The Avengers Vs. Avengers: Infinity War - Which Is Better?

9. Supporting Cast

The supporting players often end up stealing the show in MCU movies, though this has generally been less-true of the Avengers movies, if only because their presence is severely limited in order to juggle all the superheroes.

The Avengers' prime supporting players include Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and while Hill is basically just part of the furniture, Coulson has an extremely memorable arc throughout the movie, and Fury is undeniably instrumental in bolstering the team as we know it.

Infinity War has a far larger cast of supporting characters, though as a result they tend to get precious little screen time each: the Black Order are generally forgettable save for the brilliant Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), while the likes of Wong (Benedict Cumberbatch), Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), M'Baku (Winston Duke), Ned (Jacob Batalon) and countless others feel like fairly cursory additions.

The supporting cast members who actually get something to do - namely Shuri (Letitia Wright), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Eitri the Dwarf King (Peter Dinklage) - score at least a few memorable moments each, even if they're squarely backseat propositions compared to the dozens of superheroes at the forefront.

Winner: What 2012's The Avengers lacks in numbers it more than compensates for with a ton of heart, with Coulson and Fury especially getting their fair due, while Infinity War's peripheral characters often feel thrown in "just because."