What can Marvel learn from Avengers: Age of Ultron
And how Marvel can make up with Black Widow
Now that the dust has settled and Whedon has left social media (again) after much criticism, we are left wondering if Marvel has learned a lesson from the backlash that was Avengers: Age of Ultron. Obviously despite the negative press, the Marvel brand is still going strong and AoU became the 21st movie to make over $1 billion worldwide, (so they are hardly licking their wounds) but they certainly should be concerned about the future of their franchise as the chinks in their armour are starting to widen.
The biggest complaint came from the treatment of Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow. She has been a huge part of the Marvel universe ever since she made her debut in Iron Man 2. She’s been a tremendous asset in connecting the universes together and in general, being a total bad ass. She needs her own movie; the fans and character deserve it.
But Marvel doesn’t have the balls to make an investment like that, at least not yet. Typically strong female driven movies don’t make a ton of money and despite the hits like Hunger Games, Lucy (another Scarlet Johansson role) and Salt, Marvel still chooses to introduce their female characters in secondary love interest roles. They may redeem themselves with Captain Marvel, as they still have more than 3 years to perfect the script, but it very easily could become Guardians of the Galaxy 2.5.
When you break it down, AoU is really Black Widow’s film. Her character had the only audible storyline, in which we learn how she not only becomes Black Widow but her fight with her inner demons. They took a character that to this point we only knew as a kicker of ass and gave her the darkest background out of anyone in the universe. Her origin story alone would have made a solid film, but instead they mashed it in the convoluted plot of the second Avengers outing. And instead of using it to make her stronger, Marvel turned it into a romance angle with Bruce Banner, deflating Black Widow in the process.
The Avengers universe is at a crossroads with all of its female roles. While they all have the ability to be strong individual characters, they have been hamstrung to either background characters or love interest. Wanda, aka Scarlet Witch, may have the best opportunity to pull out of this conundrum as they (spoiler) killed her brother Pietro, forcing her to stop relying on him and become independent. She is arguably one of the strongest characters in terms of her powers, so it should be interesting to see how they use her in Captain America: Civil War. But with Vision around, she’s also set up to be Marveled.
Marvel really has two options: Continue down the path of women in secondary roles, or start listening to their fans and actors; make male and female superheroes equal. It may take a few more movies before we see what they decide. The release of Batman vs Superman could prove to be critical to the Avengers. With the rise of the DC universe, you can be sure that Marvel will be keeping an eye on the response to Wonder Woman and her role in the Justice League.
For more reviews, check out www.nostalgicroe.com!