It all makes sense now, true believers. Marvel is out for war.
An announcement this week that Robert Downey Jr.—star of Iron Man, and honestly the entire Marvel Universe as it appears on film—will appear in Captain America 3 was big news on its own, but with plot details available, we know how that and many other films are going to go down over the next few years.
It's all leading to war between the superheroes. Several years ago, Marvel ran a storyline in its comics (hey, they still produce those, too!) called "Civil War." The basic premise: After a national catastrophe on the 9/11 scale, the powers that be and popular opinion point fingers at superheroes. Some of the heroes (including Tony Stark) agree that so much unchecked power is dangerous. Others (including Steve Rogers/Captain America) refuse to be villainized for trying to help—or for the misdeeds of a few.
Someone brilliant in Washington devises a Superhero Registration program (sound creepily familiar history buffs?) and the sides are drawn. As you might imagine, the heroes are split about 50-50, leading to some pretty rough skirmishes as crusading Tony tries to round everyone up and force them to share their secret identities. You can see how all the folks like Peter Parker—who lead double lives, aren't millionaires, and didn't publicly out themselves to the press at the end of their first film—might take offense to that.
This all resulted in "The Death of Captain America," a plotline that made actual headlines (it was a slow news week). Anyway, this is what Avengers 3 (and possibly Avengers 4) is going to be about.
A few things to note: Avengers 3 may be split into two parts, to screw everyone out of more money and keep Downey and others in without cutting the films short. So we may see this spread over a year or more. Also, recent talks with Sony about sharing Spider-Man might mean that the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will be getting friendly with some Avengers. He was a significant part of the "Civil War" story, being pulled back and forth between idols Cap and Iron Man like, well, Mr. Fantastic.
This also means that all of those shows like Daredevil and S.H.I.E.L.D. are probably just fodder to see who's testing the best with audiences. Chances are every last one of them will see a few minutes on the big screen in some all-out comic kerfuffle.
Oh and all those toe-to-toe standoffs between Steve and Tony in the first Avengers movie? Yeah, that wasn't a coincidence. We're building what's called dramatic tension. Cap is distrustful of big organizations and one-man decision making; Tony is cavalier with his identity, and takes matters into his own hands.
What does this lead to? The comics had a pretty murky outcome... lots of blood spilled, friendships ended, bad stuff happening. We'll see what happens at the multiplex near you.
