There’s that common wisdom that we are shaped as artists and critics by the media that we consume when we’re young. It’s why George Lucas and the rest of that OG blockbuster generation have an obsession with the 50s, or why I make more sense when you learn all my favorite characters can be plotted on a line graph between Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars prequel trilogy on one end and Han Solo from the original trilogy on the other.

This is also reflected in my complicated affection for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

At the risk of hitting my dear readers with something my friends and I refer to as “Power Word: Age” (where, much like the DND spells it’s named for you’re suddenly hit grappling with the fragility of your mortality), I have only existed in a post Comic Book Movie boom world. Hugh Jackman has been playing Wolverine as long as I’ve been alive, and in conjunction with that, the first Iron Man movie came out when I was seven years old.

While I didn’t see any of them in theaters until I was just a smidgen older, this has meant that most of my attempts at Baby’s First Film Analysis Thoughts were spent dissecting and investigating the innards of this franchise. The first movie I ever came out of with the feeling of “that could’ve been better” was probably one of them (And we will get to it.)

Even as a fan however, I’ve watched it become a more and more contentious monolith as we’ve come to expect at least two projects a year to come and take cinemas and streaming services hostage. Especially after a Comic Con announcement that’s proven a make or break on the future of the whole thing. How a once gleaming mansion has eroded into that of a sunk cost fallacy haunted house.

At least, that’s how I feel on my more cynical days.

But I am not immune to Populist Media and I’ve been inducted as a ghost in these here walls that I will reside in until my death, the ink on the Marvel money printer runs out, or the inevitable heat death of the universe; whatever comes first.

And it hasn’t all been bad. Seriously, there has to be a reason that this franchise has made almost more money than god or we wouldn’t still be here.

From turning smaller scale and unknown actors into household names to shining a light on new directors all the way to reinvigorating interest in comic books, this house was once gleaming and people seemed happy to have it take up space on the metaphorical block of the social consciousness. 

When it stopped gleaming is up to furious debate and it will probably be settled when that eventual unseeing end is. I, of all people, am not going to answer it. I am but one miserable pile of Google Docs masquerading as a Cinema Media Studies major. Also it’s not a question I’m interested in answering.

No, my interest instead is trying to grapple with my personal relationship with this franchise that has shaped my taste in media, tortured my bank account with merchandise, gotten me into comics, and explains why I can explain the complexities of rights holding off the top of my head almost unprompted. So to settle this, I’m going to attempt to watch and rewatch every movie and some of the TV series and figure out where I stand and what I can say about all of them. It will be a lot, and perhaps arduous and insane, but I suspect it must be done, if only to satisfy my own nagging brain.

Before we get seriously underway with this whole project, let’s get some ground rules in place:

1. I’m sticking strictly to the MCU for now. The Fox X-Mens and the Spidersmen are their own separate cans of worms and I need to keep my sanity somehow. They’ll probably get their own separate deep dissection at a later date
2. I’m going to aim for one review a month, that way I can break and watch other things for other obligations and for my own joy.
3. These are going to be highly informal, I wouldn’t cite them in essays and what have you and are probably going to end up being more of my own personal unravelings.
4. I’m doing them in release order to save myself some time.

I’ve spent a lot of time and money and energy getting some would argue way too invested in this world and these characters. A massive sprawling piece of art made by a megacorporation so big it fights state governments. I must attribute some of it to some extent as the thing that got me into film criticism. 

So, strap in, we’re gonna try and dance with some ghosts. First up: Iron Man.