This image released by Disney shows Chadwick Boseman in a scene from Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther.” (Matt Kennedy/Marvel Studios-Disney via AP)
In light of the new Marvel movie “Black Panther” coming out, I have decided to dedicate this week’s movie conversation to superhero films. Mainly to help you pick out the good ones, and where you may be able to find them online.
Let’s start with “Black Panther.” the story of T’Challa’s rise to becoming the king of Wakanda did not start in the film released earlier this week. In fact, audiences first got a glimpse of the superhero two years ago in “Captain America: Civil War” when a catastrophic familial event takes place in the middle of the film and T’Challa decides to join Iron Man’s side. Though not seeing “Captain America: Civil War” will not affect your knowledge of the “Black Panther” film, many will agree that it is helpful to understand T’Challa’s father’s relevance to the new film. This film can be found on Netflix along with a few other Marvel films like “Doctor Strange” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.”
If you want to know how many of the characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe connect to each other in preparation for the new superhero collaboration movie “Avengers: Infinity War,” grab some friends and have a Marvel movie night. The starting movie should be any of “The Avengers” character origin stories like: “Iron Man,” “Captain America: The First Avenger” or “Thor” as it started the universe and tells the story of the main Marvel superheroes. You can watch any of the “Hulk” remakes, but it is not necessary as they are not technically part of the Marvel franchise and the Hulk/Bruce Banner’s story is mainly covered in “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” films.
Then you can move on to the sequels of these origin stories. I would suggest watching all of the Captain America sequels, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Captain America: Civil War,” since they introduce many new characters that are important in upcoming Marvel films. This is the same for the second sequel to “Thor” which is “Thor: Ragnarok.” This story adds more characters that may be crucial to the upcoming films, and adds further backstory to the Hulk. Many will agree that Marvel films “Iron Man 2,” “Iron Man 3” and “Thor: The Dark World” are not necessary to the holistic Marvel experience, but some still like to watch them as they enrich Thor and Iron Man’s stories.
Other, more independent “Marvel” superhero movies that will have importance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are “Doctor Strange,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Ant-Man” and both “Guardians of the Galaxy” films. Although none of these characters have been in any of the Avengers films thus far, Marvel has told fans that their stories have been and will be intertwined with many important characters.
If you are still in need of more Marvel films or films that are associated with the universe, you can watch all of the “X-Men” films, including many of the Wolverine spin-offs. There are also two different remakes of the Spider-Man comics that were created before Marvel adapted the superhero into their universe, which provide two different takes on Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s origin story and enhance the understanding of “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
Calista Giroux is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at calista.giroux@gmail.com.
