Avengers: Infinity War: This is what my favorite audio comic book would look like

Marvel has been making movies for many years now. They succeeded at first with big production films full of well-known superheroes, making them relatable and giving them a bit of personality, and upped things with the Avengers, where those personalities could finally play alongside each other with bits of wit, humor, and drama. The same thing happens all the time in the comics, where the crossovers and team-ups were always some of those most interesting storylines. I always loved reading about how Wolverine would reluctantly team up with Spider-Man and the Hulk to fight who knows what bad guy or watching everyone team up to take on Onslaught. What the producers of the Avengers got right is that it wasn’t just comparing the powers and abilities of these superheroes in real time that was fascinating, but the often-conflicting motivations and personal drama surrounding these people. Many subplots are intertwined along with set pieces that somewhat rationally (with some imagination thrown in) adopt the powers of the characters into something both humorous and moving.  

The latest Avengers movie is the culmination of almost every MCU plotline into a grander, cohesive whole that focuses on the new ultimate villain, Thanos, who wants to wipe out half of the universe because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. It’s bathed in an overarching ideology, with motivations that are full of holes (especially for characters as supposedly omniscient as Thanos, who should know something about colony collapse) but with just enough logic to keep the whole thing flowing. And that’s what the movie does best: it flows. The pacing is tight, the camera never stays too long in one place, hovering around as the characters do. Our heroes deal with their own thoughts and feelings about their predicament within the context of trying to stop Thanos from obtaining the infinity stones and having the power to follow through on his disastrous plan. The writers do a good job of incorporating some semblance of emotion and sharpness into Thanos as well, with a fleshed-out backstory and moments throughout the movie that refuse to let him become any sort of run-of-the-mill movie villain, to say nothing of Josh Brolin’s subtle performance.

For such a long movie with so many different characters and plot twists, there’s not much more left to say. It’s like a comic book that wants you to keep turning the pages—to keep watching to find out what will happen next. I won’t speak about the ending of the movie. If you haven’t seen it, which you probably should, then all you need to know is that it keeps the series going, just like any good comic book would, and I expect the sequel to do so as well.