Martyn Pedler

It’s been a couple of days since the whole world saw Iron Man 2, right? It’s cool to talk about the post-credits stinger? I’ll give you a chance to look away, just in case…

Yeah, it’s Thor’s hammer.

Just like the Samuel L. Jackson-as-Nick-Fury appearance that ended the first Iron Man, Thor’s hammer was basically meaningless unless you were already in the know; unless you’re already enough of a superhero fan to know its significance. (My audience was about one-quarter “wooo!”, three-quarters “huh?”)

And while the gag with Captain America’s half-finished shield in Tony Stark’s lab was fun, there were plenty of these other, oddly alienating moments in Iron Man 2. Why not have someone say the Black Widow’s codename out loud? Why not explain who the hell Nick Fury actually is – other than Samuel L. Jackson letting his eyepatch do his acting for him?

It gets really weird, however, when you remember that the Iron Man movies’ Nick Fury is based on the Ultimate Universe version of the character. He was reinvented by much-praised ‘cinematic’ artist Bryan Hitch to resemble movie-star Samuel L. Jackson – and therefore Jackson was cast as Fury for Iron Man’s first big cinematic finish. It was a bizarre self-fulfilling transmedia prophecy, and I don’t think it’ll be the last.

Superhero movies (and, apparently, their fans) have always loved their easter eggs. These nods to other characters and other worlds are a way to suggest the shared universes of the comics that spawned them. And why not? These thousands of characters and decades of stories are one of the primary appeals of Marvel and DC’s superhero comics.

In his article “The Superhero with a Thousand Faces”, Luca Somigli said there’s a reason why Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman made a pre-disfigured Joker the man who’d killed Bruce Wayne’s parents. It was to approximate the years of animosity they have in the comic books. And when Christopher Nolan’s 2005 Batman Begins revealed its Joker card at the film’s conclusion, it was a thrilling moment – not because it was to reward dedicated fans, but because the Joker is so part of pop-culture consciousness that everyone in the cinema knew exactly what it meant.

Now Marvel’s planned run of interlinked Avengers movies – Iron Man, The Hulk, Iron Man 2, Captain America, and Thor – will let them mimic their comic books in a whole new way. These individual films are planned to culminate in (Joss Whedon’s?) The Avengers, which’ll feature all these characters at once.

Comics often try to be like movies, and that risks ignoring the specific qualities of sequential art and serial storytelling that make them unique. Now the reverse is coming true, too. My concern with Marvel’s films aping their comics is that they’ll feel less like actual movies and more like pointless prologues. Like easter egg hunts with comic book in-jokes and poorly-defined character parades as prizes. Iron Man 2 enjoyed all the trappings of the Marvel universe, but sometimes forgot to give the uninitiated reason to care.

More and more, I think this interconnectedness – and the shying away from more radical and auteuristic interpretations of these heroes it requires – will mean a more cohesive universe, sure, but much less interesting films.

I did enjoy much of Iron Man 2 (although I felt that trying to recreate the free-wheeling feel of the first one meant every scene went on 15% too long). In the spirit of the post-credits stinger, though, here’s a teaser of my other major qualm about the movie:

Do the military medals that end up pinned to Tony Stark’s chest mean he’s just a weapons manufacturer again?