Episode 144: Summer of Marvel Begins

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore dive into our exploration of Marvel storytelling, by unpacking crossover fiction and their interwoven storylines.

Contains Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame

In this episode, we talk about the history of crossover stories within the Marvel universe, hints & hooks & callbacks that they use to connect narratives over time, and how the creative team responsible for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame developed those two story arcs.

We include several examples of small storytelling seeds that are planted earlier in the series and pay off in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame . Such as:

• Showing the passage of time visually - Natasha’s bleached hair in Infinity War has grown out in Endgame and shows that it hasn’t been cut in 5 years

• Giving a character a much-needed win - Nebula beating Tony in paper football

• Reminding us of character connections through dialogue callbacks - “I’m on your left.” - Falcon

• Teasing and then following through with a key moment that fans are waiting for - “Avengers…assemble” - Steve Rogers

Towards the end, we also unpack the choices that the storytellers made that had an impact on the tone of these two films. Where the creative team put each loss in these films were critical to how the story played. They spread out most of the deaths, and give each character who is lost a moment to shine and a moment to be mourned. We specifically talk about the choices made for the solemn Infinity War credits and the placement of the Vormir scene between Natasha and Clint in Endgame.

We hope you enjoy this episode! We’re enjoying digging into Marvel and all the lessons it has to teach us as creatives.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Here are some articles and videos that we found helpful in preparation for this conversation:

• The New York Times Article “‘Avengers: Endgame’: The Screenwriters Answer Every Question You Might Have”

• Vanity Fair Article “How the Avengers: Endgame Writers Made Life-and-Death Decisions”

• MotionPictures.org Article “The Russo Brothers Say Avengers: Infinity War is a Thanos Movie”

• UltimatePopculture Article “Crossover_(fiction)” wiki

• Comic Book Treasury “The Marvel Comics Events and Crossovers List, from the ’80s Secret Wars to today”

Books, Movies, and Graphic Novels Mentioned:

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• The Hulk - Directed by Ang Lee

• The Incredible Hulk - Directed by Louis Leterrier

• Fantastic Four (2005) - Directed by Tim Story

• Fantastic Four - Directed by Josh Trank

• Iron Man - Directed by Jon Favreau

• The Avengers - Directed by Joss Wedon

• Thor - Directed by Kenneth Branagh

• Captain America: The First Avenger - Directed by Joe Johnston

• Captain America: Civil War - Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Black Panther - Directed by Ryan Cogler

• Ant-Man and the Wasp - Directed by Peyton Reed

• Avengers: Age of Ultron - Directed by Joss Wedon

• Captain America: Winter Soldier - Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Avengers: Infinity War - Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Avengers: Endgame - Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

• Spider-Man: No Way Home - Directed by Jon Watts

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)