10 Times The MCU Broke The Fourth Wall

Those MCU moments that broke down the imaginary wall between action and audience.

Wanda Vision
Marvel Studios

Over the years, Marvel's finest going out of their way to address the fact that they're existing in a fantasy land has become a rather regular occurrence. The likes of She-Hulk (bickering with the editor in the middle of a panel), Spider-Man (stressing the fact that he can tell certain characters are saying his name minus the hyphen), and, of course, Deadpool (all the damn time!) have all found a way to poke holes through the fourth wall time and time again.

But away from the world of comic books, Marvel Studios' MCU has been a little less trigger happy when it comes to reminding fans that they're very much watching a make-believe world come to life in front of them. That's not to say that Kevin Feige and his team have steered clear from the device altogether, however.

Though not always as on the nose as a certain Merc with a Mouth, Disney's big superhero property has offered knowing nods towards the audience in the form of everything from characters straight up knocking the camera over to actions that allude to events that have actually taken place in real-life.

So, buckle up as this list is Hulk Smashes that fourth wall to smithereens...

10. No Resurrections This Time - Avengers: Infinity War

Wanda Vision
Marvel Studios

Quite literally grabbing their audience by the throat from the very first scene, The Russo Brothers instantly let fans know that even a character seen as simply too damn popular to ever be genuinely killed off could be emphatically squished by the biggest threat the MCU had seen at that point.

On the back of cheating death in the first pair of Thor films, Loki has his neck dramatically crunched by Thanos in Infinity War early on as his brother watches on helplessly. That alone seemed to suggest we'd very much seen the last of this version of The God of Mischief, but The Mad Titan's follow-up of "no resurrections this time" felt like a much more knowing nod to the long-running MCU theme of Tom Hiddleston's charming anti-hero always finding a way to survive.

Well, not this time, folks.

Sure, Loki would actually ride again in a variant form in his own Disney+ show on the back of his Endgame space stone detour. But for a moment, The Russo's definitely wanted to make a point out of looking you in the eye and letting you know that none of your favourites were safe this time around.

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...