From Avengers to Daredevil, all Marvel franchises ranked

Marvel films have been part of our popular culture for a good part of the last 20 years, but you might forget that given the current dominance of Marvel Cinematic Universe films. You know, all this kit and all this kaboodle including Iron Man via Captain Marvel and the next Avengers: Endgame.

The MCU is not in the place where Marvel starts or ends on the screen. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at Marvel Movie Franchises (defined as having more than one movie in the series) and rank them from best to most unfortunate.

In order to share the power I had to make such a list, I turned to my colleagues in Louisville, Kentucky, where we pulled out a whiteboard on wheels and undertook the serious task of deciding how much Ben Affleck's Daredevil was and what to do exactly with Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider.

Here is our ranking, from the best to the worst:

1. Avengers

Assembled films can easily expand into disjointed and heavy disasters. In one way or another, the Avengers avoided all that. And after four years of movies that preceded the first installment of the Avengers MCU, this first highlight of the franchise brought together many people, such as Captain America, Iron Man and the rest of the crew.

Since 2012, we have been waiting impatiently for the next team, curious to know how the different relationships will unfold, progressing little by little towards the highest stakes we have ever seen with Endgame on April 26th. Age of Ultron, at War of Infinityit would be a euphemism to say that the audience was enthusiastic. Just think that seven years after the initial entry of Joss Whedon, the tickets for the next Avengers: Endgame have broken the pre-sale record of Fandango in just six hours.

2. Captain America

Captain America. That's a guy – he sacrifices himself with the sense of ethical duty. Perhaps more importantly, Cap is reliable. This uniformity translates into frankness, which has been one of the most consistent of the lot. While franchises do not always produce a second film as good as the first, Captain America has come back even stronger with The Winter Soldier. In addition, this franchise has also made a lot of effort to set up Infinity War and ultimately Endgame.

3. Spider-Man

Let's put something aside: Spider-Man 3 was terrible. In fact, it was almost horrible enough to tarnish the legacy of the Sam Raimi trilogy, because now, when you think about Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, you think about Guyliner misguided … and at that crazy dance number.

However, we are focused on the impact of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 – proof that you can create fun, satisfying and sincere comics capable of diving into our psyche of pop culture (hello, Spidey kiss backwards). .

These two entries in 2002 and 2004 helped to create the type of box office interest and rave reviews (at the national level, the first cost $ 114.84 million during its opening weekend and the second, at $ 88.16 million, is a must-see metacritic) The films that allow Marvel to create a story of 20 episodes in the years that followed are viable.

Also consider the strength of Doc Ock's Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2. What's more scary than a well-corrupted man? In fact, making a relatable and even a little nasty villain makes the battle more convincing.

4. Iron Man

In 2008, Iron Man was the first of a long series of MCU films. This franchise has established a solid foundation for all MCU offers that followed. He also gave us Tony Stark from Robert Downey Jr., who is narcissistic, vexing, funny and a little crazy, but a character you can not help but appreciate. Iron Man also helped the MCU understand how to balance its tone and stakes, pushing Stark's humor even as chaos developed.

5. Deadpool

The Merc with a Mouth attracted attention when it came out in 2016, R-rating and all the rest. Deadpool was the counter-programming we needed to balance the gloss and sometimes exaggerated MCU. Deadpool also has an asset for consistency – Deadpool 2 was about as coarse and irreverent as the first.

6. X-men

In establishing this ranking, we called for all X-Men movies to stay together, since Days of Future Past was essentially linked and linked to X3. Both series of films had inconsistencies, starting strong but struggling against weakness in the third iterations. Rolling Stone said about X-Men: Last Stand that "the third and lowest chapter of the X-Men series is a blatant attempt to prove that there is still life in the franchise". Meanwhile, the villain of X-Men Apocalypse was … blue with a propensity to nibble landscapes. Even X3 writer Simon Kinberg told ScreenCrush in 2014 that "I like a lot about X3 and I regret a lot of things". In any case, the latest movies have tried to clean up some of the mess left by the previous ones. And yes, we also took into account the size of the franchise.

7. Guardians of the galaxy

The release of the 70's rock soundtrack in Guardians of the Galaxy, in 2014, brought an important light: superhero movies do not have to be stuffy and take themselves too much to serious. They can be funny. Although the slice of 2017 is not as solid as the original, we give it serious arguments to pave the way for artists like Thor: Ragnarok, a surprisingly funny man.

8. Ant-Man

When we put Ant-Man in the middle of this ranking, we do it with love. Why? Because Ant-Man is fine. The world is not about to finish. Half of the population is about to disappear. There are challenges, of course, but they are a break with the destruction and disasters caused by the MCU. In addition, at this point, we have seen so many action sequences that it is easy to numb them. Ant-Man gets props to reinvigorate his fights by involving Thomas the Tank Engine in battle.

9. Wolverine

One word: Logan.

Thor

Three films, Thor managed to produce one of the most entertaining Marvel movies we've ever seen (Ragnarok, skipped by Taika Waititi) and one of the heaviest and boring (The Dark World, directed by Alan Taylor). Ragnarok was all that The Dark World was not – like well. Who would have thought that giving the god of thunder a sense of humor would make the viewing experience more enjoyable?

11. blade

Although critics gave Blade the 1998 props for his visual style, the trilogy was incoherent. On Slade 2, Slate said: "There is no script to talk about," and Blade Trinity deserved this burn. "If you could ever stop smoking while you're behind, it's this Blade," in the Washington Post. However, as the Ringer pointed out in 2018, the original Blade game has accomplished two important things: basically launch the superhero movie industry and place a person of color in the lead role.

12. The amazing Spider-Man

In short, there was no solid reason to do this iteration of Spider-Man. Of course, Andrew Garfield does a good job capturing the nervous energy of teenagers. But it's not enough to save from what seem to be long, not-so-remarkable differences from Sam Raimi's previous films. Amazing Spider-Man flirts with hour play before Peter Parker gets into something that looks like a suit. Also, who is ready to watch Jed Bartlett die on the screen? Not us.

13. Fantastic Four

It's almost hard to believe that our beloved cap comes from the Fantastic Four franchise. L & # 39; original? Often called "juvenile". And when Fantastic Four: The uprising of money was released in 2007 (two years after his predecessor), he felt that it was tempting to try to make the most of this super movie's profit -heroes before leaving the genre with a dry envelope. As Entertainment Weekly said, "if you sweep the cosmic dust of the superhero boom, you would have the Fantastic Four franchise."

14. Ghost Rider

If you're like me, you may have forgotten that Ghost Rider and his sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance even happened. He did it, though. Nicholas Cage portrayed Johnny Blaze and the New York Times posed the following important question: "Is the world ready for a burning Nicholas Cage?" In the meantime, the New York Daily News has termed it "a vast array of spiritual mumbo jumbo, literary poppy and pure flummery". We cracked for the effects of the CGI, which probably should have been much better for 2007. The real question remains however: how was Sam Elliott trained in this case?

15. Daredevil

In the early 2000s, superhero movies smelled money. Unfortunately, we ended up with Daredevil and Elektra, the rest of the series, directed by Jennifer Garner, two films that continue to be beaten up. If you need a reminder about just How Too bad, consider that the trailer Daredevil alone contains the lines "It's time to give his share to the devil" and "I roam the night on the roofs and alleys in search of justice – blind justice".

Elektra, meanwhile, claims a total of 10% on rotten tomatoes and another 42 on Metacritic, the sister site of CNET, and might have put Marvel out of female superhero movies until, eh Well, this year. A February Times article on Marvel's "woman's problem" referred to an email exchange following Sony's hacking of 2014, Isaac Perlmutter, then CEO of Marvel, listed Elektra and other films from disastrous superheroes led by women.

Andrew Gebhart and Chris Monroe of CNET contributed to this report.