For all of the countless millions that the MCU have dragged out of very willing audience's pockets in the past 6 years since Iron Man landed in 2008, they haven't enjoyed plain-sailing by any means. Several of the films were misguided and critically panned - The Incredible Hulk remains the distractingly imperfect older brother locked in the basement - and sequels have seemingly confirmed the rule of diminishing returns. Iron Man 2 lost its way badly, despite having the same formula as the first one; and Thor: The Dark World was a comparative disaster given how much of a drop in quality it unfortunately boasted. Even with exactly the same elements, and exactly the same compelling characters and relationships neither worked because new stories required a fundamental change in the films' universe: Iron Man was uncovered and Thor was back on his home world. Suspicions arose on the back of those films that the new Captain America would go the same way: his vintage appeal was gone because of the leap through time, and that required a change of focus. But in channelling 1970s espionage and political intrigue movies, the Russos replaced the missing element with something even more compelling, and the sequel quickly became one of the best stand-alones of the entire MCU, and not just the best sequel.