The MCU can not seem to reproduce this part of the Marvel comic

The following is adapted from YouTuber Patrick Willems"New video test"The limits of the Marvel film universe – Part 2. "Watch the full video above.

The main innovation of Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the transposition of long stories of comics into comics: several stories in progress in the same world, overlapping and sometimes intersecting. But what does "comic storytelling" really mean in the 21st century?

Each month, Marvel publishes dozens of current series, each dedicated to all the characters or teams with which we are familiar: Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Captain Marvel, et al. For decades, these series have a new number every month and will probably be for decades. Regardless of what happens in the different corners of the Marvel Universe, the stories about these characters continue.

Every year, Marvel organizes a major multi-site event, such as Civil War, which divides Marvel's heroes into an ideological battle. Secret invasion, on Earth invaded by an army of changing Skrulls; or House of M, where the mental collapse of Scarlet Witch has created another reality. These stories always end in a way that changes the universe and creates a new status quo (or, as Marvel says, "Nothing will ever be the same as before!"). This new status quo is then explored in the various series in progress for the next year. At the end of the Civil War, Sharon Carter, brainwashed, murdered Steve Rogers. The series explored the consequences: Bucky, aka the Winter Soldier, took over the torch of Captain America, and Tony Stark became the director of SHIELD and a government-sponsored Avengers team.

Leinil Francis Yu / Marvel Comics

This status quo remained constant for two years, until the end of the secret invasion. There, Norman Osborn saved the world and replaced Tony Stark at the head of SHIELD, creating a new team of Avengers largely composed of villains. For the next year, Osborn imposed his will on the world as the heroes tried to prevent it. The Iron Man solo series followed Tony Stark on the run to prevent Osborn from extracting technological secrets from his brain. Comics are fun.

That's exactly what Stan Lee meant 40 years ago when he insisted that Marvel's comics retain "the illusion of change." Of course, Steve Rogers returns from the dead and becomes Captain America again. Norman Osborn is finally arrested and sent to prison. But these changes in the status quo last long enough for us to count for years. We spend time with characters reacting and adapting to the consequences of big events.

The nature of feature films does not allow current series to follow individual characters. The arc of Marvel's solo trilogy films, such as Captain America or Thor, tends to be a story of origin followed by an autonomous adventure ending in a cross with other characters. We do not have monthly or even annual adventures in Captain America.

That's why it's important: After Phase 1, each of the great MCU films ends with an apparently new status quo. In Captain America: The Winter SoldierSHIELD collapses and Hydra returns. At the end of Avengers: the era of Ultron, there is a new range of Avengers. At the end of Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers separate.

These films are the equivalent of the major crossover comic events, without the spin-offs or the impact observed from the individual point of view. We do not really feel the changes in the status quo, which makes the illusion of change more difficult to transform. (And with SHIELD agents far from the real action, the serialized companion does not enhance the impact.)

SHIELD closing The Winter Soldier has no effect on future stories; a movie later, Nick Fury arrives with a SHIELD helicopter, as if nothing has happened. Captain America is still pursuing the same kind of mission, but his costume now bears the Avengers logo. The remains of Hydra are shipped in the opening scene of Age of Ultron … and then, basically, we see some Hydra agents in a scene The ant man. The new Avengers lineup will have the chance to complete a mission early in the Civil war … and then the Avengers separate. On paper, these are huge changes in the characters' lives, but without the stories that explore them, they do not have the weight they are supposed to have.

After Civil war, the next story with these characters is Avengers: war in the infinite, the biggest of all crossover events. The characters make brief vague references to what happened to them between the movies, but do not have time to show or explain it. Captain America is just a support character in War of Infinity. He arrives, he fights, he says hello to friends and that's it.

Marvel Studios / Disney

Comics open doors for readers who crave foundations. You can listen to Iron Man's solo show to understand and understand the new status quo from his point of view. But the activity of the MCU means that Tony Stark's autonomous story ends with Iron Man 3. To follow the hero, you must see Captain America movies, Avengers movies and even the Spider-Man movie. And since he is no longer the main character, the major evolutions of his life occur either on the screen or in the films where he is a secondary character. Pepper Potts and he separate, meet together and get engaged between the movies. In order to serve the current MCU, movies must pbad through the years of character's life and reduce them to secondary roles.

James Buchanan Barnes, aka Bucky, aka Winter Soldier, aka … the white wolf? Bucky has appeared in four Marvel films and has changed more than any other character. He was a young soldier from Brooklyn during the Second World War. he was a Hydra badbadin with brainwashing; now he is a haunted loner who is trying to rebuild himself. In addition, he lost an arm. But how can we really know Bucky?

What's missing at the MCU is better explained by a closer look at Ed Brubaker's Captain America race in the mid-2000s, which reintroduced Bucky as a Winter Soldier. As in the movies, he met Steve Rogers a few times before Cape Town discovered the truth about his identity. The solution: After manipulating the Cosmic cube, known to MCU fans only as Tesseract, all Bucky memories are restored. He is panicked, overwhelmed by the guilt of all his terrible mistakes, and in the next stories he begins to understand what to do with himself. It helps Cape to stop a terrorist attack. He begs Nick Fury for a job at SHIELD. Then, when Steve is badbadinated, Bucky eventually takes on the role of Captain America.

Once his memories have been restored, Bucky has had his own story. He faced what happened to him, made choices and grew up. By the time he put on the suit and picked up the shield, he was a fully trained character that we understand and care about.

Marvel Studios / Disney

Captain America: the first avenger establishes Bucky with 20 minutes of screen – then he dies. He comes back as a Winter Soldier, where we learn about his identity about an hour and a half in the film. The film ends with the image of Bucky who discovers his past in a museum. It's a great way for him to discover himself, reconciling himself to his past deeds. But there is no place in the MCU release calendar for this story.

Bucky appears two years later in Civil war. He lives in Bucharest and, as we will see later, he has already reconstructed his memories. But we do not see this story, because as soon as Bucky arrives, he is already convicted of a terrorist attack. It's a film that revolves entirely around Bucky; whether they are pursuing him, protecting him, brainwashing or fighting him, he is at the center of the action, but without a big base. There is only one reason to worry about him: because Captain America cares about him. Bucky is a human MacGuffin.

The serialized narrative that Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and their armies of filmmakers have accomplished is incredible and unprecedented. For the main characters and the arches, it works mainly. There is a pleasant ongoing story and constant continuity through nearly two dozen movies over more than 10 years.

But the disadvantages of the system begin to appear. Most of what Marvel does is to stuff a square picket (comic series serial narration) into a round hole (feature films). It's easy enough for Bucky to get started and become Captain America in comics when creative teams have the time to create his character and to engage readers in his creation. But if the MCU intends to do something similar – since Avengers: End of the game seems to be Steve Rogers' latest film – so the Marvel people have a challenge in front of them.

A solution may have already been presented with the next shows Disney Plus Marvel. Unlike the different Marvel series on Netflix or Hulu, these shows will be directly related to the movies, a series being supposed to focus on Bucky and the Falcon. And as comic book stories have much more in common with episodic television than feature films, this could finally be an opportunity to spend some time developing these characters away from gigantic battles for the fate of Earth.

Patrick Willems is a filmmaker. He lives in New York, where he makes videos.