Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live to debut a teaser trailer for Captain America: Civil War.
If you somehow happened to miss it, here it is in all its Civil War goodness.
There has been so much speculation surrounding the film, and there’s certainly no end in sight to that. But for all the threads that this trailer leaves open, it manages to confirm one thing:
Marvel is (still) king.
Previously, with the release of the Superman v Batman and Suicide Squad trailers, most of the comic-book movie buzz was focused directly on DC. Rightfully so, because the trailers looked great and there’s still a newness and freshness with the idea of having the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel share a screen together. Many argued that the freshness would propel DC ahead of Marvel in 2016. After all, we’ve seen Cap and Iron Man for the better part of the last 10 years, right?
Wrong. Maybe?
I also thought that DC might put out better movies in 2016. I’m certainly a much bigger Marvel fan, but having the faces of DC on the silver screen seemed incredible. I’m positive that the first time Bats and Supes stare each other down in the film, we’ll all have goosebumps. It’s something that we comic fans have been clamoring about for a long, long time, and to finally see it come to fruition will be nothing short of magical.
But there’s still quite a bit of magic in Civil War. While we’ve grown accustomed to the characters, seeing them fight each other is harsh and surprising. This seems funny to say, because we all know the plot of the Civil War comic arc – but when it’s seen in live action it’s disturbing.
Perhaps it’s just my inner-child, but the shot of Stark in the Iron Man suit saying “So was I” gave me a big case of the feels. Tony Stark is a character who is cocky and arrogant. To see him vulnerable emotionally (in a non-PTSD way) was new and sad. It gave the film a dark feel, and hammered home the friend-against-friend premise. Then, as Bucky and Cap fight with Stark, it’s not what I’m used to seeing from Marvel. It was dark, gritty and visceral. It gave me a feeling that no Marvel villain has been able to conjure up in me. My stomach was in knots, and I was really concerned.
This film won’t be pretty-boys fighting pretty-boys. If anything, it looks as if the high-stakes emotional consequences will force them to not pull punches. Whether a beloved character dies at the end or not (as it’s speculated), it doesn’t really matter because it looks like the rest of the movie will be plenty unpredictable.
This film proves that Marvel knows what they’re doing better than any of us can speculate. Marvel has now established its ceiling to be greatness (like with Guardians of the Galaxy) and its floor to be okay (Iron Man 3). We’re overly hard on the studio, because we expect everything to be like GOTG – we want to be blown away. There’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but it’s important to recognize that Marvel has been putting out good movies since 2008. Most other studios can’t manage this. It’s difficult to make a great film. That’s why we had to endure four not-so-good Spider-Man movies to get the one great one. That’s why the X-Men series has been fluctuating in quality.
Meanwhile, Marvel just keeps chugging along.
Let’s also remember that our fond memories of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy aren’t cannon in our new DC universe. All we have to go off is Man of Steel, which was okay. Does DC’s upcoming film lineup look really good? Of course it does. But, let’s not forget that the Man of Steel teaser is one of the better trailers of the last 15 years – so looks can be deceiving. We have no proven track record with DC, so it’s hard to feel confident.
With Marvel, the exact opposite is true. So far we’ve gotten 12 films, two Netflix series, and two television series, all of which have been decent to great.
And that’s why Marvel is still the king.
Excelsior!
