Why Avengers: Age of Ultron Doesn’t Fit In The MCU Phase 2

Avengers: Age of Ultron is one of the biggest movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 2, but it doesn’t really fit alongside its other films. Released in 2015, the Joss Whedon film marked the second time Earth’s Mightiest Heroes assembled on the big screen following their initial debut three years prior in The Avengers. Aside from the core six MCU heroes, it also introduced new franchise players such as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), as all as Vision (Paul Bettany) – who all joined forced to take down Ultron.

While Age of Ultron became another box office hit for Marvel Studios, it wasn’t at the same level as The Avengers – both in terms of commercial and critical success. Many had issues with shoehorned subplots as a means to set-up what’s to come in the MCU. Ultron was also a let down in terms of villains – especially following Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Granted that the franchise isn’t really known for their bad guys – an issue they wouldn’t start rectifying until in more recent movies, it’s still a major bummer considering how marketing for Age of Ultron sold the idea of him as a formidable opponent for the heroes. However, a new video by Nando v Movies argues that people’s issue with the ensemble film isn’t rooted in its story, but in its placement in MCU’s Phase 2.

Fixing The Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 2’s Viewing Order

Admittedly, this is an interesting notion, and may not be obvious judging by how Age of Ultron progressed the MCU’s narrative. The end of the film revealed a new line-up of heroes that would supposedly make up for the next Avengers team – most of these heroes are still in the MCU and are set to take leadership roles in Phase 4 such as Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Wanda. This makes it seems like it’s the franchise’s correct next step after introducing the first six Avengers. Upon closer inspections, however, the movie being in Phase 2 does pose some overall narrative issues.

SHIELD Shows Up To Save The Day

After re-grouping at the Avengers tower on the heels of Ultron wreaking havoc, the eight-man team including the Maximoff twins and Vision battled Ultron and his minions in Sokovia. On top of that, they also had to prioritize civilian lives as they quickly evacuated the capital of the country, which was being lifted upwards using Ultron’s remaining Vibranium with the intention of crashing it down to the ground. With a small operating team and countless people stranded in the floating piece of land, the Avengers didn’t seem to have a chance to save everyone stranded up in the air. That’s until Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) came in with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Hellicarrier to help speed up the evacuation process.

Like Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), fans were relieved to see back-up coming for the Avengers just in time before the city plunged down back to the ground. It was a great scene in Age of Ultron, especially seeing Fury – who was barely in the film, come to everyone’s rescue. Unfortunately, as cool as this particular moment in the movie was, it undermines the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier which saw the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Released just a year before Age of Ultron, the first Joe and Anthony Russo movie revealed that the long-existing organization founded by Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Howard Stark (John Slattery), and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) had long been infiltrated by the authoritarian group, HYDRA. Captain America, together with Black Widow, Falcon, and Fury teamed up to expose this, resulting in the destruction of the agency. Many expected the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be a massive game-changer in the MCU considering how big the organization’s involvement was in assembling the Avengers. However, their inexplicable and brief return in Age of Ultron cheapened the impact of their dismantling.

Age of Ultron Undermines The End Of Iron Man 3

The Avengers’ mission to secure the Mind Stone/Scepter at the beginning of Age of Ultron should’ve been their last. This was the reason why Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) threw a big party after – to celebrate their run as a team at the beginning of the movie. Things took a turn, however, when his decision to push through with Project Ultron using the artificial intelligence in the scepter for the endeavor. Stark’s motivation for his actions came from a good place – provide an army of suited robots around the world for protection so the heroes can retire, especially after their experience fighting aliens in The Avengers. Unfortunately, things backfired when it resulted in the unexpectedly sentient Ultron, whose goal is to eradicate mankind in an effort to save Earth.

Granted that Stark’s reasoning behind wanting a slew of robots to protect Earth from another terrestrial attack lined up with his experience during the Battle of New York, it doesn’t fit with the events of Iron Man 3. Directly following the events of The Avengers, the Shane Black film tackled the effect of Loki and the Chitauri’s invasion on Stark’s mental health. He got so obsessed with protecting those whom he cared for the most that he started creating dozens and dozens of Iron Man suits. At the end of the threequel, however, he decided to let go of his obsession by destroying all his armors. Given this, it just doesn’t make sense that the next time fans saw him on the big screen in Age of Ultron, he was once again harping on the idea of a robot army – this time, even upping the game by using artificial intelligence to run them.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Should Have Been The Finale

As established, Age of Ultron‘s placing in MCU’s Phase 2 slate posed some narrative inconsistencies with regard to how it related to other films in the same grouping. That doesn’t mean, however, that the only way to rectify this is to remove it entirely from the slate. A bit of movie reshuffling could improve how Phase 2’s overall story pans out, particularly with regard to Age of Ultron‘s story. Instead of putting the film as the second to the last entry of Phase 2, it would be better positioned to be the last installment, effectively making it the finale.

While Ant-Man was understandably picked as Phase 2’s final film as it functioned as a palette cleanser, just like how Spider-Man: Far From Home served as Phase 4’s epilogue, there’s a case to be made for why Age of Ultron deserves to be the finale instead. For starters, it’s a better lead-in to the events of Captain America: Civil War as it directly tackled the repercussions of Stark’s Ultron creation and what happened in Sokovia, whereas Ant-Man barely had anything to do with the 2016 film aside from the post-credit scene, which arguably didn’t have to be used in the Peyton Reed film because again, it’s not connected to Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) origin story. Secondly, the Thanos (Josh Brolin) post-credit scene worked better as another tease to the Mad Titan’s imminent arrival. In the stinger, the villain declared that he’ll collect the Infinity Stones himself after his minions failed multiple times. This would’ve paralleled the villain’s first on-screen appearance in The Avengers‘ end-credits scene.

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Each of the three MCU phases thus far has their own set of issues, but most of them boiled down to one or two problematic Marvel movies. Phase 2, on the other hand, seemed to have an overall narrative problem as established with how Avengers: Age of Ultron contradicts certain events from previous films. While a mere reshuffling won’t fully solve these issues, at least they won’t be as blatant.

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