’t care, but that would be bringing him back to where he started. This interpretation means that no matter how many times we see Peter grow and mature through these movies, it never means anything. Oh, but that doesn’t matter either because later on, Peter turns to dust and doesn’t get to fix what he messed up.

However, none of these points even compare to the movie’s ending. It’s haunting, provocative, totally fitting for a movie that’s about the end of the universe (or at least half of all life in it). What I disagree with is the execution of that idea.

Your mileage may vary on this, but when I watched the ending and how the Russos decided to portray it, all I could think of, from shot to shot, was “Is he going to die?” Let’s take one death for example, T’Challa’s.

After showing other characters turning to dust, the shot starts on Okoye, creating the association that she is about to die. We only see half of her in the frame before the camera starts to move past her, focusing on T’Challa running into frame. He tells her “This is no place to die” as the camera focuses back on Okoye. Oh, but what’s this? Turns out that T’Challa has already started turning to dust, and Okoye is fine.

This reminds me of jump scares in horror movies. You know the scare is coming, you just don’t know when, and that creates the tension. But most of the times, the scare itself is the climax, there’s no development after it. Same here: You know that characters are going to die, you just don’t know when, and the floating, voyeuristic camera serves this purpose.

There’s a reason why Peter Parker’s death is so devastating; the character is reacting how we expect him to, and the movie allows the moment to play out. Spiderman is basically a kid getting in way over his head, and he meets his end as a result. Even that “I’m sorry” at the very end connects because all he wanted to do was help Tony and he failed at that.

No one else has a death scene that even comes close to this, which is a fault of the movie and begs the question: How many of these characters are we supposed to care about?

The Endgame

To draw a parallel with the movie, there are about 14 million ways Infinity War could have gone with all its plot lines, and maybe only one would succeed on every front.

Even with these grievances, I still like Infinity War way more than I thought I would. Peter Parker’s death alone is an incredible scene and for all the shit I talked earlier, I am in awe of how the Russos, and Markus and McFeely, keep the movie constantly interesting. And unlike many major blockbusters, I do believe that Marvel knew exactly what they were doing on this film.

Most importantly, they know this isn’t really the endgame. It’s the beginning of the endgame. We know it too. There are more Marvel movies currently being planned, including sequels for now-dead characters.

The thing is, for the last decade, Marvel has always been able to say, “Oh, this unexplored theme is just set-up for a future movie,” and we’ve been happy to oblige. But as we approach Infinity War 2, or whatever it’s eventually called, nothing feels ready to end, even though Marvel desperately wants us to think so.

Right now, the core appeal of the MCU seems to be introducing interesting characters, making them fun and enjoyable (again, an incredible task to achieve with such frequency), and alluding to things that might happen in the future. This works really well for maintaining the hype between movies, and it’s always fun to discuss theories and possibilities, but Marvel has to have a point to all of this. Even the best meta-narrative needs a proper narrative to make it work.

Maybe all the character arcs they’ve built over the years will have meaningful development. Maybe the true endgame is so epic, it needed a whole decade’s worth of waiting to properly payoff. After all, a franchise of this scale is truly unprecedented. It’s just that I wish they could do better on this front.

Is that too much to ask, considering how much they’ve already achieved? Perhaps. But the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes and its most important, deserve nothing less than the grandest of endings.