Growing Up On Marvel

I’ve heard from many adults in my life that they will never forget the experience of watching Star Wars in theaters for the first time, and how that franchise had such a huge impact on their generation. It always left me wondering what that franchise would be for my generation, what would stick with me enough that I would remember watching it for the first time and talk about the mark it left on me to the next generation. For me that’s Marvel movies. 

If you’re a close friend of mine, you know I’m a huge Marvel fan. My room has lots of Marvel decor in it, most of it gifted to me by my friends, and I love talking about the movies and shows. I make a point to see new movies as soon as they come out, and with all of the new Disney+ shows I always stay up to date. I have dressed up as Captain America, Spider-Man, and Loki for Halloween over the years, and I am firmly on Marvel tik tok. 

I love going to a movie theater to watch new Marvel movies, and I remember when I was younger thinking it was so crazy that I would be in college when Avengers: Endgame came out. Now I’m sitting here thinking about how crazy it is that by the time the next Marvel movie comes out I will be a college graduate (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness can’t come soon enough, but also time slow down please). 

The two movies that really hit home for me that I think I will remember seeing in theaters for the longest are Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which I think makes sense since there was so much buildup to those two in particular. Spoiler alert from here on out for these two movies, but also if you haven’t seen them yet and have somehow avoided spoilers props to you. I vividly remember going to see Infinity War the day after my senior prom, exhausted from the night before, but I couldn’t wait any longer to see it because I needed to avoid spoilers. I knew that there was a character death within the first five minutes or so of the movie that people were really upset about, and when Heimdall died I honestly felt a sense of relief because he wasn’t a character that I was that invested in.

Then Loki died. That set the tone for the remaining two and a half hours as I saw one of my favorite characters who had just gone through so much character development die in an attempt to do the right thing. Then followed a series of unfortunate events ending with half of the characters I had grown up with disappearing with a snap. The screen went black, and I was left with so many questions. Were they actually dead? Surely Marvel couldn’t kill half of their characters in one swoop, but also where are they if they aren’t dead? That movie was probably the movie that I have cried the most from in theaters because I generally don’t like crying in public, but I couldn’t keep it in after Loki died and as I watched character after character turn to dust. 

Then after what felt like such a long wait, on the last day of class of my freshman year of college, Avengers Endgame came out. This one was different because I knew anyone who died in this movie was actually gone for good, and I ended up crying during this one more than I anticipated. As much as I enjoyed this movie, there were parts of it that really frustrated me and still do to this day. One of the biggest things that annoyed me was Captain America’s ending. I could honestly write a whole blog post about how much it bothered me, but for now I’ll just leave it at this: it didn’t add up with the character development we had seen from him during all of his movies. Either way Endgame was the end of an era in Marvel, and it is another one that I will never forget watching for the first time. 

I have also really enjoyed the new shows Marvel has been releasing, and I love that they still connect to everything that’s going on in the movies. Because of how interconnected everything is, Marvel still has me hooked today, and I think they’ll continue to have me invested for years to come. 



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