It's been just over a week since I first saw Avengers: Age of Ultron. Oh, you haven't seen it yet? Then leave. Leave! And don't come back here before you've seen it! Or, you know, read on, if you don't mind spoilers. SPOILERS!
I'm going to say this first: I liked it, it was fun. It's true for nearly all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, and it would probably still hold true for a few years more. Sure there were flaws, but I'm not going to write about them here. I don't want to ruin the movie for you, in case you didn't notice them. But, enjoyable as it was, there was one thing in particular that... bugged me.
If you've been watching the end credits of those movies, you might notice the words "[The guy(s) this movie was about] will return." Back then, when it first appeared in Iron Man (I think), it was exciting as heck. Robert Downey Jr. just pretty perfectly played Tony Stark/Iron Man, and they just made GUI awesome again, and we were (okay, I was) just asking for more of that, so the one-line teaser was, honestly, squeal-inducing. But nowadays, lines like that have quite the opposite effect.
Why? Because, while I'm certainly happy with the fact that comic book superheroes get to be in movies, it reminds me of the least enjoyable thing about mainstream American comics, which has been a pretty big barrier for me: they never friggin' end. No. Not even with the death of a major character. Especially not with the death of a major character. And then there are so many reboots and re-imaginings and everything is so confusing. So I was pretty bummed when I realised that, yes, I had been hooked into a movie franchise that might not have a definite end, or even middle.
Fortunately, a solution presented itself almost immediately. A solution which I just realised, one that has been around for quite a while, at least for avid comic book fans (which I'm not, to be honest, at least for the superhero comics), and one that is referred to quite often in the movie itself.
Gods.
Yes. I don't know about you, but I noticed loads of references to gods and religious stuff in AoU. The most obvious one was of course Thor, an actual god from the Norse pantheon. But there are others. Like the beginning of the end credits, which featured a marble sculpture depicting these heroes in battle, just like those classic statues. There was Laura's statement, referring to the enhanced Avengers as "gods." Earlier in the movie, there was the Quinjet's dashboard sticker, saying "Jarvis is my co-pilot," which I think is a reference to Jesus (and the religiousniks who have that kind of stickers). Speaking of Jarvis, there was that one line he said about his being "without form," that reminded me of Genesis. The main villain, Ultron, also had religious undertones: his main base was a church, he called Cap "God's righteous man," albeit mockingly, and he made references to Noah and St. Peter. And lastly, the most significant one for me, when my favorite character in the movie: Vision, said, "I am... I AM."
As I said, this is not new. In comics, there have been many instances where superheroes are called gods (my favorite is DC's Kingdom Come). And even when we talk about the official version of any form of entertainment franchise (say, Star Wars?), what word do we use? Is it not "canon?"
All of these reminded me that these characters are bigger than any one medium. They may have begun in a comic book page, but we can no longer call them comic book characters. So we call them what they are: heroes. But here's the thing: we want our heroes to be gods, and we want our gods to be heroic. That's just natural. Well, so be it. These characters, these heroes, having transcended their starting mediums, also transcend their beginnings, undergoing apotheosis, and are elevated as gods. Thor's just the oldest one in the Avengers. He might even have similar beginnings: a superhero whose stories people tell in order to inspire greatness. Maybe other gods started that way as well, only they had more time to solidify than the more recent gods who, with today's information technology, have shorter and shorter gestation period.
So, with that, I regained my peace of mind. I used to worry that putting Thor with mortals might constitute a religious insult, but I see now that it wasn't the case. They are all gods, new gods from the Avengers pantheon, if you want. Gods are not to be fought over (or for), gods are to be marveled at. Only time will tell which of them shall survive to be in the new pantheons, and I'm not going to worry which version is "true."
Because that's basically religious fundamentalism, right?
