With millions of people currently quarantined and self-isolating due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and restrictions in place all around the world, many fans have decided to use their free time to re-watch the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe from start to finish. While this has led to debates about which of the studio’s output can be deemed the worst, powering through twenty-three movies is going to pass a lot of time regardless.
For those who either aren’t interested though or don’t have the patience to chronologically work their way from Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Direct have come up with six new ways to experience the MCU from multiple different points of view, which could ultimately give many fans an entirely new perspective on the biggest franchise in history, and you can check them out in the gallery down below along with brief descriptions of each one.
The Side-Character Cut: This features all of the Earthbound movies where one of the six original Avengers isn’t playing a lead role, which lets you experience the MCU from the outside in, with the adventures of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes only mentioned in passing or via a brief cameo appearance.
The Iron Man Cut: This is fairly self-explanatory, and focuses on every movie where Tony Stark plays a major role, allowing you to experience how the character’s journey is the through-line for all of the Avengers films, as well as following the evolution of his character from self-obsessed billionaire playboy to a husband and father willing to sacrifice his own life for the greater good.
The Captain America Cut: The flip-side to Iron Man’s journey, this one traces Steve Rogers’ arc from disheveled Brooklyn kid to the inspirational leader of the Avengers, via his stint as a war hero and decades spent frozen on ice, as he adapts to a world that rapidly evolved without him and how his old-fashioned beliefs struggle to fit into a society dominated by espionage, mis-truths and all-powerful villains.
The Infinity Stone Cut: This one is made up of all the movies where the shiny trinkets play a pivotal role in the story, and how they ultimately become known to the various superheroes of the universe, as well as the focus of Thanos’ quest for total domination. A lot of MCU installments don’t feature the Stones at all, with this cut trimming the fat and explaining why the intergalactic MacGuffins are so important to the franchise.
The Arc Reactor Cut: This plays with the timeline by putting the first three Avengers movies at the beginning, before moving onto the origin stories for all of the MCU’s major heroes and finishing up with Avengers: Endgame. A pretty unique way of getting through the series, but moving from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes losing their greatest battle straight into the movies that showed how they became who they are adds an extra emotional punch, culminating with them taking the fight to Thanos for their greatest victory.
The Cosmic Marvel Cut: This ignores everything that happens on Earth, focusing solely on the stories that take place across the galaxy, turning the MCU into a sci-fi space opera that only features our planet as a background location or something mentioned briefly in passing.
There are certainly more ways than one to enjoy the MCU, and these six new versions of the franchise would no doubt pass a few hours for those looking to return to the comfort of Marvel Studios’ output without simply going from point A to point B.