2. The Existential Horror Of It All
The whole crushing emptiness of existence is a common problem in modern society. It's a depression brought on by the feeling that when it all comes down to it, on an Earth-wide scale we're pretty much insignificant. It's not just the preserve of mid-life crises everyone feels it at some point, if only fleetingly. To be fair, it's a perfectly legitimate feeling. As already mentioned, we're pretty unimportant. In the big story of the world, the vast, vast majority of us are not the protagonists we're the extras, regardless of how highly we regard ourselves. In an objective sense, we're just an infinitesimal speck on the tapestry of life, and some people struggle with that. Yet in the Marvel Universe, we can raise that feeling by an absolute bucket-load. Just look at the above picture. I'm aware it's from The Fantastic Four so sort of negates the fact that this article is only about the Marvel Universe films, but still, I think it captures what I'm trying to get at here. The fact is that on this fictional Earth, the whole idea that humanity is alone was spectacularly blown out the water when an alien race tore a hole in reality and invaded New York. Not only did they invade New York, they almost brought it to its knees, and were only stopped by four super-powered chaps and a pair of master assassins. So now, the world is now aware that there are far greater threats out there than World War 3, including alien civilisations that just might swoop down and crush us. Oh sure, after the Avengers everyone was thrilled that we'd repelled the Chitauri, but when that euphoria wears off we've got some troubling existential truths to address. Not only are we as individuals insignificant in a world-wide sense, it appears our civilization is pretty insignificant compared to others out there. I don't know about you, but I think that's terrifying. As Loki says, an ant has no quarrel with a boot. Yet finding out you're a much smaller ant than you ever dared to dream is a crushing experience. Just ask Tony Stark a big part of Iron Man 3 was him working through the shock of New York. Well, there's millions if not billions going through the exact same process, and they don't have an army of mechanised superweapons to help them through it.