Avengers Endgame Is The Best Comic Book Movie Ever
A love letter to the medium, just like Spider-Verse.
Avengers: Endgame brings to a close a decade's worth of films, and in doing so has sparked an outpouring of emotion from Marvel fans the world over. At the moment, Joe and Anthony Russo's film stands to be the most successful of all Marvel's offerings to date, and though a nascent backlash appears to be bubbling, it can't detract from Marvel's achievements.
For all intents and purposes, Endgame is the ultimate comic book movie. It does for live action what Spider-Verse did for animation, at least in terms of the superhero genre. It may not have opened the door for creatives to attempt new methods of filmmaking, but in conveying the magic of Marvel's comics, Infinity War's follow-up is just as sublime.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Is it flawless? Not particularly. There are genuine issues with Thor's characterisation, but not to the destructive degree some reactions have posited, while Black Widow's fate conforms to a long and frustrating trend of comics sticking women in refrigerators.
All that said, Endgame is still spectacular. It lives up to the promise that the House of Ideas has championed since the Marvel Era of the sixties, and does so in a way that dwarfs its contemporaries. It is, quite simply, the finest live-action comic book movie ever made, and an immense achievement for Marvel, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the Russos, and their stars.
It's the end of an era, but also the beginning of a whole new chapter. To juggle so many responsibilities while providing such a compelling narrative is frankly amazing, and something not to be taken lightly.
The dust is still to settle on Endgame, and it's perhaps even possible that, with time, the general perception of the film will change. However, hailing the conclusion to the long-gestating Infinity Saga as its best element cannot be dismissed as the idle effects of 'recency bias'. The response to both Infinity War and Endgame has been emphatic, and though there are still plenty of re-watches to come, there's no overstating what the film has accomplished.