MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

ABSTRACT: This document will use various sources that profile the same films and same characters that are being profiled in this document. In 2016, after 8 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe taking over the world culturally, one author decided to take a look back at the film that started it all, Iron Man (2008). Iron Man Revisited (Goldberg, 2016) is a piece that brings readers back to the origins of the MCU and how all their success was started through a character that is not the typical hero archetype. The "rules" of being a hero can be seen in Joseph Campbell's monomyth of the Hero's Journal. This standard for the hero type was thrown away when Marvel Studios developed Iron Man, but future appearances by the character have shown he is a hero that can stand alongside superheroes and gods. Superheroes are incredibly important. They help readers cope with the world we live in an escape into a world of the impossible.

READER'S PROFILE: I imagine a reader that does not understand the appeal of Marvel superhero films or what makes them so appealing. This may be a young person who just wishes to get their opinion out, perhaps loudly.

READER'S RESPONSE: Superhero films have been cropped out by several studios for nearly a decade. They all just blend together after a while because all of these films are the same. The hero arrives, defeats the villain, and gets the girl. Watching Marvel films is very difficult because they require you to have seen all the other films that predate it, and I am just not interested in seeing all of the others.

S, is one way to address this reader to note that 1) the characters also reflect new ones that show a range of race and even gender attributes?; and 2) comic stories give us pleasure. Not all people take pleasure in the same stories. Some like opera. Some like GoT. Others -- not to be discounted -- like the comics, in zine, book, graphic novel, movie, and fan fic forms.

Viva la difference!