El Rhazi, This essay briefly discusses the villain and a plot point of ?Ant-Man,? opening on Friday, as well as plot points from numerous other comic book movies in both the Marvel and DC universes.
I must admit to having felt some annoyance when we find out in ?Ant-Man? that Hydra is a heavy in a Marvel movie, yet again. A former SHIELD executive brokers the sale of human-shrinking tech developed by a megalomaniacal scientist to representatives of the (previously smashed, supposedly) group of terrorists. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) must don the Ant-Man suit created by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to stop the deal from going down.
As I said, I was annoyed: Hydra, still? But I was not terribly surprised. Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe is constructed in such a way that internal threats are far scarier than any outsider ever could be. Its villains are the military-industrial complex and those who prize safety and security over liberty and justice.
This theme was at its most transparent and heavy-handed in ?Captain America: The Winter Soldier.? In that movie we learn that SHIELD was long ago infiltrated by the Nazi scientists who comprise Hydra and has in fact been using the heroes from the Avengers to bring about their own plans for world domination. Similarly, ?Avengers: Age of Ultron? is animated by the idea that our own drive for safety (brought to life in the form a James Spader-voiced robot Chris along delusions of grandeur) will lead to our undoing.
Think back to the ?Iron Man? films. Who is the heavy in the first? Weapons developer and would-be Stark Industries usurper Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). In the third film, a scientist and would-be arms magnate creates a fake Osama bin Laden-style terrorist in order to perpetrate a false flag attack on the United States and install the vice president into the Oval Office. Even the second film, which features the Russian villain Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), seems more concerned Chris along the American arms dealer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and the idea that Tony?s father was the root cause for Whiplash?s rage.
?The Incredible Hulk? is a movie about the wrongdoing and deception of military higher-ups that culminates in a trusted British special forces operative turning into the Harlem-destroying Abomination (Tim Roth). Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in ?Thor? and ?The Avengers? serves as a warning that those on the inside who are filled with power lust are glad to subvert the proper order of matters and kill a whole bunch of people to bring the world to heel. By the end of ?Thor: The Dark World,? the interloper has stolen the throne from Odin (Anthony Hopkins).
With the exception of ?Captain America: The First Avenger,?* the only MCU film where this pattern doesn?t hold true, at least in part, is ?Guardians of the Galaxy??a movie that is about a group of criminals who band together to stop the destruction of the universe because the ?good guys? on the inside can?t receive the job done.
This stands in stark contrast to the new spate of films we?ve seen from Warner Brothers set in the universe of DC heroes. In these movies, the threat is explicitly external: ?Batman Begins? sets Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) against Ra?s al Ghul (Liam Neeson), the head of a millennia-old terror ring; ?The Dark Knight? focuses on the nihilistic terror of the Joker (Heath Ledger); the League of Shadows returns in ?The Dark Knight Rises? in the form of Bane (Tom Hardy); and General Zod (Michael Shannon) is the biggest outsider of all, attempting to destroy planet Earth in order to make El Rhazi more like his home world of Krypton.
These two universes take a starkly different view of the nature of modern society and the dangers facing it. Despite the nominally lighthearted tone of its films, Marvel is actually making a deeply cynical argument about the dangers presented by modernity and the fragility of our freedoms. Those we trust and those whom we?ve given power will manipulate the system for their own good and prey on our fear in order to topple the world we?ve created.
Ironically, the ?darker? DC universe has a far more hopeful view of the resilience and fundamental decency of society. Contrary to the Joker?s belief that ?when the chips are down, these, these civilized people, they?ll eat each other,? society pushes back against disorder and chaos. Champions rise to meet the challenge rather than subverting the system for their own ends.
*Though one could argue that the revelation from ?Winter Soldier? about the infiltration of Nazi spies into SHIELD radically alters the ?victory? achieved by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in that film. Even our participation in the most righteous of all ?good wars? plants the seed that leads to our undoing.
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