Too Many Avengers

I went to see Infinity War because my friends were going. I hadn’t watched Marvel in years, didn’t know who half the characters were, spent two hours watching people have emotional conversations with strangers. Left feeling nothing, which seemed wrong.

The MCU had built itself into something you couldn’t casually enter. Ten years of films, each one requiring you to have watched the last. There was no point of entry if you’d fallen behind.

Everyone around me seemed completely fluent in the mythology. They knew which relationships mattered, which random artifact was actually important, the entire web of who knew whom and why it mattered. There was something impressive about that—the way people had built this entire second reality in their heads. Also exhausting to witness.

I haven’t been back since. Not bitter about it, just made the calculation that catching up on a decade of movies wasn’t worth seeing one more Avengers film. The MCU had optimized itself for true believers, and there was no room for people like me. That’s fine. There are other things to watch.