10 Best Action Scenes From The Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has evolved in just a few years into the biggest and most popular brand in Hollywood, sending the competition scurrying to create shared universes of their own. For a studio that only released its first independent feature seven years ago, the statistics are pretty incredible; three of the ten highest-grossing movies ever (including two of the top five) come from Marvel Studios, with the MCU now the biggest franchise in history with a combined box office total of over $8.5 billion and counting.

However, one of the main criticisms of Marvel Studios' output is that a lot of their action scenes are less than memorable. With the focus firmly on establishing the characters and expanding the mythology, the set-pieces often feel like something of an afterthought. 

Think about it; every movie between Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers: Age of Ultron at some point either features some form of flying vehicle crashing into something, or a large-scale aerial battle of some description.

With that in mind, this article will look back at the eleven movies that comprise the Marvel Cinematic Universe in an attempt to rank the ten best action scenes from the studio's output. The list features a variety of different heroes, covering everything from close-quarters combat to citywide annihilation, so read on and see if you agree.

Iron Man 3, the Mandarin twist in particular, has turned out to be one of the most divisive movies in the MCU amongst fans of the series. While the climax of Shane Black's sequel continues the Marvel Studios trend of having their movies end with some kind of large-scale aerial battle, and a fire-breathing Guy Pearce might be a little too much, the scene provides blockbuster action and fan-pleasing moments in equal measure.

The previous Iron Man movies both had a familiar ending that saw Tony Stark face off against a villain in an armored suit, so to avoid this pitfall the third entry decides to bring every single one of Tony's armored friends into play. Across the franchise Tony usually wore armor with a similar set of capabilities so bringing in a variety of armors, each with their own specific functions, brought some variety and inventiveness to the action.

Of course, this being a Shane Black movie, there is also plenty of humor in amongst the explosive pyrotechnics, adding some much-needed levity to a scene that could have quite easily devolved into a generic CGI showdown. While the final face-off between Stark and Killian is a little disappointing, the build-up of watching a squad of Iron Men face off against the Extremis soldiers provided one of the best action sequences in the MCU yet.