Marveling marvelously

I'm about 90% through my MCU-in-chronological-order binge, and I've needed to take several breaks. It's been slow going through Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, The Punisher and a few other of the TV shows.

The movies I'd previously never seen have been a mixed bag...

Not the biggest fan of Iron Man, but Iron Man 3 was enjoyable once we established that the not-so-vaguely racist character of the Mandarin wasn't real. Even though I haven't seen Avengers: Endgame yet, I'm not immune to spoilers so I know how this character arc ends. And I don't care. Tony Stark is plain insufferable.

Captain America: Winter Soldier was meh, and it pains me to say that because I love Cap. The only useful thing it served for me was fully understanding what happened in the background of Agents of S.H.I.E.LD.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is the weakest of the Avengers movies, and also underscores why Tony Stark/Iron Man sucks. It also helped fill in some gaps from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes.

Ant-Man was great (Paul Rudd usually is).

Loved Captain Marvel. It's the only movie I've had to watch out of order, but only because it came out later.

I'm now extra-motivated to make it through Cloak and Dagger S2 (maybe yay), Luke Cage S2 (yay), Iron Fist S2 (God, please make it stop), Daredevil S3 (End it now, o Lord), Runaways S2 (hmmm), The Punisher S2 (no no no no no), and Jessica Jones S3 (OK) so I can finally get to Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S6.

This project has lasted longer than I thought it would, but I'm glad I'm sticking to it, even if I have to take breaks to watch Derry Girls S2, Call the Midwife S7, and old SNL episodes I missed.

Re-marveling

Once again, as Avengers: Endgame approaches, I'm trying to go back and watch the entire MCU in in-universe chronological order, this time included all the TV shows like Agent Carter and Jessica Jones that I hadn't previously thought to weave into my understanding of the general superhero narrative.

It's going to be a long journey. But luckily, the Pacific Northwest is current blanketed in a rare, debilitating snowfall. Snowpocalypse-induced cabin fever means I have a lot of binge-watching time on my hands. The Seattle Public Library has also kindly extended all due dates on books, so the non-snow options are practically endless.

Following last year's MCU binge, I bit the bullet regarding distasteful rich playboy "heroes" and watched Iron Man 2. Meh. But The Incredible Hulk was worse: the dialogue was crappy, and Liv Tyler is devoid of personality as always but so was every other character. After re-watching the (fun) Captain America and introducing myself to the highly addictive and unfortunately short-lived Agent Carter series, these next two MCU films in the timeline were such a letdown and I can't wait to get beyond this first awkward phase of the Marvel oeuvre.