8 Ways Captain America: Civil War Shows Marvel Have Learnt From Their Mistakes

6. The World Is Well-Established Yet Welcoming

With the Marvel Universe set up and The Avengers assembled, Phase 2 was dominated by sly winks to the previous films. Unlike the foreshadowing hints, these weren't about setting up other films, but about maintaining the feeling of a cohesive world with a known past.

For the most part it worked, but there was always a balancing issue; this was all ostensibly there to please won-over fans, but you had to also ensure it didn't feel like nothing happened between films and make the MCU welcoming to new viewers even on film number ten. As time went on, New York becoming an ominous flashback-causer began to wear thin and forced scenes like Ant-Man vs. Falcon didn't muster the desired excitement. The unexpected success of Guardians Of The Galaxy was somewhat representative of this - despite being an unknown property, it was the most accessible film in Phase 2 by far.

Civil War deals with this in a calmly reactive way by turning the references up to eleven, but making them casual enough so that they form a backdrop to the events, rather than being the entire point of the dialogue. You have overt references to Sokovia and New York, sure, but the plot-extraneous elements are less obvious, worked into broader character motivations for fans to pick up on while not distracting others; to non-converts it's just expansive writing (and in some cases it is that - in a smart move that means nobody knows everything, there's even nods to things we haven't seen).