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Who is your favourite ‘big three’ Avenger? When I say big three I mean Ironman, Captain America, or Thor. Without that I am sure we would all scream at the top of our lungs ‘Valkyrie!!’, or maybe that is just me. When you have decided on which muscle-clad hero you choose, keep that in your mind.

Based on the long-running Marvel comics, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time. This franchise has brought together plots and characters from their slate of comic characters into a cohesive series of over twenty-three movies.

A young teenager when the first movie came out, it was the giant explosions and cool powers of Ironman, Captain America, and Thor that entranced me. Thirteen years later, my interest in these films has only grown. The aforementioned characters, collectively known as the ‘big three, have had their own trilogies that developed each of them separately from the larger universe. Put together the twenty-five movies in the whole franchise work to create extensive character analyses that, as an academic, are intriguing. The character arcs of the big three provide useful examples of a concept known as the ‘narrative view of history’.

So what is the ‘narrative view of history’?

History as we believe it is a factual representation of the past. What has happened in history? Yet history is a system of knowledge, and just like biology or anthropology, that system has certain epistemological concerns.  A narrative view of history is the construction of events to fit a certain trajectory. Generally, these narratives are meant to lead us to some sort of political understanding. 

Whether you buy that history is narratively driven can depend on your place in it. As a kid growing up in Canada I was taught that Africa had tribes and then slavery happened. Africa does have tribes and slavery did happen, but how accurate is that statement? When Europeans came to Africa they met tribes like the Maasai, a mostly nomadic group with little in the way of political centralization or systems of civilization Europeans could understand. They also came to Benin, a centralized and prosperous empire. The city of Benin held the largest earthworks pre-mechanical age in the world, as well as a level of mathematics known as ‘fractal design’ that Europe had not yet discovered. This history was not only lost in education but purposely burnt down by the British empire. Without physical or historical proof, the empire then enslaved the same people who built these impressive monuments, based on the notion of ‘inferiority’. In this case, the narrative was white supremacy.

According to historian Ari Helo:

 ‘Narrative is by definition temporal, it may play with the linear conception of time, given that the end determines the actual meaning of the whole story. 

The goals define how we view history & politics. In the MCU, the character arcs of the big three each play with temporal narratives in meaningful ways.  Thor, Captain America, and Ironman are each tied to cyclical, stationary, and progressive narratives of history, respectively.

Thor/Cyclical History

‘I trust you, you betray me, round and round in circles we go. See Loki, life is about… It’s about growth, it’s about change, but you seem to just want to stay the same.’

In the MCU Thor Odinson is the god of thunder, and prince of Asgard, an alien planet that is connected to earth through Norse mythology. The cyclical narrative is identical, both in Norse mythology and the MCU Thor. A cyclical narrative of history is a process of change that repeats itself, as the name cyclical suggests. Destined to become king, Thor is continually put through trials to fulfill his predetermined path. Cyclicality is a very ancient notion of history. It appears in Norse mythology, but also in many eastern traditions like Hinduism. 

Throughout his arc, Thor goes through many cycles. For one, he constantly loses his hammer, the tool of his power, only to regain it by the end of the movie. The last movie in his trilogy is named Ragnarok, based on the Norse religion’s renewal process. In the movie, as in the mythology, Asgard is destroyed as Thor takes the throne replacing his father, beginning the process again.

According to Ari Helo, cyclical history is ancient because it is tied to harvest. As many older civilizations led largely agrarian lives, they deified the harvesting routine within their stories. The process of planting, harvesting, etc was all cyclical with the seasons.

Stationary/Captain America

‘Some people change. Not us.’

A WWII soldier, Steve Rogers took a cocktail of military drugs to becoming the super soldier Captain America. Punching Nazis Captain America is a good patriotic Christian. Over his trilogy, Captain America’s narrative mirrors the Christian concept of time as stationary, in other words, unchanging. The consequence of viewing time like this is the basis of Christian philosophy.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ‘

With nothing changing, all the answers exist in the past. For Captain America, this takes on a new life, as he is frozen in ice after WWII, and is not found until the new millennium. A man out of time his arc features the centenarian Steve Rogers (preserved by the ice) fighting 21st-century problems, with his 20th-century style. Unlike Thor, Captain America’s powers and signature shield do not change throughout his trilogy. Even his villains do not change. Fighting Hydra, the secret Nazi science division in WWII, he fights them throughout his trilogy. This is why religious conservatives’ political goals lie in the past often.

Progressive/Ironman

‘The futurist, gentlemen! The futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what’s best for you, whether you like it or not.’

It was the first Ironman movie that set up the whole MCU. A billionaire weapons manufacturer, Tony Stark was kidnapped by terrorists using his own technology. To rid the world of pain he creates the Ironman suit. As events take place in his trilogy Tony continues to update his armour and his philosophy. Going from a self-interested weapons manufacturer to a humanitarian and so on. His continued change is the narrative. 

Known as the progressive view of history, this is the one most common to everyone. Time is linearly going forward. The idea is we are working towards a brighter future. To quote Sinatra ‘the best is yet to come. By always creating new technology, unlike the other two, Tony is actively trying to solve human problems like climate change, renewable energy, and war. Yet throughout the MCU, it is Tony’s choices that create disorder. His weapons went to terrorists, so he made a suit of armour to stop them. Then villains started copying his suit designs, so he made an AI robot. Then the robot tried to destroy the world, on and on. 

With each hero making choices down a certain narrative, it’s their meeting with the big bad Thanos that changed them. Thor lost his kingdom but gained agency over his life, Captain America lost his sense of self but gained a new life, and Tony lost his future but got his quiet farm. So maybe your favourite hero says something about your views on history and politics. 

References

Ari Helo, « Letting Go of Narrative History: The Linearity of Time and the Art of Recounting the Past », European journal of American studies [Online], 11-2 | 2016, document 15, Online since 11 August 2016, connection on 14 July 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11648 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.11648

Wisecrack (2019).How history defines the Avengers. . Access at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H_9ZwJg2_M&t=233s.