Titan Books are rereleasing the 24 books of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a unified set. This is the fifth, following Captain America: The First Avenger which I reviewed HERE, and Iron Man 2, which I reviewed HERE.
With this book we’re back to 2012 and the first film in the Marvel Avengers sequence, after Captain America: The First Avenger (released in July 2011) and Iron Man 2 (released 2010),
Imagine that it is now 2011. Captain America: The First Avenger was released last year, and was well received critically. It also earned over $370.6 million against a cost of somewhere between $140 and $216.7 million. This was good, but the previous movie, Iron Man 2, by comparison earnt $629 million against a cost of about $200 million.
However , as The Avengers – The Art of the Movie explains, the previous Marvel Universe movies, including The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Thor (2011), have really all been about introducing the various characters, with an ultimate aim of getting them all together in this movie. This movie is where all of those characters – Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, with Black Widow and Hawkeye, not to mention Nick Fury – all meet, completing Phase One of the overall plan of Marvel movies. The movie was actually called The Avengers Assemble in Europe and the UK.
Of the book itself, like previous volumes it is a heavy tome, a coffee-table book printed on glossy heavy stock. The book is basically in five sections.
In the first, the Introduction, Ryan Meinerding (who we last read about in the Captain America: The First Avenger book) and Charlie Wen explain how this assembly began, planned as far back as 2007 (when the first Iron Man movie was being produced. Interestingly, the catalyst this time seems to be casting Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, who briefly appeared in the end credits sequence of Captain America: The First Avenger.
Surrell tells us of the background to the movie and gives us more explanation of how the whole concept of Phase One comes together, mainly due to the work of Kevin Feige. There’s a lovely fold-out timeline showing how all the key events previously link together.
Meinerding’s amazingly realistic artwork (which again I raved about in the First Avenger book), is on display throughout this book – a major plus, in my opinion. The point is made in the book that unlike many Hollywood movies, which change production teams from film to film (my immediate thought was the Harry Potter franchise), one of the important differences with Marvel is that there was always an encouragement to see the individual movies as connected, and this also applies to the artwork, with many artists such as Meinerding deliberately working across all the movies in order to confirm continuity. Again, some of this artwork could easily grace my walls at home. Credit must also be given to the many other artists as well, such as Steve Jung (concept art), Andy Park (character design) and Adi Granov (cover artwork) whose work enhances this book throughout.
In the middle part of the book, the chapters are divided into three Acts. In the first, Incident in the Desert, we have the discovery of the Tesseract and so too details of costumes, weaponry and settings involving Nick Fury, Phil Coulson (played by Gregg Clark) and the Agents of SHIELD.
In Act Two – Avengers Assemble – we have details on the main Avengers characters in the movie – Black Widow, Bruce Banner and the Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Loki. Each has production drawings of how their outfits were worn, often combined with production stills to show the final product. There’s also interesting quotes from many of the actors about how they see their characters at this stage.
Sets, such as Stark Tower and Loki’s Cell, guns such as the SHIELD Destroyer Gun, and aircraft such as the Quinjet are included, all impressively presented with a combination of artwork and computer-generated images. Most impressive this time is the SHIELD Helicarrier, given a few pages of details.
I also liked the storyboard given of the battle scene between Thor and Iron Man in the woods, which you may remember.
Act Three – A Common Threat – is mainly about the Chitauri aliens that Loki has persuaded to be the enemies in this film. As befits the characters, the costumes, sets, gadgets and artwork are all pretty dark here, to contrast with the gaudier Avengers outfits.
The key scene of the Avengers assembling in the Battle in New York City is also shown and explained here too, which is perhaps the iconic part of the film – certainly it is the part most people recognise in this film being on the movie posters, DVD and Bluray boxes and so on.
Talking of promotional material, as with the previous volumes, the last section of the book – Some Assembly Required – shows us some of the marketing details for the movie. There’s lots of posters and artwork, some specially produced for the San Diego Comic Cons from 2006 – 2010.
The big pull of this book is the point that it is the first time in the franchise we see all of these iconic Marvel heroes in one film. As a result, fans originally interested in the separate characters, as with the movie will appreciate the fact that here they all are together – as one person puts it in this book, this movie is the first time that the group are seen as a team, rather than a group of misfits. It is an ending and a new beginning for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
For perhaps that reason, and as with the previous books, fans of the Avengers (Assemble) movie will love this art book and find lots to look at and read about, remembering key parts of the movie. Recommended.
THE AVENGERS – THE ART OF THE MOVIE
By Jason Surrell
278 pages
ISBN: 978 180 336 5541
Published 25th June 2024
Review by Mark Yon
