K Ø B E N H AV N S U N I V E R S I T E T
Master Thesis
By Christine Roederer
Supervisor: Kristin Eva Albrechtsen Haahr Veel
University of Copenhagen
Department of Arts and Cultural Studies
Master of Arts in Visual Culture
Submitted May 2019
Mapping the relationship between the Marvel
Cinematic Universe and its fans
Length: 191.664 characters / 79.85 pages
1 / 133
THIS PAGE IS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
2 / 133
Table of Contents
Table of Contents................................................................................................................................3
Danish summary / dansk résumé......................................................................................................5
Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................6
Introduction........................................................................................................................................7
I. The Marvel Cinematic Universe presented................................................................................10
1.1. Marvel: an introduction to a comicbook legend...................................................................10
1.2 Marvel and superhero-movies through the ages....................................................................12
1.3. The Marvel Studios vs 20th Century Fox studio merge, and what it means for the MCU...15
1.4. Franchises and worldwide gross: a note on the 100 highest grossing movies of all time....19
II. Fandom and method: being a fan and an academic.................................................................22
2.1. What's a fan?.........................................................................................................................22
2.2. Being a scholar-fan and doing fan-studies: can I be objective?............................................23
2.3. Method: approaching the survey and the fandom.................................................................24
2.3.1. The setup of the survey..................................................................................................25
2.3.2. Fandom and fans............................................................................................................29
III. Fandom, movies and franchises: an analysis of the survey results.......................................31
3.1. The limits of fandom: what makes a casual viewer and what makes a fan?........................31
3.1.1. Defining what makes a fan..............................................................................................31
3.1.2. Fanfiction and fanart: the habits of fans..........................................................................33
3.2. Mapping fandom favorites: analyzing the first 20 MCU-movies:.........................................36
3.3. Establishing the MCU as an unprecedented franchise: comparison with 3 other franchises
.......................................................................................................................................................40
3.3.1. The MCU as one continuous franchise...........................................................................40
3.3.2. How three other franchises compare...............................................................................42
IV. Visual theories: bridging the gap from popular culture to academia....................................46
4.1. Pop Cosmopolitanism and convergence culture....................................................................46
4.2. The importance of Social Medias.........................................................................................50
4.2.1. Web 2.0 and what it means for fandom..........................................................................50
4.2.2. From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production.................................................53
4.3. Participatory culture..............................................................................................................60
4.3.1. Fandom as seen through fandom....................................................................................60
4.3.2. Social Media and Capitalism.........................................................................................67
4.3.3: Free labor and fandom as free labor................................................................................72
V. Discussion: the blurry edges of fandom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe..........................79
5.1. How did the MCU grow through fandom?...........................................................................79
5.2. Performativity and fandom...................................................................................................85
5.3. Comic Cons and the relationship with fans..........................................................................91
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................95
3 / 133
References and works cited.............................................................................................................97
Appendixes......................................................................................................................................106
Appendix #1: MCU and fandom cheat sheet...............................................................................106
1.1. Acronyms.........................................................................................................................106
1.2. Fandom-dictionary...........................................................................................................106
1.3. Marvel character cheat sheet............................................................................................107
1.4. Marvel employees and executives...................................................................................108
Appendix #2: Marvel-movies and IMDb scores..........................................................................110
Appendix #3: Marvel character rights before acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney.........113
Appendix #4: Marvel character rights after acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney............114
Appendix #5: Highest-grossing movies as of May 2019.............................................................115
Appendix #6: Franchises in the top 100 highest grossing movies...............................................117
Appendix #7: The Timeline of Social Medias (2017).................................................................124
Appendix #8: The Complete Survey conducted for this thesis....................................................125
1. MCU-Movies......................................................................................................................125
2. Fanculture............................................................................................................................127
3. Comicbooks........................................................................................................................130
4. Social Media.......................................................................................................................131
5. You......................................................................................................................................132
4 / 133
Danish summary / dansk résumé
I løbet af de seneste 11 år er Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), bestående af 22 film og 11
tv-serier, blevet en institution inden for filmverdenen: det er den bedst tjenende franchise
nogensinde, der har spredt sig ud over alle online platforme og er blevet helt umulig at undgå i det
globale mediebillede. Men hvordan og hvorfor blev den det? Gennem specialets fem kapitler
undersøges hvorledes MCU blev så stor.
Det første kapitel undersøger baggrunden for Marvel, og hvor MCU stammer fra, med et
historisk perspektiv omhandlende hvad tegneseriefilmene er baseret på, samt de andre superhelteog Marvel-film, der er udgivet gennem tiden.
Det andet kapitel undersøger, hvad det betyder at være fan, men også hvad det betyder at være
akademiker, og hvordan de to verdener blandes sammen. Dette kapitel fremhæver et metodisk
afsnit, som forklarer hvorledes indsamlingen af datamateriale til analysen af MCU og fankultur er
foregået.
Tredje kapitel analyserer resultaterne af et spørgeskema omkring fankultur, tegneserier,
sociale medier og Marvel-film, som blev lagt ud på nettet i forbindelse med dette speciale. Kapitlet
sammenligner derudover også MCU med tre andre filmfranchiser.
Fjerde kapitel undersøger MCU og fankultur gennem kulturteoretiske begreber i form af
Henry Jenkins' convenvergence culture og teorier om pop cosmopolitanism; Tim O'Reillys
præsentation af Web 2.0; Lev Manovichs diskussion om skiftet fra masseforbrug til massekulturel
produktion; Christian Fuchs' kritiske ideologi omkring sociale medier og kapitalisme; Tiziana
Terranovas tekst om free labor; og Abigail de Kosniks diskussion om digital arbejdskraft relateret
til fankultur som fri arbejdskraft.
Sidste og femte kapitel diskuterer resultaterne af spørgeskemaet og de foregående kapitler
sammen med den visuelle kultur, som er blevet præsenteret løbende i specialet. Det undersøger
hvilke begrænsninger der findes for fankultur. Ligeledes også hvordan performativitet inden for
fankultur og relationen mellem det officielle materiale og det af fankulturen producerede materiale,
har medvirket til, at MCU-filmene er blevet så populære.
Dette speciale benytter eksempler taget fra online fankultur samt teorier fra den visuelle
kultur, til at formidle analyserne og resultaterne.
5 / 133
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Kristin Eva Albrechtsen Haahr Veel, from the
Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies, at the University of Copenhagen. The door to Kristin's office
was always open whenever I had a question about my research or writing. She always steered me in
the right the direction. Thank you, for not getting creeped out by what a massive nerd I was, and for
sticking with me through this project.
Secondly, I remember being in a movie theater in Canada, in 2011, when my sister and I were
watching Thor (2011) for the first time. There's one scene that lasts 90 seconds which introduces
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and when I saw that scene, I knew my heart was sold to Marvel. For
that: thanks, Hawkeye, for being a character I could relate to, learn through and grow with. Renner,
for portraying him the way you did. Matt Fraction, for writing inspiring stories, David Aja and Phil
Noto for making them come to life through your drawings, and Marvel, for giving me something to
passionately attach myself to.
Thanks to my family for (never) making fun of my passion for Marvel and Renner. My sister,
especially, for making sure I ate and stayed hydrated while I was writing this thesis, my mom, for
being a friendly ghost in my apartment and making sure the floors were swept and the dishes done
when I forgot to do it, and my father for always telling me it'd be a piece of cake to discuss the
MCU, because I know it like the back of my hand.
Thanks to Stephanie D. who went to Waverly, Iowa with me while we were on a roadtrip
across the USA, just because "that's where Hawkeye is from!", to Aleksandra M. who's always up
and ready whenever I drop thoughts and ideas about Hawkeye into her inbox at random times of the
day, to the This Ends Badly-squad ladies who have kept my brain from exploding too many times to
count, to all the Renner-ladies for being such a cool club to be a part of, to Andrea for writing an
awesome book on geek girls I could use in this thesis, to Elin for being a wonderful support, and to
my University pals Karoline, Sidsel, Mai and Eva, for making sure that I didn't go insane while
writing this thesis, and kept me company while I cried in the darkness of the movie theater, while
watching Endgame for the third and fourth time.
Thanks to all those of you who responded to my survey and gave me more data to analyze
than I could have dreamed of. To all my Tumblr-followers who have motivated me to create fanart
and fanfiction throughout almost ten years, thank you for the virtual hugs, coffees, hot chocolates
and for all the tears, from those times I made you cry with my angst-filled fanfiction.
Thanks to the fabric stores in Copenhagen for providing me with a place to buy fabric when I
decided that drawing and writing for the characters wasn't enough – I had to become them through
cosplay.
Thanks to Kino.dk, for allowing me to be a part of the media picture for a semester and
getting a glimpse of how little and cosy that world actually is.
And last but not least: thank you to all those I'm forgetting. I wouldn't have been able to write
this thesis without you.
6 / 133
Introduction
“There was an idea [...] to bring together a group of
remarkable people, see if they could become something
more. See if they could work together when we needed
them to fight the battles that we never could.” - Nick Fury,
Marvel's The Avengers (2012)1.
Throughout the past 11 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has become inevitable
in the pop culture landscape: consisting of 22 feature films and 11 television shows based on the
Marvel superhero comicbooks, the MCU represents something that has never been done before in
the history of entertainment.
The above quote has become a synonym of the world of the Avengers. The MCU was
launched in 2008 when Iron Man hit theaters2. It introduced Robert Downey Jr. as the title
character, Tony Stark, who laid the foundations of the universe in which the MCU existed. And,
with that movie, Marvel Studios did something revolutionary: they hinted at the existence of a
bigger, shared movie universe in the last scene of the movie.
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), asks Tony Stark: "You think you're the only superhero in the
world? [...] You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet." And neither did the
audience.
For the gamble that was Iron Man would reappear in The Incredible Hulk3, released 43 days
later, when Tony Stark would share a scene with one of the title characters introduced in this second
movie. Robert Downey Jr. Said at the time that "[Marvel Studios] know what they're doing.4"And
that, they did. For by then, with one fleeting mention of the Avengers Initiative, the board for the
remaining 20+ movies was set.
The MCU changed story-telling and its involvement with fans. It changed the way we looked
at movies in a franchise and the way movies can be built up around each other, in one connected
universe5. And it changed the way the position of the fan.
1
2
3
4
5
Whedon, Marvel’s The Avengers. - called The Avengers throughout this thesis.
Favreau, Iron Man.
Leterrier, The Incredible Hulk.
Douglas, “Robert Downey Jr. Is Iron Man!”
Johnson, “Cinematic Destiny: Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial Convergence.”
7 / 133
But how does the MCU work so well in terms of a franchise? How does it keep pushing the
limits of what being a fan means? How did it invite fans to perform their identities? How did it take
advantage of the age it was born into, an age where marketing and wide-media release goes hand in
hand with the exponential curve of emerging social medias?
“There was an idea, to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become
something more.” That's what Nick Fury said in 2012, but it could just as well have been what the
President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, had said about creating the MCU6.
This thesis is divided into five sections:
The first section, "The Marvel Cinematic Universe presented", introduces Marvel as an
American corporation. It introduces some background on Marvel as a publisher of comicbooks, in
order to establish the relevance of its characters in modern pop culture. Next, it engages with the
superhero-movie genre through the ages, in an analysis of previous Marvel-movies and by
examining what other superhero-movie franchises have done both successfully and not. This
analysis of superhero-movie franchises also animates the following subchapter, which introduces a
corporate business conflict of interests between two of Marvel's highest-grossing franchises.
Disney, who owns Marvel Studios, purchased 20th Century Fox in May 2019, and with that, the XMen-franchise. The MCU and the X-Men-franchise have been the best rated Marvel-franchises in
history7, and this subchapter explains the relevance of this deal to fandom and to the franchise. To
finish this section, an analysis of the top 100 highest-grossing movies of all time places the MCU in
the cultural and box-office landscape.
The second section, "Fandom and method: being a fan and an academic", presents a
discussion of the notion of fans and method used in this thesis. First, it discusses what a fan is, by
analyzing the ethymological roots of the word and by mapping out the differences between
audiences, fans and users. Then, it offers a reflexion on being an academic and a fan, and what that
means for the objective results of the research conducted in this thesis. Finally, this section explains
the pragmatical build-up of the survey which constituted the base of results presented in this thesis.
It also acknowledges the crossroads of being an academic and a fan and the effects that will have on
the results presented here.
The third section, "Fandom, movies and franchises: an analysis of the survey results", is the
presentation of the results from the analysis of the responses to the survey conducted as part of this
6 Russo, “SUPER GROUP.”
7 See appendix #2.
8 / 133
thesis. It delves deeper into the notion of fandom, by examining the difference between casual
audiences and fans in the search for fandom boundaries. Then, it conducts an analysis of the 20
MCU-movies which were part of the survey to extract the essense of the MCU, according to the
fans8. After that, this section, in order to present the scale of the MCU, compares it to three other
highly successful movie franchises: Star Wars, Harry Potter and X-Men.
The fourth section, "Visual theories: bridging the gap from popular culture to academia",
presents theoretical approaches to fandom. It does so first by using the notion of Pop
cosmopolitanism as presented by Henry Jenkins, before moving onto fandom and pop culture as
seen through the lense of social media. In order to so, this section first analyzes Web 2.0 with the
help of thinker Tim O'Reilly. Next, it moves on to the opposition of mass consumption and mass
production, as discussed by Lev Manovich, for fandom has had an large part in influencing the
success of the MCU. Then, in an analysis of participatory culture, this section explores what
fandom thinks of fandom, before moving onto the point of view of Christian Fuchs on Social Media
and Capitalism, paired with the notion of Free Labor as presented by Tiziana Terranova and the
notion of Fandom as Free Labor as presented by Abigail De Kosnik.
The last section, "Discussion: the blurry edges of fandom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe",
discusses the findings of the previous sections and postulate theories on how the MCU became such
an important milestone in pop culture. First, it discusses the relationship between the MCU and
fandom, by mapping out the limitations and edges of fandom and official material. Then, it
discusses fandom and performativity as a response to the MCU, as a way to interact with it as a fan.
This leads to a discussion of the relationship between the MCU and its fans, and how the lines
between official and fanmade have become blurred in the last decade.
This thesis maps the realms of fandom and the blurred lines through which fandom interacts
with its source material, with the MCU as an example. As such, it is now the appropriate time to
remind the reader: spoiler alert for all 22 movies of the MCU.
8 Although 22 movies have been released at the time of the handing in of this thesis, only 20 had been released at the
time the survey was online. Therefore, Captain Marvel (2019) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), although present in
other aspects of this thesis, are not a part of the analysis of the results of the survey.
9 / 133
I. The Marvel Cinematic Universe presented
1.1.
Marvel: an introduction to a comicbook legend
Marvel Comics wasn't always called Marvel Comics. The story begins in 1939, when Martin
Goodman, a magazine publisher, founded Timely Comics. In the 1930s, stories featuring
superheroes were booming: Superman (Clark Kent) had his debut in 1938 9 and Batman (Bruce
Wayne) had his debut in 193910, whereas iconic characters like the Lone Ranger debuted in 1933 11,
The Green Hornet in 193612, Conan the Barbarian in 193213 and Flash Gordon appeared for the first
time in 193414.
Comicbooks were a popular new accessible way of telling
stories, after radio broadcasts and comic strips in newspapers.
Characters like the Human Torch and Namor the Sub-Mariner made
their debut in the first Marvel Comic, published in october 193915
(illustration #1), to a widely acclaimed success. The issue sold a
total of around 900.000 copies in the two months it was printed16.
Soon after, writers Joe Simon and Jack Kirby came together to
create the iconic character of Captain America in March 1941 17.
After Captain America's success as a character, other characters like
the Vision and the Angel made their appearance18, but it wasn't until
Simon left his post as editor, that a man called Stanley Lieber joined
the team as interim editor. Stanley Lieber wrote under the
Illustration 1: The first Marvel
Comic ever published in 1939
(source: Marvel Comics)
pseudonym Stan Lee, which he would keep until his death in 2018.
After the end of World War II, superheroes however, weren't
as popular as they had been during the horrors of the war 19. That year, Stan Lee published the first
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Siegel, Action Comics.
Finger, Detective Comics.
Trendle and Striker, “The Lone Ranger.”
Trendle and Striker, “The Green Hornet.”
Howard, The Phoenix in the Sword.
Raymond, Buck Rogers.
Thompson, Marvel Comics #1.
Fromm, “Alter Ego.”
Wallace et al., Marvel Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the Marvel Universe.
Wallace et al.
Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.
10 / 133
Fantastic Four novel, which shifted how comicbooks were marketed, as it was oriented to older
readers20. It was in the 1960s that superheroes like Spider-Man made their first appearance 21, but
also heroes like the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Quicksilver, Black Widow,
Hawkeye, and more22.
During the 1970s, new artists such a Jim Steranko and John Byrne came onto the Marvelteam, and in the 1980s both Mark Gruenwald and Frank Miller arrived in the writing room. With
them came the rise of grittier, more realistic superheroes, like the Punisher, Venom, Daredevil and
Iron Fist23 as a response to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War.
By the time the 1990s rolled around, television and film had gained a lot of traction, but
writers like Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker managed to keep the storylines in the Marvelcomics interesting, by introducing the Winter Soldier24 and writing successful runs with The
Avengers25.
In the 2000s and 2010s, a more diversifying team of writers came along: Kelly Sue
DeConnick, Matt Fraction, Margaret Stohl and more introduced stronger, more diverse
characterizations of well known Marvel characters. Superheroes like Kamala Khan and the Young
Avengers made their debuts26.
In 1986, Marvel Entertainment LLC was founded, and that marked the beginning of the
MCU, as Marvel Entertainment initially introduced Marvel Productions 27. However, in the middle
of the 1990s, several of the group of companies filed for bankruptcy 28. Following that, Marvel
Enterprises merged the previous groups together at the dawn of the new millenia, in order to save
the company. In order to further survive bankruptcy, Marvel Entertainment sold out rights to
characters like Spider-Man, The X-Men, Fantastic Four and more to specific movie studios 29. This
means that Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man, 20 th Century Fox owned the X-Men, Deadpool
and the Fantastic Four. This copyright situation will be explained in subchapter 1.3.
It is important to know where Marvel came from and how it began. Marvel has existed as an
entertainment giant for decades, and fans have had plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Lee, Fantastic Four.
Lee, Stan, Amazing Fantasy.
Wallace et al., Marvel Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the Marvel Universe.
Wallace et al.
Wallace et al.
Bendis, Avengers.
Wallace et al., Marvel Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the Marvel Universe.
“MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC (Form Type: 10-K, Filing Date: 04/16/1998).”
Bryant, “Pow! The Punches That Left Marvel Reeling.”
Chitwood, “Marvel and Sony ‘Spider-Man’ Rights Explained: What’s MCU and What’s Not?”
11 / 133
content available. All characters we know from the MCU have been molded by different artists,
writers and pencilers through time, and give them their own identity and personal story, which the
MCU then based the characters on.
1.2
Marvel and superhero-movies through the ages
In order to understand the move from Marvel Comics to Marvel-movies and the beginnings of
the MCU, it is necessary to look at the history of Marvel-movies through the ages.
I've already established that the character of Captain America debuted in 1941. The first jump
from comicbook to big screen came already in 1944, with the Captain America-serials30. These
black and white serials were played before major motion pictures. It introduced "the star spangled
man with a plan" in his iconic outfit, sitting on board his famed motorcycle and punching bad guys
in the jaw – this visible in the trailer released for the serials, when they were remastered in 195331.
The following outings in the live action medium were respectively in 1977 32, 197833 and
197934. Although they were released in a strictly made-for-television format, the newer outings
came in the golden era of the 'New Hollywood', as Thomas Chatz calls it, in a time where movies
like Star Wars35 and Raiders of the Lost Ark36 were breaking records in the box-office37.
In the meantime, the other major comicbook company, Detective Comics (DC), and main
competition to Marvel Comics, was managing to bring their superheroes to life to repeated
successes: DC Comics had launched their first silver screen movies in 1951 38, but in 197839, the
iconic Superman-quadrilogy was launched with Christopher Reeve as the title character. The
industry pressure to release popular theater movies after the success of Superman II40 and Superman
III41 forced Marvel to consider releasing a superhero-movie.
This happened in 1986, when what would later be called the "first real Marvel movie" would
be released. And it wasn't an Iron Man- or a Captain America-movie, as it starred one of the lesser
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
Clifton and English, Captain America.
Captain America Serial 1944 - Trailer.
Swackhamer, Spider-Man.
DeGuere, Dr. Strange.
Holcomb, Captain America.
Lucas, Star Wars - A New Hope.
Spielberg, Steven, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Schatz, “The New Hollywood.”
Sholem, Superman and the Mole Men.
Donner, Superman.
Lester and Donner, Superman II.
Lester, Superman III.
12 / 133
known comicbook characters called Howard the Duck42.
The character of Howard the Duck in itself is quite grotesque
to begin with, as he a humanoid duck, from Duckworld. With a score
of 4.6/10 on IMDb today, it would seem that this first, official
Marvel movie wasn't the big success they'd hoped for. Especially
when critics and movie enthusiasts call it "the film Marvel is too
embarrassed to talk about43" (illustration #2). And yes, the movie
even offers an attempt at portraying a human/duck sexual
relationship. This first attempt at filmatising a Marvel character was
Illustration 2: Howard the Duck in
a mild failure, and the next attempts at making Marvel-movies would
"Howard the Duck" (1986)
(Source: Lucasfilm Ltd.)
be met with the same recipe for failure. The character received a
cameo in the post credits scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 244.
After this first attempt at a live action movie, the character was pushed back into the confines
of the television screen, and Marvel turned its eyes towards other characters to bring to life on the
big screen. And these new characters, although introduced directly on television screens, would
introduce what would later turn out to be the foundation for a shared movie universe: The
Incredible Hulk Returns45 and The Trial of the Incredible Hulk 46 both introduced the character of the
Hulk (also known as Bruce Banner) to the live action medium. But they also did something new:
they introduced other superheroes in the movies, and that marked the first time that the heroes
shared the screen together. It was the first crossover.
It was the first time that Hulk and Thor, the Norse God of Thunder appeared together, and in
the sequel, Daredevil made his first live action appearance side by side with the Hulk47.
This was in contrast with what DC heroes were doing at the end of the 1980s, with the relaunch of the Batman universe with Tim Burton's interpretation of the Batman48. The same year,
Marvel upped the ante and released a streamlined movie version of the Punisher character with
Dolph Lundgren as the title character49, to mixed reviews.
42
43
44
45
46
47
Huyck, Howard the Duck.
Morris, “‘Howard the Duck’: The Film Marvel Is Too Embarrassed to Talk About.”
Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy V2.
Bixby, The Incredible Hulk Returns.
Bixby, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.
Thor saw his live action debut in "The Incredible Hulk Returns" and Daredevil saw his own debut in "The Trial of
the Incredible Hulk".
48 Burton, Batman.
49 Goldblatt, The Punisher.
13 / 133
Whereas DC heroes had a golden era in the 1990s with both Val Kilmer 50 and George
Clooney51 playing the title character in their respective Batman movies, the opposite could be said
of Marvel heroes. As mentioned above, the Punisher-movie wasn't a commercial success, and their
modern ventures within the Captain America-mythology52 and revival of the early 1980s Incredible
Hulk53 left a heavy dent in the mythos relating to the Marvel-universe. Marvel was struggling to
make a decent movie, compared to their main rival, DC.
By the turn of the millenia, however, three different franchises would revive the hype for
Marvel live action movies, and create the stepping stone for the MCU:
The first was the Blade-trilogy54, with Wesley Snipes as the title
character, in 1998 (illustration #3). The success of the first Blade
movie set up Marvel, as a company able to create good stories for the
big screen.
The next critically acclaimed venture was the X-Men-trilogy55
introducing Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine and the rest of the team,
launched in 2000, two years after the successful launch of the Bladetrilogy. What started out as a trilogy would soon evolve into three
different trilogies (original X-Men, First Class X-Men56 and the
Wolverine-trilogy57) and two Deadpool-movies58. It is currently
unknown what will happen to Marvel-characters who belonged to
20th Century Fox, due to Disney's acquisition of 20 th Century Fox, Illustration 3: Blade (1998)
(Source: New Line Cinema)
which I will analyze in the next section of this chapter.59
The third and last venture to propulse Marvel-based characters to the forefront of Hollywood
blockbusters was the Sam Raimi Spider-Man-trilogy, with Tobey Maguire in the title role, which
premiered in 200260. The first film, Spider-Man, was the first movie in history to surpass 100$
million in its opening weekend, and to this day remains the 46th fastest movie to gross 100$ million
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
Schumacher, Batman Forever.
Schumacher, Batman & Robin.
Pyun, Captain America.
Bixby, The Death of the Incredible Hulk.
Norrington, Blade; del Toro, Blade II; Goyer, Blade: Trinity.
Singer, X-Men; Singer, X2: X-Men United; Ratner, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Vaughn, X-Men: First Class; Singer, X-Men: Days of Future Past; Singer, X-Men: Apocalypse.
Hood, X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Mangold, The Wolverine; Mangold, Logan.
Miller, Deadpool; Leitch, Deadpool 2.
Jefferson, “The Walt Disney Company Announces It Expects No Further Extension of Exchange Offers and Consent
Solicitations for 21st Century Fox America, Inc. Notes.”
60 Raimi, Spider-Man; Raimi, Spider-Man 2; Raimi, Sam, Spider-Man 3, 3.
14 / 133
on its opening weekend61.
In the early 2000s, Marvel also launched individual movies like Daredevil62, Hulk63 and
another attempt at reviving the Punisher64, but by the middle of the 2000s, Marvel was facing
difficult times again with mixed reception on their sequel to Daredevil, Elektra65, Ghost Rider66, and
their two Fantastic Four-movies67. All of these movies were made as studio movies, and that's
where one of the key differences with Iron Man comes in: Iron Man was produced as an
independent movie. It had no budget to begin with and there were no studio risks associated with its
production68.
Looking at the success DC-based movies were having with Christopher Nolan's acclaimed
Batman-trilogy69, it isn't hard to see how Marvel was trying to keep up after seemingly burning out
with the end of their three box-office successes Blade, Spider-Man and the X-Men. All three of
those trilogies ended on a sour note: all flopped at the box-office – it seemed that no superhero
franchise Marvel could create would ever hold the attention of movie-goers long enough to become
a success the likes of Nolan's Batman-trilogy.
Through time, the MCU came a long way from Howard the Duck and the first Captain
America-serials that were released into the market. The change Marvel Studios brought to how they
made movies is one of the reasons why the MCU has become such an important cultural
establishment.
The lack of important, established Marvel-movies prior to the 21st century can also be an
explanation as to the success of the MCU. Up until the 2000, only the only comicbook heroes to
have been met with repeated box-office success had been the DC heroes. A time of change came
along with the MCU, and with it, a new take on fandom.
1.3.
The Marvel Studios vs 20th Century Fox70 studio merge, and
what it means for the MCU
A quick summary of the birth of the 20th Century Fox Marvel-franchise is that, in the 1990s,
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
“Fastest Movies to Hit $100 Million at the Box Office.”
Johnson, Daredevil.
Lee, Hulk.
Hensleigh, The Punisher.
Bowman, Elektra.
Johnson, Ghost Rider.
Story, Fantastic Four; Story, Tim, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Robinson, “Marvel Looks Back at Iron Man—the Movie That Started It All.”
Nolan, Batman Begins; Nolan, The Dark Knight; Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises.
20th Century Fox used to be the film and television studios subsidiary of 21st Century Fox.
15 / 133
Marvel sold many of its characters to different movie studios in order to survive. The Fantastic Four
characters originally went to Constantin Films (and were later transfered to 20th Century Fox),
Blade and Iron Man went to NewLine Cinemas, the X-Men, Daredevil, Elektra and Nick Fury all
went to 20th Century Fox, Black Panther, Punisher and Captain America went to Artisan
Entertainment, Spider-Man characters went to Sony along with Thor, Ghost-Rider, Luke Cage and
Black Panther with Black Widow, Man-Thing and Punisher going to LionsGate and Hulk and
Namor going to Universal Studios71.
In between the sale of these character copyrights and the launch of the MCU, a lot of the
characters were 'brought back to the fold' of Marvel, leaving only Universal Studios, Sony and 20 th
Century Fox with major Marvel-characters left out of the reach of the MCU and Disney Studios.72
In order to create a simple way to figure out which characters belong to which studio (and
subsequently, which characters can show up in the MCU), The Geek Twins 73 have created a graphic
that gives a quick overall impression of the most important Marvel characters and who owns them.
This first chart represents the overall picture of of Marvel character ownerships74 (illustration #4):
Illustration 4: Visual Guide to Marvel Character Movie Rights. (Source: The Geek Girls (2017))
71
72
73
74
Chapman, “Which Studios Own the Rights to Marvel’s Characters?”
Howe, “The Amazing Merrill Lynch Deal That Made <em>The Avengers</Em> Possible.”
Mitchell, “Visual Guide to Marvel Live-Action Movie Rights, Before and After Disney-Fox Merger.”
The chart is available in a bigger size in appendix #3.
16 / 133
The most important takeaways from this chart is 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and
Sony Pictures existing next to Marvel Studios: some characters interlap: Scarlet Witch and
Quicksilver are some, which explains why there is a Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron75 (in the
MCU) and a Quicksilver in the X-Men-franchise (not in the MCU), whereas others do not.
It's also the reason why the characters of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver can't be called
mutants in the MCU (even though that is their main trait in the comicbooks): the rights to 'mutants'
belongs to 20th Century Fox, and not Marvel Studios. That is why Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in
the MCU are called 'enhanced' instead of mutants, in Age of Ultron.
However, the above chart shows the situation before March 2019, where the so called Disney
Fox Merger took place. On March 21 st, 2019, the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney was
finalized.
That means that any and all movies, characters and more original content belonging to 20 th
Century Fox (a subsidiary to 21st Century Fox) now belong to the Walt Disney Corporation. It is
still too early to know what will happen, and the release of the latest movie in the X-Men-franchise,
Dark Phoenix76 going forward reflects these internal shifts.
This second chart77 (illustration #5), updated in 2018, shows the overall picture after Disney
bought 20th Century Fox and "brought home" a handful of Marvel-characters, including the X-Men:
75 Whedon, Avengers: Age of Ultron.
76 Kinberg, X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
77 The chart is available in a bigger size in appendix #4.
17 / 133
Illustration 5: Visual Guide to Marvel Character Movie Rights. (Source: The Geek Girls (2018))
You will notice that on top of absorbing all of 20 th Century Fox characters, Marvel Studios has
also struck a deal with Sony in sharing the rights to several Spider-Man characters (which explains
how the character of Spider-Man is in the MCU, and why Venom is getting his own franchise78.
This parenthesis exists to give non-Marvel aficionados an idea as to the politics going on
behind the scenes – politics that fans are usually aware of. The MCU-fandom exists next to the XMen-fandom, and with the upcoming fusion of the two, it is impossible to know what it will mean
for fandom.
78 Fleischer, Venom.
18 / 133
1.4.
Franchises and worldwide gross: a note on the 100 highest
grossing movies of all time
In order to understand the birth of the MCU, I need to have a look at the evolution of
blockbusters in the recent couple of decades and keep an eye on how the MCU fits into the bigger
picture in Hollywood and the entertainment industry. A blockbuster, literally, is a "[something] that
is notably expensive, effective, successful, large or extravagant. 79" A lot of superhero-movies fit that
description, and by the mid 2000s, the franchise-industry started booming with blockbuster
productions, inviting more and more fans to go to the movie theater.
Of the top 100 best selling movies of all time 80, a large amount of these have all been released
since the turn of the millenia, and even more so after 2005:
Top 100 highest-grossing films (accessed May 2019)
(source: Box Office Mojo)
2019
2017
2015
2013
2011
2009
2007
2005
2003
2001
1999
1997
1995
1993
1991
1989
1987
1985
1983
1981
1979
1977
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
By May 2019, only 13 of those 100 movies were not a part of some sort of franchise – that
means that the 87 movies left on the list, are all a part of a multi-movie storytelling universe. These
13 movies are:
Avatar (2009),
Titanic (1997),
Frozen (2013),
Zootopia (2016),
The Lion King (1994),
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018),
The Secret Life of Pets
(2016),
Inside Out (2015),
Venom (2018),
Inception (2010),
Coco (2017),
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982),
2012 (2009).
One could still argue that some of them are part of a franchise, regardless if they're individual
movies: Avatar has 4 sequels planned81, Frozen is getting a sequel in December 2019 82, The Lion
79
80
81
82
“Definition of BLOCKBUSTER.”
Listed in Appendix #5.
Harris, “All of the Avatar Sequel Announcements: A Timeline.”
Buck and Lee, Frozen II.
19 / 133
King is getting a live action remake in 201983, The Secret Life of Pets is getting a sequel in 201984,
Venom has a sequel planned85, and as for Zootopia, and Coco they're all Disney-classics, and being
part of the big Disney-family is seen as one of the biggest marketing stamps of all time.
That leaves Titanic, Inception, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, 2012 and Bohemian Rhapsody as
the only movies within the first 100 highest grossing movies to be individual, non-franchise
movies86. That is five out of 100.
Out of these 95 other highest grossing movies of all time, it is important to highlight that only
7 of them have been released before 2000, 12 between 2000 and 2005, and the remaining 81 since
2006. That makes an average of six highest grossing movies a year since then, practically one every
two months, for a little over a decade.
This reveals an interesting trend within the entertainment landscape. The main aspect of this
analysis of the highest grossing movies of all time is that many of the franchises involved take
inspiration from other forms of media – meaning that the movies do not stand alone, as original
source of content for the universe. By the time we were moving into the 2000s, movies based on
Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel and DC comics, Twilight and The Hunger Games, as well
as the re-emergence of older franchises like Transformers, Jurassic Park and Star Wars, were to be
found on the list of highest-grossing films in history87.
Attempting to launch a wide cinematic-universe seemed then to be the proper time in 2006,
when the first preparations and discussions for Iron Man were launched. There had been success
with the X-Men-trilogy88, with the two Fantastic Four-movies89, as well as a with the Spider-Mantrilogy90 which had opened up a new slot of blockbusters: the superhero-movie.
Kevin Feige, who became President of Marvel Studios in 2007, had been toying with the idea
of a multi-movie universe for a while 91, and with the current entertainment climate, the release of
the movie and build up to a bigger universe seemed logical. The use of a post-credits scene, as
mentioned earlier in this paper, was the discreet way to test out the waters to the introduction of
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
Favreau, The Lion King.
Renaud, The Secret Life of Pets 2.
Desta, “A Venom Sequel Is Officially in the Works.”
One could still argue that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Inception and Titanic, being directed by Steven Spielberg,
Christopher Nolan and James Cameron respectively could be considered as part of some sort of 'franchise' storytelling.
Appendix #6 sorts all top 100 best selling movies into their respective franchises.
Singer, X-Men; Singer, X2: X-Men United; Ratner, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Story, Fantastic Four; Story, Tim, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Raimi, Spider-Man; Raimi, Spider-Man 2, 2; Raimi, Sam, Spider-Man 3, 3.
Philbrick, “EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Feige Talks Iron Man 2, The Avengers and More,” 2.
20 / 133
these characters to a movie universe. It was a new way of telling stories, of using all the media
available, and translating that story into a bigger universe.
To help define the MCU as a movie franchise and to look at its relationship with fans, it is
interesting to introduce American media scolar Henry Jenkins' notion of transmedia storytelling:
"Defined by Henry Jenkins (2007) as "a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed
systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated
entertainment experience," transmedia storytelling has been celebrated by media scholars as a narrative
model that promotes collaborative authorship and participatory spectatorship. [...] Transmedia stories are
defined by their ability to expand: they expand and enrich a fictional universe, they expand across media
platforms, and they empower an expansive fan base by promoting collective intelligence as a
consumption strategy."92
For the MCU is a prime example of transmedia storytelling and its use and reliance on
fanbases is the key to its incredible success worldwide.
The MCU exists within a web of other franchises which originated during the same period.
Having analyzed the Hollywood-landscape prior to the release of Iron Man and by analyzing the
trends in the highest grossing-movies, helped place the MCU on the map of blockbusters, and set it
up in an entertainment world that exists within the social and political discussions of its time.
92 Scott, “Who’s Steering the Mothership? The Role of the Fanboy Auteur in Transmedia Storytelling,” 43.
21 / 133
II. Fandom and method: being a fan and an
academic
2.1.
What's a fan?
If we look at what the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as fan, it is defined as such:
"1. an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator, 2. an ardent
admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)."93
If we look at the etymology of the word fan, it comes from the word fanatic, which in turn
comes from the latin word fānāticus ("of a temple, divinely inspired, frenzied")94. Going a step even
further, we realize that it is the fusion of the words fānum and -āticus. Fānum is a noun that means
shrine, temple, sanctuary and a place dedicated to a deity 95, whereas -āticus turns a noun into an
adjective96. Thus, combined, it becomes fānāticus, which can be defined as "1. of or pertaining to a
temple; 2. divinely inspired, enthusiastic; 3. frantic, frenzied; 4. furious, mad."97
As such, it is clear that a fan, compared to a casual viewer, has some physical, monetary or
personal investment set up in the object of their fandom – whether that be a franchise, a sports team
or something else entirely.
When discussing what makes a fan, one needs to be careful not to do what is called "gatekeeping". Are you a fan just by watching the movies, or do you need some sort of personal,
financial or emotional investment in what you're watching to call yourself a fan? Gate-keeping is,
literally, the activity of controlling and usually limiting general access to the object of fandom. That
means, someone takes it upon themselves to define whether people can have access to the thing
they like or not. The usual example of someone gate-keeping will be to test someone's knowledge
of the canon material. Canon is the original source material:
""Canon" describes characters, pairings, events, etc., that are accepted as part of a fictional
universe's "official" mythology, as presented either through dramatization in an episode/movie/novel or in
officially sanctioned ephemera."98
The fan version of canon is often called "fanon" (a portmanteau of fan + canon) and theories
93
94
95
96
97
98
“Definition of FAN.”
“Fanaticus - Wiktionary.”
“Fanum - Wiktionary.”
“-Aticus - Wiktionary.”
“Fanaticus - Wiktionary.”
Maggs, The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, 28–29.
22 / 133
that each fan has about the canon material are called "headcanons". Something usually becomes
fanon when it has spread wide enough across the fandom and is generally accepted as true within
the fan-created narrative, but has close to no basis in official canon. It can be personal preferences
or ideal casting choices for characters than haven't appeared in the MCU yet:
"If you have an idea that branches off from official canon, but that you have decided to accept it as
personally true, you call that your "headcanon" or sometimes, "fanon"."99
There are, however, different ways of approaching the notion of fans. One of those is to divide
fans into three categories: audiences, fans and users. Upon introducing methodology for audience
studies, Gillian Rose defines these three distinct categories 100. She defines audiences as passive
consumers, in a closed setting. They do not engage in fandom in any way. Fans are active
consumers, who follow the object of their passions through media, discussions, cosplay, online
fanfiction, fanart and more. Lastly, users, Rose defines as the ones who like, share and react to
items of their fandom. In this thesis, I consider fans as a mix of Rose's version of fans and users.
2.2.
Being a scholar-fan and doing fan-studies: can I be objective?
When I started this thesis, I published an online survey to help me get some hands-on
experience with the fandom. Being a fan myself, I thought it would be a way to analyze what other
members of fandom thought of my study area, and I thought that would find some guidelines for
my analysis.
By writing this thesis on fandom, through the University of Copenhagen's institution, I am a
scholar-fan, also called an aca-fan. I am a part of the demography I am studying. Being an aca-fan,
as Matt Hill calls it101, means that I am biased from the beginning, in the way I will approach this
research. Hills defined two aspects of combining academia and fandom:
"I defined "scholar-fans" as professional academics writing primarily for fellow scholars via the
publishing institutions of the academy. By contrast, I discussed "fan-scholars" as fans using academic
concepts within their writing, outside the licensed spaces of "pro" academia.102"
That meant that I had to gather some quantitable material that I could observe objectively, in
order to get replicable results within the academic field.
One of the first aspects that appeared out of this survey, which I shared to my group of friends
99 Maggs, 29.
100Rose, Visual Methodologies, an Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials, 257–65.
101Matt Hills, “‘Proper Distance’ in the Ethical Positioning of Scholar-fandoms: Between Academics’ and Fans’ Moral
Economies?,” in Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, 1st ed. (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 14–37.
102Hills, 15.
23 / 133
on Facebook (which, some of them in turn shared on their profiles) as well as on my personal
Tumblr-blog, is that fans are dedicated. I had expected around 100 responses, but within the first 24
hours, the survey had been shared over 500 times on Tumblr (reblogs) and had collected over 1400
responses. By the time I closed the survey in order to begin analyzing the data, it had 2318
individual responses.
The fact that this survey was shared mostly through the Tumblr-channel also means that a
majority of the responders are fans of the MCU. My Tumblr-blog is mostly MCU-related, and my
followers know me for the content I create for the MCU-fandom. This means that there is a first
bias to be aware of, as I analyze this data: a lot of the people who have responded to the survey
were favorable to the MCU heading into the survey, and were quite familiar with it to begin with.
Being active in fandom online also means that I set up the survey in a way that made sense to
me – perhaps, another researcher studying the same subject would have set up the survey in a
different manner, hoping to get more individual responses. It also means that the entry point to the
fandom came, not through an objective "door" through research, but through a door that's been wide
open and which I helped build103. Matt Hills brings up one of these issues in his discussion on
ethical positioning of scholar-fandom:
"When scholar-fans represent and mediate their own embeddedness in a fan culture, the other side
of the coin is that they effectively "other" fan activities falling outside their fandom experiences."104
That means that, whatever aspect of fandom I am not, myself, engaging in, I am bound to
omit in this thesis: if I am not a part of it, I cannot examine it. This survey had to help me cover all
the basic fandom notions, I had to examine when creating this map of the MCU-fandom.
By acknowledging the effective bias there is in this study because of my position as an acafan, and by making sure to remember the fandom blinders I wear, I can begin to analyze the survey
results I have compiled through the use of my own fanspaces for the sake of this thesis.
2.3.
Method: approaching the survey and the fandom
When I started working on this survey, I knew that I would have a position with one foot in
the academic field and one foot in the study field. That meant that I would need to try and take a
step back in order to view the subject of my research somewhat objectively.
103Some of my blog entries about characters in the MCU have made it onto the fan-version of Wikipedia called
'Fanlore', not through my own additions but through someone else's effort to document fandom movements.
104Hills, “‘Proper Distance’ in the Ethical Positioning of Scholar-fandoms: Between Academics’ and Fans’ Moral
Economies?,” 21.
24 / 133
In order to do that, I decided to ask others around me and use my surroundings as a guide.
Especially when it came to fandom – because that was what I wanted to study. I wanted to figure
out how the MCU and fandom worked so well together, especially when I have spent the last
decade or so living with these characters by my side. Characters I've lived, loved and cried with –
and even more so, characters I have mourned and brought back to life through my own writings in
fanfiction, embodied through cosplay and analyzed through meta texts.
2.3.1.
The setup of the survey
Originally, I did not expect my survey to be so important in this thesis. It was originally meant
to be somewhat of a guide I could use, to see if I had missed any important thoughts and points in
my thesis – the more eyes I had looking at the subject of study, the better a focus I would have.
Therefore, the way that I set up the survey was purely in a preliminary way. There were no
properly articulated thoughts while I was setting up the questions other than wanting to cover as
many topics as possible: if I could get a handful, maybe a hundred of people to answer these
questions, it would be enough. The questions would cover the bases in dealing with fans:
•
They would have to do with the level of familiarity the responder has with the material in
question: how many times they'd seen the movies, if they had seen all of them, whether or
not they felt the need to know about comicbook-lore was important, etc.
•
They would have to do with fan culture in general. It would cover topics such as fanfiction
and fanart, and the behavior of responders on social media within their fandom. Some of
these questions also involved their own stances on fanculture and what they considered to be
– or not – fanculture.
•
They would have to do with comicbooks and the mix of movie culture and comicbook
culture. It would try to analyze the relationship between the two medias, hopefully to be able
to draw some conclusions based on the way responders positioned themselves with the
MCU and Marvel Comics.
•
They would have to do with social media, and would try to analyze how fans use these
social media-channels to express their fannishness.
•
And, lastly, they would help create an idea of the average fan and possibly even isolate a
demography to study.
25 / 133
At no point in time was the survey to be used in whole sections of this thesis, as I only wanted
to use it as a guiding point in regards to my own theoretical and methodological research. Some
questions were left quite open to interpretation, for I did not expectfor too many responses to sift
through. Perhaps, it could gather some data that would come in handy later while I was writing this
thesis.
Initially, I had a plan to create an IMDb Pro-account and try to get in touch with professionals
– actors, directors, etc. - through their agents in order to ask them questions about their relations to
fans, but decided against it when the previous survey took on a life of its own. Because that it did.
I posted the link to the Google-survey to my Tumblr account as well as my Facebook profile,
in order to try and get it out to the furthest reaches of the internet. Mildly said, it took off. As I
previously explained, within 24 hours I had 1400 responses to my 50+ questions survey, and by the
time I closed it, that number had practically doubled.
One of the first things that came through the use of Tumblr as a platform, especially through
the use of my followers – and friends – was that fans are and were willing to help other fans out. It
received more than 1596 notes on Tumblr, and was shared 27 times on Facebook.
Suddenly, what I thought would be a guideline became something more, with the input of
over 2000 individuals. And, through this, I realized that my 50+ questions had barely scratched the
surface of how important of a cultural phenomenon the MCU was105.
It was more than just the movies. A lot of the responders explained that it was difficult for
them to take the movies on their own, for their fandom experience consisted of mixing what they
knew of the comics with the movies, in much the same way that official creators took inspiration
from the comics themselves: "Maybe include a section about the cartoons and animated movies.
Those are very important and impactful to fans. Ex. Into the Spiderverse and Avengers Assemble"
said one of the responders.
I had originally planned to look at the MCU in general – including the television shows and
the tie-in comics, but I decided early that it would be too large a study subject.
However, upon beginning to discuss fandom and analyzing the survey results, I found that
being a fan of the MCU means that there is no definite line between the movies' existence and the
knowledge that comes from comicbooks or from other writers. For being in a fandom is a highly
performative act, where fans construct their own media and monitor their own consumption of it.
105The survey is available in full in appendix #8.
26 / 133
Some others wanted me to look at other aspects of fandom, especially toxic behavior in fan
culture: "Are you going to research toxic fan culture? Meaning fights within the fandom, sexism,
etc.". This made me realize that fandom was a debatable space where parties could argue and even
fight over grievances caused by the source material, or by the behavior of actors/directors/other
crew: "I'd say "the fanbase" but some fanbases are so toxic you don't want to touch it with a 10 foot
pole."
The movies and the MCU in general is also an extremely performative place to be in, when it
comes to fandom, and that shone through several of the responses I got: "how central your fanhood
is to your identity" and how that impacted the way they saw these movies. Other responses included
the way one's identity was defined by the fandom: "Some sort of identity tied into the fandom. I
identify with the characters, love the stories, and look for more content (fandom or comics) that
relate. It's an active role that helps build a community of peers with similar interests."
In much the same way, some of them wanted me to look at the way sexual and gender identity
became a part of the way they consumed the MCU and performed it through their fannish activities:
"If you're looking at demographics of fans at all, it would probably be cool to ask also about race
and lgbt identity in the final section there."
As I will discuss later in the chapter on participatory culture, responders made it their point to
discuss the representative side of the fandom in their responses. One said: "I think it would be
interesting to see how much of fandom is related to the LGBTQ community. You could ask if people
consume/write fanworks with canon or non-canon relationships and determine if they are
predominantly heterosexual or on the
LGBTQ continuum;" while another said
"I think it's SUPER important to make
note of the fact that the only reason I
ever got involved in MCU is because
there's a lack of LGBT representation in
characters and story lines, so I was
compelled to turn to fandom for that
content (fanfiction, fanart, etc.). If I
wasn't looking for gay content I couldn't
care less about most content I get into,
Illustration 6: The first 'on screen' same-sex kiss between
but I'm pretty much forced to write the characters Billy Kaplan and Teddy Altman (Source: Avengers:
Children's Crusade, 2012, Marvel Comics)
27 / 133
stories I wish I could see."
The Marvel Comics are inclusive in more ways than the
movies are – openly gay characters106 (illustration #6), Muslim
heroes107 (illustration #7), disabled characters108 (illustration #8),
etc. - and it was interesting to see how important it was to fans to
make it known, that the reason they interacted with fandom, was
to fill these gaps in the source material and perform their own
identities.
In the same way, fandom has appropriated characters as
representations of their minorities: Newt Scamander in the
Fantastic Beasts-movies is, according to fans, on the autism
spectrum, Sherlock Holmes in the BBC-show Sherlock is asexual
representation, Kate Bishop from Marvel Comics has Asian Illustration 7: Kamala Khan quoting
the Quran to herself in an comicbook
ancestry, and Clint Barton is dyslexic, etc. These are all fanon
panel (Source: Ms. Marvel: No
notions that have no base in official materials. For the fandom Normal, 2014, Marvel Comics)
itself is not just comprised of straight, white males, who are the usual main target audience. As
such, the people that interact in fandoms need to represent themselves when writing transformative
stories.
And why exactly are fans so dedicated that they will write entire stories and create artwork for
free? Perhaps their relationship with the source
material has become an emotional one, through
which they perform what they can't in their own
lives. Perhaps, it is because these characters have
been through so much during their lives, that it is
easier for fans to project their struggles onto them.
Illustration 8: The Avenger Hawkeye equipped with
hearing aids on screen (Source: Hawkeye: My Life as
a Weapon, 2014, Marvel Comics)
Or maybe not. I will explore this in the discussion,
when looking at the notions of performativity and
fandom.
One last note about the survey is that, because of it's specificity, and in spite of being
introduced as a survey on the MCU and about fandom, it may have scared off non MCU-fans. Some
106Billy Kaplan (Wiccan) and Teddy Altman (Hulkling) have shared a same sex kiss several times in Marvel Comics.
107Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) is the first Muslim character to headline her own comicbook.
108Clint Barton (Hawkeye) is canonically deaf (although the deafness comes and goes depending on the writers), while
Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) is an amputee and Matt Murdock (Daredevil) is blind.
28 / 133
questions may have been too specific, others not enough, and thus, there may be an additional bias
to find in the responses to the survey that I received.
2.3.2.
Fandom and fans
By making the survey as broad – but also as superficial – as it was, meant that other topics of
study could be suggested by the hivemind I was effectively tapping into. One of the responders
mentioned in a comment that "I am surprised that wikis were not really mentioned in this form". I
did not include wikis at all, as they weren't something that I would have considered to be important
to fanculture as such.
That comes from my bias with the source material – being a fan of the MCU and of Marvelcomics meant that I know a lot about the source material to begin with, and do not necessarily need
to look at wikis for more information. Wikis are something that Terranova mentioned in passing in
her text:
"Simultaneously voluntarily given and unwaged, enjoyed and exploited, free labor on the net
includes the activity of building websites, modifying software packages, reading and participating in
mailing lists, and building virtual spaces."109
"The pervasiveness of the collective intelligence within both the managerial literature and Marxists
theory could be seen as the result of a common intuition about the quality of labor in informated societies.
Knowledge labor is inherently collective, it is always the result of a collective and social production of
knowledge.110"
This group effort was something that had not entered my mind when building this survey, as I
tried to position myself out of the fandom upon creating it.
By not mentioning the wikis, which are a large part of fandom experience, it made my
position on the topic different than that of someone who would. In much the same way, my survey,
being an online survey, probably would have had different results if I had conducted interviews
directly with the demography I was studying. Being an aca-fan is indeed a difficult place to be in:
"The positioning of the aca-fan is itself an ethical challenge. Even if we see ourselves as fans first,
we occupy a position of power, able to influence public perception and select which semiprivate
utterances get more attention and validation.111"
As such, my own positioning within the fandom causes some additional conflicts of interest. I
109Terranova, “Free Labor,” 34.
110Terranova, 45.
111Larsen and Zubernis, “Introduction,” 6.
29 / 133
have been active in the MCU-fandom since early 2012, after the release of the Avengers, where I
began creating fanart on Tumblr. Through my own continual contributions to the fandom, I have
gained some sort of traction with my items – other fans know of my works, know what I do and
sometimes take things I introduce and build up on them, in a transformative and cooperative way 112.
This further introduces the problem of my position as a researcher: if I am part of what makes the
MCU-fandom move in one direction, how can I try to analyze what is happening in it?
For, by being a part of it, I "tend to focus on what is familiar.113" and have biases that "have
the potential to impact fans themselves, as our ability to understand the fields as a whole is limited
not only by our interests, but by the disciplinary lenses we look through.114"
My own policies and academic background will inevitably steer this thesis in one or the other
direction, and someone else who will write about the MCU-fandom might find other results, solely
based on the theories, methods and discussions they bring to the table.
112There has been fanart of some of my fanfictions and fanfiction based on some of my fanart.
113Larsen and Zubernis, “Introduction,” 4.
114Larsen and Zubernis, 5.
30 / 133
III. Fandom, movies and franchises: an
analysis of the survey results
3.1.
The limits of fandom: what makes a casual viewer and what
makes a fan?
3.1.1. Defining what makes a fan
In my survey, I asked responders what, in their opinion, was the difference between a casual
audience and a fan, in order to see what they would prioritize in their distinction between one and
the other. The responses varied in detail, but there were some aspects and features that could be
summarized in the table as follows115:
Casual audience
Fan
Watches the movies once or twice
Regularly revisits the movies
Passively enjoys
Actively enjoys
Happy to see another movie
Fills out the gaps between movies with fan activities
Doesn't know the names of all characters
Knows (almost) everything: actors, comics, favorite
characters, etc.
Don't care about the content once the credits are over
Interested after watching,
Little feedback to creators
Engages with creators online
Consume the content on its own
Needs more than what is on screen
Will see the movie because of interest / of hype
Counts down the days until a new movie comes out
Doesn't think about the movies between releases
Interacts with content multiple times a day during
hiatus
No fandom or low fandom involvement
Consumes within fandom, participating in
conversations
Little further knowledge
Knowledge beforehand, reads comics
Satisfied with a good cinematic experience
Experience continues beyond the screen by engaging
in movie-related things
Doesn't have theories about the next MCU-movies
Easter eggs, talks about the movie, remembers
details
Likes the MCU
Loves the MCU
The key difference that seems to come through repeatedly is that a casual audience enjoys the
movies passively, whereas a fan enjoys them actively116:
115This is a summary of the responses I got to the question. You do not have to tick off any of the boxes in this table in
order to be a fan.
116Highlights are my own.
31 / 133
"A casual fan passively just enjoys the
"Active
thing whereas a fan actively enjoys it and
engagement
rather
than
passive consumption"
goes deeper into the movie and surrounding
"Actively seeking information and
culture."
community, wanting to learn more, and
"Casual audience members passively
engaging in speculation and theories as
take in and enjoy MCU-movies, maybe they
opposed to just passively viewing and
seek them out mildly. Fans actively seek out
enjoying the material"
information and anticipate MCU-movies."
The activity involved with the MCU-movies is the key to what makes the difference between
a casual watcher and a fan. Responders highlighted the additional effort to understand all the key
points and storylines, as well as the interaction that exists with other fans in the same space of
fandom:
"Casual audience watches the movies
"A fan consumes media beyond just
one time and don’t interact with the fandom.
the movies — goes looking for fic,
A fan watches the movies multiple times and
interaction with creators, merchandise, etc.
interacts with fandom."
Casual audience just views the films."
"casual audience watches the movies
"Genuine intellectual interaction with
one or few times. A fan interacts with the
the actual content of the film, rather than
universe (watches more times, collects
simply consuming it."
merchandise, cosplays, and much more)"
The inclusion of interaction with the creators and other fans seems to be a very wide aspect of
what makes the difference between the two. The above responses are just some highlights.
It was impossible to quantify all the answers I received on this question without creating
recurrences which might render the results obsolete, as such I am looking at individual quotes and
piecing them together for the sake of this argument. I mentioned earlier that fandom is often
subjected to some sort of gate-keeping (protecting or testing of subjects before their accept into the
fan-family).
Several responders made a very good point in replying that there is either no difference
between being casual audiences and fans, and that it depends on how people see themselves:
"I don't gatekeep- a fan is a fan."
"There is none. If you like it, you're a
fan. :)"
"Personal identification- anyone can
be a fan"
"Its up to the individual to decide that
for themselves."
"There isn't one"
32 / 133
"None"
"there's
no
difference.
only
gatekeepers care whether other people are
"I dont really know it doesnt really
"real fans""
matter"
"Purely identity, theres no universal
"Whatever they define themself as"
distinction beyond whether someone would
"No difference. A fan is a fan."
consider themselves a fan or not."
Tt needs to be said then, that what defines fandom and someone's inclusion in it, depends on a
fine line that is up to every person – and that any other effort to define rigid, fixed, fandom lines
will come off as gate-keeping.
However, to be a part of the MCU-fandom, one has to know at least a little bit about what is
going on. Having been present in the cultural landscape for the past 11 years, it would be surprising
that someone hadn't heard about the MCU, or at least about Iron Man or Captain America. Being a
fan of the MCU varies in base knowledge: it is variable how much each fan knows about the MCU
and Marvel, as not all of them read comicbooks.
3.1.2. Fanfiction and fanart: the habits of fans
I asked the responders several questions about fanculture to try and tune into what they
considered fandom, and got different results:
When asking the responders about whether or not it was important to them to know what has
happened in comics before seeing the movies, a vast majority responded no. In total, 76% didn't
think that it was important to know anything about the Marvel-universe in general, before
interacting with the MCU. However, 17.5% thought that it was important to have some knowledge
of the material beforehand.
Likewise, when asked whether or not they had seen all 20 movies 117, a majority replied that
they hadn't seen all of them. 54.4% said that they hadn't seen all of them, whereas 43.2% said that
they had seen all of them.
These two results – that it isn't important to have any beforehand knowledge and that the
majority haven't seen all movies – show that considering oneself to be a fan depends on how one
views themselves. If we look at the crossing of these two questions, we get the following results:
117Although both Captain Marvel and Endgame have been released by the time this thesis is submitted, they are not
included in the survey, as the survey preceded their release in cinemas around the world.
33 / 133
Do you consider yourself to be a fan of the MCU?
Yes
No
Don't know
Yes
977
10
15
1002
No
1119
56
85
1260
Don't know
53
1
2
56
2149
67
102
Have you seen all MCU-movies?
The numbers confirm the above idea that it isn't necessary to have seen all movies to consider
yourself a fan: 48.2% of responders do indeed consider themselves to be fans of the MCU, but
haven't seen all the movies. This outnumbers those who have seen all movies and consider
themselves to be fans, which represents 42.1% of responders.
If we continue to look at the numbers gathered, it is important to note that 94.4% of
responders will be watching the upcoming movies, and that 91% of responders also watch MCUmovie trailers and other promotional material.
If we delve into the more hands-on material gathered about the responders' fan habits, it is
interesting to see the numbers of how many read and enjoy fan content, and how many write and
create fan content:
Do you consume fancreated content?
No
Fanfiction
Fanart
Yes
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Do you create your own fancontent?
No
Fanfiction
Fanart
Yes
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
34 / 133
1400
1600
1800
2000
The large majority does indeed read fanfiction (83.8%), but when it comes to writing it
themselves, the numbers split almost perfectly in half:
Do you read fanfiction?
Yes
No
Don't know
Yes
974
12
2
988
No
957
348
12
1317
Don't know
12
0
1
13
1943
360
15
Do you write fanfiction?
Of all those who read fanfiction, 50.1% write it as well, but 49.2% do not write fanfiction. It
is interesting to look at the numbers laid out like this, as it brings out one aspect of organized
fandom that is, perhaps, not know in the mainstream media: not everybody writes fanfiction. It
could be summarized that, out of every fanfiction reader, one in two has written something
themselves, regardless of length, platform, etc. With fanart, we see the pattern that became evident
with fanfiction: a lot of people enjoy fanart (a whole 84.8%), but the numbers fall when it comes to
producing fanart oneself (only 17.6%).
The difference here, however, is quite more marquant than with fanfiction – and it can be
theorized that it takes more skills or materials to produce fanart than it does writing fanfiction. This
explains why there is a discrepancy between those who produce fanart and those who do not.
Looking at the table in the below fashion, comparing the two questions, a several amount of
numbers make their appearance:
Do you actively consume fanart?
Do you draw fanart?
Yes
No
Don't know
Yes
393
13
3
409
No
1561
311
23
1895
Don't know
13
1
0
14
1967
325
26
Only 20% of those who consume fanart also produce it. That's a larger fall from the fanfiction
numbers, where it was approximately one in two who wrote fanfiction. When it comes to art, it falls
down to one in five to produce transformative works based on the source material.
Thus, it is interesting to map out the active members of fandom who contribute to it. Fandom
35 / 133
exists through its transformative works, and although fanart often breaks through into mainstream
media, the general experience of the population with fanfiction is something along the lines of Fifty
Shades of Grey118 or After119, which are based on Twilight and One Direction-fanfictions,
respectively. By writing their own stories, fans are able to transform the material they have
available into something that fits with their own narratives.
3.2.
Mapping fandom favorites: analyzing the first 20 MCU-movies:
In order to set the tone for this analysis of fandom and its relationship to the MCU, it is
important to have a look at the movies on their own and how fans relate to them.
In this analysis, I wish to find out which movies are the most popular and which ones have
been left behind by fandom. By distilling these results, it is my hope to unearth deeper ramifications
of participatory and fandom culture.
The first in depth analysis of the survey to do is to look at how many times each movie has
been seen – both in the theaters and later, in private settings. I then organized the results in a
weighted average, in order to find out how many times each movie has been seen in average.
This gave in the following results:
118Cuccinello, “Fifty Shades Of Green: How Fanfiction Went From Dirty Little Secret To Money Machine.”
119Pham, “How Anna Todd’s Harry Styles Fanfiction Became a Bestselling Book—& Now a Movie.”
36 / 133
Average
Movie
Average
Seen more
Seen more
times seen times seen than 10 times than 10 times
in theaters in private in the theater
privately
Iron Man (2008)
0.45
3.3
7
147
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
0.16
1.1
0
9
0.41
2.64
3
84
0.46
2.94
2
89
0.51
3.44
3
157
1.11
4.03
16
267
0.61
2.42
7
83
0.62
2.1
1
58
1.02
3.68
12
273
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)126
0.95
2.83
4
90
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
0.91
2.23
5
68
Ant-Man (2015)127
0.59
1.8
1
31
1.13
2.7
8
135
0.61
1.71
2
27
0.82
1.85
3
39
0.88
1.91
3
64
1.12
2.71
3
115
1.2
1.91
2
45
1.3
1.63
6
42
0.59
0.67
0
4
120
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Thor (2011)121
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
122
Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
123
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)124
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)128
Doctor Strange (2016)
129
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 (2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
130
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)131
Black Panther (2018)
132
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)133
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
134
125
This first average gives us different results to look at: the movie which was seen the most in
theaters, was Infinity War with 1.3 times, followed by Black Panther with 1.2 times and Civil War
with 1.13 times. This means that, on average, all the people who responded to the survey have seen
120Favreau, Iron Man 2.
121Branagh, Thor.
122Johnston, Captain America: The First Avenger. Called The First Avenger throughout the rest of this thesis.
123Black, Iron Man 3.
124Taylor, Thor: The Dark World. Called The Dark World throughout the rest of this thesis.
125Russo and Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Called The Winter Soldier throughout the rest of this thesis.
126Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy.
127Reed, Ant-Man.
128Russo and Russo, Captain America: Civil War. Called Civil War throughout the rest of this thesis.
129Derrickson, Doctor Strange.
130Watts, Spider-Man: Homecoming. Called Homecoming throughout the rest of this thesis.
131Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok. Called Ragnarok throughout the rest of this thesis.
132Coogler, Black Panther.
133Russo and Russo, Avengers: Infinity War. Called Infinity War throughout the rest of this thesis.
134Reed, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
37 / 133
these three movies in theaters at least once.
The least watched films in theaters are The Incredible Hulk which was watched 0.16 times in
theaters, followed by Iron Man 2 which was watched 0.41 times and Iron Man which was watched
0.45 times. That means that less than half of the responders saw any of these three movies in
theaters.
When we look at what happens privately though, the most watched and least watched movies
shift: the most watched movies privately are The Avengers which has been watched 4.03 times on
average, followed by The Winter Soldier which has been watched 3.68 times and The First Avenger
which was watched 3.44 times.
The least watched movies, though, bring a slight difference: Ant-Man and the Wasp was only
watched 0.67 times privately, only surpassed by The Incredible Hulk which has been seen 1.1 times
and Infinity War which has been seen 1.63 times since it came out.
However, looking at which movies have been seen more than 10 times both in and out of the
theater, a decided pattern starts to arise: The Incredible Hulk is again at the bottom of the watch-list,
closely followed by Ant-Man and the Wasp which sits on the absolute bottom, but we can also
observe that The Winter Soldier is in the absolute top of re-watched movies, just like The Avengers
remains one of the most watched movies.
From these few numbers, one can hypothesize different things: Why are the most watched
movies in theater recent movies (2016 & 2018)? Is there any correlation between the current geopolitical climate and the fact that Black Panther is the second most watched movie? The least
watched movies in theaters are the three first movies in the MCU – can we hypothesize that it is
because of them being launched before the MCU became well established in the media picture?
The same goes for the most re-watched movies privately: The First Avenger, The Avengers
and The Winter Soldier are the most watched movies. How can that be? Could we hypothesize that
it has to do with fandom interests? And why are the two most recently released movies (excluding
Captain Marvel135 and Avengers: Endgame136 which were released during the writing of this thesis)
the least re-watched ones? Could it be because they're still "fresh" in people's memories, or were
they ill received? I will look at these hypotheses in section 4.3.3.
When asking the responders to pick their 3 top movies, I discovered that the responses
135Boden and Fleck, Captain Marvel.
136Russo and Russo, Avengers: Endgame. Called Endgame throughout the rest of this thesis.
38 / 133
coming in from the survey varied slightly from what appeared on the website IMDb – by asking
responders to pick their 3 favorite movies, I hoped to figure out the popularity of each movie. I did
not ask them to rank the movies from 1 to 20, but rather asked them to pick their 3 favorite ones –
this result is then an interpretation of the question and not an actual ranking. In order to make a
comparison to a general population 137, I have compiled a chart of each respective movie's rating and
position according to IMDb ratings.
Movie
Times picked in
top 3
Scores on
IDMB
(out of 10)
Position of
Position of
movie
movie
according
according
to survey
to IMDb
Iron Man
428
7.9
#06
#4
The Incredible Hulk
6
6.7
#20
#20
Iron Man 2
54
7
#19
#16
Thor
153
7
#12
#16
Captain America: The First Avenger
357
6.9
#09
#19
Marvel's The Avengers
526
8.1
#04
#2
Iron Man 3
169
7.2
#11
#14
Thor: The Dark World
71
7
#17
#16
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
1061
7.8
#02
#6
Guardians of the Galaxy
378
8.1
#07
#2
Avengers: Age of Ultron
55
7.3
#18
#11
Ant-Man
105
7.3
#15
#11
Captain America: Civil War
296
7.8
#10
#6
Doctor Strange
132
7.5
#14
#9
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
139
7.7
#13
#8
Spider-Man: Homecoming
506
7.5
#05
#9
Thor: Ragnarok
1186
7.9
#01
#4
Black Panther
827
7.3
#03
#11
Avengers: Infinity War
358
8.5
#08
#1
Ant-Man and the Wasp
82
7.1
#16
#15
The top 3 favorite MCU-movies are Ragnarok, The Winter Soldier and Black Panther – or at
least those that are mentioned the most often in the survey. If we compare to what IMDb data
shows, we can see that the top three movies vary slightly.
137The general population here is users of IMDb who have scored the movies on IMDb.
39 / 133
Currently, Infinity War is the top rated movie in the franchise on IMDb, which is a slight
difference compared to the survey data. The one continuous constant, is that The Incredible Hulk is
the lowest rated movie in the franchise on IMDb.
It's worth noting that the ratings on IMDb range from 0 to 10, and that all 20 MCU-movies
range within a very short span: the lowest rating movie is, as previously mentioned, The Incredible
Hulk, with a score of 6.7/10, and the top rated MCU movie is Infinity War, with a score of 8.5/10138.
The average score of an MCU movie is, as such, 7.5/10, which is an excellent score, for a franchise
that releases, on average, 2 movies a year.
In comparison, the Blade-trilogy scored 6.6/10 on average, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man-trilogy
scored 6.9/10, the X-Men-franchise scored 7.4/10, and, lastly, all other Marvel-movies that did not
fit into either of these franchises scored 5.4/10139 in average140.
The fact that the X-Men-franchise scores as high as the MCU is another reason why the
previous discussion of the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney is relevant: the X-Menfranchise is one of 20th Century Fox' most popular franchises. Bringing the two highest rated
Marvel-franchises together in a possible future would be a foolproof way for Marvel to create an
even bigger connected universe141.
3.3.
Establishing the MCU as an unprecedented franchise:
comparison with 3 other franchises
Three other franchises are still relevant today when discussing blockbuster-franchises: the
Star Wars-franchise, the Harry Potter-franchise (excluding the Fantastic Beasts-movies) and the XMen-franchise. In this section of the chapter, I will compare the MCU to these three franchises.
3.3.1. The MCU as one continuous franchise
The MCU has released 22 feature films since it began in 2008. No other franchise has been
able to release as many movies over such a period of time before. Even the X-Men-franchise and its
12 feature films only comes in second, with half the cinematic achievement.
Looking at a table with all release dates, the MCU looks like this:
138Endgame has a rating of 8.8/10 on IMDb, but as it hadn't been released during the time this survey was online, it
isn't being counted here.
139A table of the IMDb scorings of each of these movies is to be found in Appendix #1
140See appendix #2 for the tables.
141Lealos, “10 Ways Marvel’s Multiverse Can Introduce The X-Men and Fantastic Four.”
40 / 133
Release date142
MCU Movie
Days since the previous release...
(DD/MM/YY)
Iron Man
02/05/08
0 days
The Incredible Hulk
13/06/08
43 days143
Iron Man 2
07/05/10
694 days144
Thor
06/05/11
365 days
Captain America: The First Avenger
22/07/11
78 days
Marvel's The Avengers
04/05/12
288 days
Iron Man 3
03/05/13
365 days
Thor: The Dark World
08/11/13
190 days
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
04/04/14
148 days
Guardians of the Galaxy
01/08/14
120 days
Avengers: Age of Ultron
01/05/15
274 days
Ant-Man
17/07/15
78 days
Captain America: Civil War
06/05/16
395 days
Doctor Strange
04/11/16
183 days
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
05/05/17
183 days
Spider-Man: Homecoming
07/07/17
64 days
Thor: Ragnarok
03/11/17
120 days
Black Panther
16/02/18
106 days
Avengers: Infinity War
27/04/18
71 days
Ant-Man and the Wasp
06/07/18
71 days
Captain Marvel
08/03/19
246 days
26/04/19
50 days
05/07/19
71 days
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: Far From Home
145
Which means that the MCU releases a new movie every 191 days (27 weeks, 2 days) on
average146.
One could argue that taking all the movies in the franchise would be warping the results, as
the MCU is comprised of at least several 'subfranchises': the Iron Man-trilogy, the Thor-trilogy, the
Captain America-trilogy, the Avengers-quadrilogy. Spider-Man will probably become a trilogy too,
as will the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. And that's without counting the announced sequel
plans for Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. This would, effectively, turn these
142The release date is not the international premiere, but the United States wide audience theater release date.
143Shortest amount of time between two MCU-movies.
144Longest amount of time between two MCU-movies.
145Watts, Spider-Man: Far From Home. Called Far From Home throughout the rest of this thesis.
146For this table, I included Far From Home, even if it hasn't been released.
41 / 133
movies into their own, independent franchises within the MCU-franchise in general.
However, another argument could be made that although each individual trilogy has their own
individual arcs, it is almost impossible to watch any of the MCU-movies without having seen or
without having some knowledge of the others: thus, it is almost impossible to distinguish them as
sub-franchises for this analysis. When Tony Stark shows up in Civil War as well as Homecoming, it
means that viewers need to have some idea as to who he is, and what his powers are.
It is a good reminder to know that Red Skull appeared for the first time in The First Avenger
in 2011, only to reappear in a little scene in Infinity War in 2018, seven years later. This is a
testament to the incredible amount of interconnected story-telling these movies have created: any
character can appear in any other movie without warning. As such, it is indeed impossible to
consider the sub-franchises presented above as individual franchises – the movies and characters are
too interconnected to classify individually.
If we go back to the numbers at hand, we realise, that no other franchise in history comes
close to releasing a new movie as often as the MCU – and as successfully.
3.3.2. How three other franchises compare
Let's look at three other franchises consisting of more than 5 movies each: the original Harry
Potter-franchise, the X-Men-franchise and lastly, the Star Wars-franchise.
The Harry Potter-franchise was the first modern franchise to completely embody what Henry
Jenkins calls convergence culture: the movies were based on a book series which wasn't even done
publishing by the time the movies started, and the studios released so much related merchandise,
that corporate convergence, also a concept used by Jenkins, exploded with the franchise.
It wasn't just books and movies, it was PC- and console-games, it was trading cards, clothes,
costumes, amusement parks and more. I will return to Jenkins' definition of convergence culture and
corporate convergence in section 4.1.
If we look at the Harry Potter-franchise, the numbers look like this:
42 / 133
Release date147
Harry Potter-movie
(DD/MM/YY)
Days since the previous release...
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
16/11/01
0 days
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
15/11/02
365 days
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
04/06/04
568 days
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
18/11/05
533 days
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
12/07/07
602 days
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
15/07/09
735 days
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt. 1
19/11/10
493 days
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt. 2
15/07/11
239 days
This brings the average between each Harry Potter-movie to 505 days (1 year, 20 weeks).
Looking at the X-Men-franchise, which released more or less at the same time as the Harry
Potter-franchise, we see another trend: the first movie was released in 2000, and the last one in the
saga will be released in 2019. With that period comes a record: Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart
share the record for continuously playing the same comicbook character for the longest amount of
time, starting with X-Men in 2000 and ending with Logan in 2017.148
Release date
20th Century Fox – Marvel-movies
(DD/MM/YY)
Days since the previous release...
X-Men
14/07/00
0 days
X-Men 2
02/05/03
1023 days
X-Men: The Last Stand
26/05/06
1121 days
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
01/05/09
1072 days
X-Men: First Class
03/06/11
764 days
The Wolverine
26/07/13
785 days
X-Men: Days of Future Past
23/05/14
302 days
Deadpool
12/02/16
631 days
X-Men: Apocalypse
27/05/16
106 days
Logan
03/03/17
281 days
Deadpool 2
18/05/18
442 day
07/06/19
385 days
X-Men: Dark Phoenix
th
This brings the average between each 20 Century Fox Marvel movie to 628 days (1 year, 37
weeks, 4 days).
While I applied the logic of "it is impossible to create discernable, individual trilogies" to the
MCU, I am here doing the same thing: one could argue that the X-Men-franchise consists of three
147The release date is not the international premiere, but the United States wide audience theater release date.
148Bui, “Hugh Jackman Now Has a Guinness World Record for Playing Wolverine.”
43 / 133
trilogies (the original X-Men, First Class X-Men and the Wolverine-trilogy), and that Deadpool is
well on his way of having his own trilogy too.
However, if you have watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, you will know that the franchises
are impossible to discern from each other, as the same cast is reoccuring and that the characters
interact with each other during time-travel. Just like the MCU being comprised of interconnected
movies, the X-Men-universe consists of the same.
The last franchise that I want to look at in terms of recurrence in the media scene is the Star
Wars-franchise. It is a little bit different than the Harry Potter- and the X-Men-franchise, in that it
predates them by at almost 25 years. Star Wars began in 1977 and has since grown into a much
bigger cultural milestone, celebrated by fans and nerds everywhere149. I will look now at the release
of each movie and compare to the MCU:
Star Wars-franchise
Release date
(DD/MM/YY)
Days since the previous release...
Episode IV: A New Hope
25/05/77
0 days
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
21/05/80
1093 days
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
25/05/83
1100 days
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
19/05/99
5893 days
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
16/05/02
1094 days
Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
19/05/05
1100 days
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
15/08/08
1184 days
Episode VII: The Force Awakens
18/12/15
2681 days
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
16/12/16
364 days
Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
15/12/17
364 days
Solo: A Star Wars Story
25/05/18
161 days
Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
20/12/19
574 days
Now, before I present the average time passed by between each Star Wars-movie, I want to
take a moment to discern three trilogies within the main franchise. As such, The Clone Wars150,
Rogue One151 and Solo152 are not a part of these three main trilogies, but are still a part of the main
story-telling universe in the Star Wars-universe.
149Hills, “Star Wars in Fandom, Film Theory, and the Museum: The Cultural Status of the Cult Blockbuster.”
150Filoni, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
151Edwards, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
152Howard, Solo: A Star Wars Story.
44 / 133
•
The original movies (Episodes IV to VI 153) were released on average every 1096.5 days (3
years, 1 day);
•
The prequel movies (episodes I to III 154) were released on average every 1097 days (3 years,
2 days);
•
The sequel movies (episodes VII to IX155) will be released on average every 732.5 days (2
years, 2 days).
However, if we take all Star Wars-movies as the same franchise, as seen equally compared to
the MCU-, Harry Potter- and X-Men-franchise, then the average time between each Star Warsmovie is actually quite different: 1300 days (3 years, 29 weeks).
An argument could be made that since the Star Wars-universe has used the same cast and
characters since the beginning (with the return of the original cast for the sequel movies), all nine
movies should be taken in a linear fashion, and so, the average of a little over five years is the most
adequate. However, the hiatuse between movie trilogies are infinitely longer than the ones in the
other franchises we have analyzed: between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, 16 years
passed, and between Revenge of the Sith and Force Awakens, 10 years passed. These long pauses
are filled in the Star Wars-universe by tv-shows, games and short stories, which have kept the fans
active in online and offline forums and discussion boards, through fandom.
The interesting aspect of analysing the differences in releases is that the MCU stands way
ahead of its competitors. No other franchise has released over two movies a year, let alone over a 10
year-period. Thus, the MCU-fandom has been fed with new material often enough, that the
transformative works fans create, do not need to gap intervals as large as the Star Wars-fandom or
the Harry Potter-fandom does. That means that the fancontent that gets created fills out the stories
in between each movie and is hypothetically consumed at a much faster rate, and discarded just as
fast.
153Lucas, Star Wars - A New Hope; Kershner, Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back; Marquand, Star Wars - Return of
the Jedi.
154Lucas, Star Wars - The Phantom Menace; Lucas, George, Star Wars - Attack of the Clones; Lucas, George, Star
Wars - Revenge of the Sith.
155Abrams, Star Wars - The Force Awakens; Johnson, Star Wars - The Last Jedi; Abrams, J. J., Star Wars - Rise of
Skywalker, 9.
45 / 133
IV. Visual theories: bridging the gap from
popular culture to academia
Approaching the topic of pop culture in academia has been done by many theorists before. In
order to understand the reaches of the MCU when it comes to fandom, it is important to look at
different aspects of visual culture and theories.
This chapter will introduce key aspects of Henry Jenkins' theories on pop cosmopolitanism
and convergence culture, in order to place the MCU in a cultural landscape and as a corporate
product. Then, this thesis will look at the birth of social medias and the role that Web 2.0 played in
establishing the MCU as such a strong presence online, before looking into theories of participatory
culture in the context of capitalism and fandom, and how those two things interact with each other.
4.1.
Pop Cosmopolitanism and convergence culture
One of the things that discerns the MCU from other franchises, is that it has ramifications and
roots spreading wide and far. Much like the Star Wars- and Harry Potter-fandoms, it is present in
almost every corporate and capitalistic venture: there are mugs, bed sheets, clothing, potato chips
and more with depictions of the MCU on them – if you can think of it, it probably exists.
Earlier, I briefly touched the subject of transmedia story-telling as defined by Henry Jenkins.
The MCU exists, as I've established before, not only as movies, but also as TV-shows, tie-in books
and comicbook preludes.
Taking a closer look at these TV-shows, we can establish which of them have a direct tie-in to
the MCU-movies. Some of them have been linked to the movies directly, while the others co-exist
in the MCU, but have never crossed with one another officially (no actor from one of the shows has
appeared in the movies and vice-versa).
They exist in the same universe, and for example, you don't have to have seen Daredevil156 to
understand the MCU-movies. However, it is best to have seen some of the MCU-movies to fully
understand Daredevil.
156Goddard, Daredevil.
46 / 133
Channel
Series
Seasons Period on air Direct tie-ins with MCU-movies
(actors reprising their roles from the
movies)
ABC
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
7
2013-?
Yes, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders and
Samuel L. Jackson have all starred in
movies as well.
Agent Carter
2
2015-2016
Yes, Hayley Atwell and James d'Arcy
appear in the MCU-movies.
Netflix
Hulu
Inhumans
1
2017
No
Daredevil
3
2015-2018
No, but all Netflix-shows interact with
Jessica Jones
3
2015-2019
each other.
Luke Cage
2
2016-2018
Iron Fist
2
2017-2018
The Defenders
1
2017
The Punisher
2
2017-2019
Runaways
3
2017-?
No
2
2018-?
No
2019-2020?
Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie
Freeform Cloak & Dagger
Disney + The Falcon and the Winter 1
Soldier
will reprise their roles as Bucky
Barnes and Sam Wilson.
WandaVision
1
2020-2021?
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany will
reprise their roles as Wanda Maximoff
and Vision.
Loki
1
2020-2021
Tom Hiddleston will do the voice over
of the series. He portrayed Loki of
Asgard in the movies.
Untitled Hawkeye Series
1
?
Jeremy Renner will reprise his role as
Clint Barton.157
Even though the Netflix, Hulu and Freeform shows do not directly interact with characters
from the MCU, the plotpoints explored in some of the shows have directly to do with the MCU. The
Disney+ shows have not debuted on screen and are still in pre-production.
Several tie-in comicbooks have been released prior to MCU-movies giving away further plot
points or explaining plot holes for the furthering of the universe (like Fury's Big Week, illustration
#9, shown on next page). Novelizations have been released, either as comicbook or novel versions
of the movies.
157As of April 24th, 2019, the Hawkeye series is still unconfirmed.
47 / 133
If we look beyond films, TV-shows, comicbooks and
regular books, theme parks and events have established a
continuity within the MCU that fans can follow, if they are
dedicated and fortunate enough to travel to these: the Avengers
S.T.A.T.I.O.N.158 is one of them. The exhibit showcases props
from the actual movies, as well as background knowledge that
exists within the canon of the MCU.
The reason I highlight this so-called "extended Marvel
Cinematic Universe" is because some of the responders to the
survey made a point to ask why I didn't consider the rest of the
MCU in my questions. I had originally only intended to look at
the scale of these 20+ movies, but as it turns out, when discussing
with the fans and being a fan myself, I have realized that the
MCU cannot be taken on its own, when discussing fan-culture, as Illustration 9: Front page of Marvel's
The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big
fans do not consider the movies on their own. It exists within a Week (2012) released prior to the
greater, intricate web that consists of shows, books and older, release of The Avengers (Copyright:
Marvel)
Marvel comicbook lore that fans and creators bring into the
movies.
Here are some of the comments I got on the survey about the division of the MCU in movies
against the MCU on other platforms159:
"Yes! I think it's important to
"The crossover between MCU and
consider the MCU shows [...] for this
other
Marvel
project as well. I'm not overly familiar with
questions on fan culture surrounding the
all of them beyond Daredevil, but I know that
MCU *in particular* difficult for me,
Daredevil does refer to the events of the
personally, to answer. Everything has rolled
Avengers, that Agents of Shield *definitely*
into one. For instance, I cosplay, but only
refers to the Avengers [...], and that most of
really Marvel comic characters, though I'd
the shows have some overlap with one
personally consider it basically the same
another as well. I also think that, because
fandom. I also own [...] clothing in regards to
they're relatively smaller *and* ongoing, the
comics characterisations of MCU characters
MCU shows might need more participation
[...] which *technically* falls outside the
from fans in things like future directions,
remit of this thesis but, in my case, would
ongoing viewership, etc. [...]"
never have occurred without the MCU. [...]"
158Marvel, “Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Interactive Exhibit | Las Vegas.”
159Bold for emphasis by me.
48 / 133
franchises
[...]
makes
"Maybe include a section about the
"You left out Deadpool!"
cartoons and animated movies. Those are
"Does Venom and Spider-man: Into
very important and impactful to fans. Ex.
Into
the
Spiderverse
and
the Spiderverse count as MCU?"
Avengers
"I didn't see [...] mentions to the
Assemble."
MCU tie-in short films that Marvel has
"You might want to include the
released. It might be interesting to check up
Marvel tie in shows (Agent Carter, Agents of
on those."
Shield, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones,
"MCU TV & Netflix"
iron fist) as another way people interact with
the MCU."
The first two responses in particular highlight the difficulty in bridging the fan-interaction in
the MCU with the rest of the canon lore associated with the movies.
Everything converges together towards a more common goal, which is the fan's enjoyment of
the media they are consuming. So, in reality, it is important to look at how the MCU has achieved
this gigantic and worldwide phenomenon status, and to do that, I need to talk about convergence
culture. Henry Jenkins wrote about corporate and grassroots convergence in his text Pop
Cosmopolitanism in 2006, defining the two as the following:
"Corporate convergence – the concentration of media ownership in the hands of a smaller and
smaller number of multinational conglomerates who thus have a vested interest in insuring the flow oe
media content across different platforms and national borders.
Grassroots convergence – the increasingly central roles that digitally empowered consumers play
in shaping the production, distribution, and reception of media content."160
The convergence culture that Jenkins presents here is in full bloom in the MCU: not only do
fans have to watch the movie, they have to follow up on the lore and canon of the movies
elsewhere. Disney, as explained previously, is currently undergoing a greater, grander corporate
convergence: buying 20th Century Fox is one of the ways the Disney-corporation is currently
appropriating a lot of pop culture within a converging action.
Likewise, their partnerships with brands is a way to extend the corporate convergence: it's
about selling tickets or cable-subscriptions, and the best way to achieve that is to create enough
supply-and-demand that the fans will follow, regardless of pricing or subscriptions.
160Jenkins, “Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media Convergence.”
49 / 133
The Netflix-universe shows are an example of this
(illustration #10): Marvel allowed Netflix to use their
characters in order to create traction and, in a capitalistic
society, make even more money than previously
attainable. The same happened when Marvel opened up to
other networks to create TV-shows with their characters.
Disney, however, is not only doing this for their Marvelempire, they are also creating a convergence with their
recent acquisition of the Star Wars-franchise, by
producing original TV-shows set within the Star Warsuniverse.
The spread of these lead to grassroots convergence
which is where the fans come in through grassroots
movements. Fan culture and fandom intervene at this
level with the source material, and it is through there that
the most massive changes or challenges occur: where
Illustration 10: Promotional poster for season
does the line between original creator and fan go?
2 of Netflix' Daredevil (Source: Netflix)
Establishing the notions of convergence culture and pop cosmopolitanism is essential when
discussing a franchise like the MCU. Without these notions it is almost impossible to come back to
the realm of fandom and where it operates – for fandom exists within the rulebooks set by the
official material, which the corporations own. As such, it is now interesting to have a look at the
emergence of social networks and what Web 2.0 meant for convergence culture.
4.2.
The importance of Social Medias
4.2.1.
Web 2.0 and what it means for fandom
Right around the shift to the new millenia, an explosive shift occured on the internet and
marked the passage from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Tim O'Reilly,
made an attempt to decipher what created this fission between the before and after, and came to the
following results161:
161O’Reilly, “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.”
50 / 133
Web 1.0
Web 2.0
DoubleClick
Google AdSense
Ofoto
Flickr
Akamai
BitTorrent
Mp3.com
Napster
Britannica Online
Wikipedia
Personal websites
Blogging
Evite
Upcoming.org and EVDB
Domain name speculation
Search engine optimization
Page views
Cost per click
Screen scraping
Web services
Publishing
Participation
Content management systems
Wikis
Directories (taxonomy)
Tagging ("folksonomy")
Stickiness
Syndication
Web 2.0 allowed users, like we see it in the above table, to create and manage their own space
on the internet. Before the shift towards a more open and liberal webspace, having an own website
or blog wasn't something widespread at all. One needed to know basic coding, and the server space
was so expensive, it was prohibitive.
However, after the web opened up, it began to create newer possibilites for fans to organize
either as a fandom, consisting of multiple fans, or as a fan, singular, a single person. O'Reilly
mentions wikis, tagging (with the concept of "folksonomy") and blogging as modern equivalents of
older aspects of the internet. Of Google, O'Reilly says the following:
"Google happens [...] as an enabler or middleman between the user and his or her online
experience.162"
Later on, he talks of the P2P platform Napster in much the same way, as a tool to open the
web to a more participatory culture:
"Napster [...] built its network not by building a centralized song database, but by architecting a
system in such a way that every downloader also became a server, and thus grew the network.163"
He later mentions BitTorrent as anoter example of P2P filesharing, when it comes to open
source materials. O'Reilly was the first man to coin the phrase "open source" about data and
programs that were freely available on the internet. Web 2.0 is a wide open field, ready to be
162O’Reilly, 20.
163O’Reilly, 21.
51 / 133
colonized by fans and fandom, in creating their own pieces of land, on each their side of the
internet. That will come in handy later on, when discussing the MCU and its relation to fandom: its
fandom can only exist in an internet landscape created by the rise of Web 2.0.
Let's look at the idea of a "folksonomy", which O'Reilly puts in contrast to a taxonomy. With
the help of Gillian Rose, we find out that:
"A folksonomy [is] an emergent, fluid and uncodified user-generated vocabulary for grouping and
naming things.164"
It is a natural, organic way of organizing on the internet, mostly through the use and spread of
hashtags, which begin with the symbol '#' followed by a bunch of words. Popularized folksonomies
are legion within fandom: PWP (porn without plot), HS AU (high school alternate universe), H/C
(hurt/comfort) for genres of fanfiction or even popular pairing names ("ships") such as Clintasha
(Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff), Stucky (Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes) or Pepperony (Pepper
Potts/Tony Stark).
Following what O'Reilly says, the rise of Web 2.0 and the so called "blogosphere"165 made the
internet a much more interactive place to exist. He continues and explains the power of Wikipedia,
quoting James Suriowecki on "the wisdom of crowds" and the value of collective attention 166, which
would not have existed without Web 2.0.
To return the discussion to fandom, it is interesting to look at what O'Reilly predicted of
successful companies:
"The competitive opportunity for new entrants is to fully embrace the potential of Web 2.0.
Companies that succeed will create applications that learn from their users, using an architecture of
participation to build a commanding advantage not just in the software interface, but in the richness of the
shared data.167"
One very fan-oriented result of this user-oriented model that exists in Web 2.0 is the fanfiction
platform Archive of Our Own (AO3), which is the most well known project of the Organization for
Transformative Works (OTW). I will return to the birth of the OTW in the middle of the 2000s
below, but to give a quick run down of the birth of the OTW, it is necessary to look at the definition
of AO3, as it is defined as a
"noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting site for transformative fanworks such as fanfiction,
164Rose, Visual Methodologies, an Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials, 298.
165O’Reilly, “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software,” 25.
166O’Reilly, 26.
167O’Reilly, 36.
52 / 133
fanart, fan videos and podfict. The Archive is a wholly fan-created and fan-run space, where fannish
creativity can benefit from the OTW's advocacy in articulating the case for its legality and social
value.168"
For the history of fandom on the internet is a big one, and most of all, it has been subjected to
many critical hits during its existence, in the shape of cease-and-desist letters, archives and websites
shutting down and more. I will return to this later as well. Here, the usage of folksonomy is
acknowledged as one of the strengths of the archive: "AO3's tagging system runs on [...] a "curated
folksonomy," one that allows users to create their own tags as people work behind the scenes to
connect the dots and keep the library organize.169"
Web 2.0 was then an important factor to the birth of what would eventually become the MCUfandom, known as such on archives such as AO3, but also on other platforms where tags relating to
it have come to life ("mcuedit" as a tag archiving all graphic edits relating to the MCU on Tumblr,
for example) and spurred their own folksonomies and their own relationships to one another, in a
big interconnected web of participation and convergence.
Just to further emphasize the importance of fan archives and the recognition it is getting (and
should get), in April 2019, the AO3 was nominated for a Hugo award, in the Best Related Work
category170.The Hugo Awards "are science fiction's most prestigious award"171. This is another point
to prove that participatory culture, including fandom, is an inevitable aspect of online pop culture,
and so, the existence of the MCU as a pop cultural phenomenon depends on it.
So how did the MCU become so popular with fans? For that, I need to look at another text in
order to get further with our understanding of the fandom and the MCU.
4.2.2.
From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production
Author and professor Lev Manovich began looking at the effects of The Language of New
Media at the turn of the millenia, looking at the Web 2.0 bubble from a media perspective. Later on,
in 2009, Manovich wrote a piece on the shift from Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production
and wrote that:
"The explosion of user-created media content on the web (dating from, say, 2005) has unleashed a
new media universe. (Other tems often used to refer to this phenomenon include social media and user-
168“Archive of Our Own – Organization for Transformative Works.”
169Busch, “An Archive of Our Own: How AO3 Built a Nonprofit Fanfiction Empire and Safe Haven | SYFY WIRE.”
170Romano, “The Archive of Our Own and Its Hugo Nomination, Explained - Vox.”
171“Introduction.”
53 / 133
generated content.)172"
In this text, he builds up on what O'Reilly wrote of Web 2.0 patterns, and continues with the
notion of user-generated content, which is a key component of what makes fandom tick – without
user-generated content, there would be no fandom. Without these interconnected ways of using the
internet, across borders and languages, there wouldn't be any form of organized fandom in the
modern way.
Manovich mentions that the number of people using social medias would evolve
exponantially through time173 and says that Web 2.0 has triggered "a fundamental shift in modern
media culture.174" He mentions the shifting border between products coming out of the culture
industry (official) and products coming out of users (fanworks) and uses the example of the AMV
(anime music video). Interestingly, although it started out as strictly anime-centered videos, AMVs
have now shifted into a more general folksonomy, according to the user-generated online
encyclopedia Urban Dictionary: "A casual video editor who puts some average time (and even a
little bit money at times) into a normal, fan-made video featuring their favorite music.175"
In the case of the MCU-fandom, several AMVs have achieved some fame: the video
"MARVEL || Glitter & Gold (collab w/ djcprod)"176 produced by YouTube users Grable424 and
djcprod has 3.4 million views.
Likewise, YouTube user Voordeel, with over 100.000 subscribers is an established AMVmaker for the MCU. They were interviewed in 2015 on their 'vidding' skills 177. Their video, "marvel
|| battle royale178" has garnered 3.1 million views on YouTube and close to 10.000 notes on the
official post of the video on the blogging platform Tumblr.
An even more recent video, "LADIES OF MARVEL, Wicked Ones.179" by YouTube user
piratesandsuperheros has garnered over 500.000 views since it was released beginning of March
2019. Moving forward, this is an excellent example of users tweaking the available material (the
MCU-movies and/or TV-shows) to fit their own narratives.
To use an example of fans modifying canon to fit their own fannish needs, other videos by
172Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 319.
173Manovich, 320.
174Manovich, 321.
175“Urban Dictionary: AMV.”
176grable424 and djcprod, “MARVEL || Glitter & Gold (Collab w/ Djcprod) - YouTube.”
177“These Curious Times Interview with Voordeel - Fanlore.”
178voordeel, “Marvel || Battle Royale - YouTube.”
179piratesandsuperheros, “LADIES OF MARVEL, Wicked Ones. - YouTube.”
54 / 133
Voordeel are adequate: they have made several videos featuring a different take of the Steve Rogers
character where he is actually a member of HYDRA (the arch nemesis of the SHIELD government
institution in the Marvel-universe)180.
This is then, another way of customizing within an existing narrative:
"The developments of the previous decade [...] led to the explosion of user-generated content
available in digital form: web sites, blogs, forum discussions, short messages, digital photos, video,
music, maps, and so on.181"
Following that, Manovich explains that companies created platforms to express all of this
creativity and user-generated content. The MCU was born in 2008 with Iron Man, and at the same
time, an incredible number of platforms became available on the web to host whatever and all
content that was needed at the time. They needed to create the platform for the content.
One other way to discuss whether or not Manovich's idea of user-generated content and
fandom work together, is to look at the number of Comic Cons which have been hosted worlwide
since 1936. Looking at the data gathered by website fancons.com and creating a chart, we can see
that popular media and conventions, before potentially called 'nerdy' or 'geeky' have been through
an exponential explosion concerning their numbers:
Number of Conventions per year since 1937
(source: fancons.com)
Number of Comic Cons
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
In 2018, there were 1733 conventions listed on the website. That's more than 4 per day. A
convention is a safe space where fans can meet up and discuss as well as perform their passions.
The interesting aspect of conventions is that it is a hybridized version of fans and companies:
180voordeel, “Captain Hydra || Lunacy - YouTube”; voordeel, “Captain Hydra || Thrill Me - YouTube.”
181Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 324.
55 / 133
2018
2015
2012
2009
2006
2003
2000
1997
1994
1991
1988
1985
1982
1979
1976
1973
1970
1967
1964
1961
1958
1955
1952
1949
1946
1943
1940
1937
0
at conventions, it is possible to meet cosplayers, comicbook artists, writers and all those who
exhibit, but also attend events usually hosted by the companies that inspire these aforementioned
artists in the first place. Attending a Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC), in Hall
H which only seats 6500 people, is an event in itself and there are attributed queues and slots
created in order to make sure that it is a fair event – some people stay in line for more than 24 hours
in order to be sure to make it to the panel.182
Discussing this fusion between users and companies, Manovich puts his finger on the conflict
of interest which has resulted in the birth of AO3 and the OTW:
"Since the companies that create social media platforms make money from having as many users
as possible visit them [...], they have a direct interest in having users pour as much of their lives into these
platforms as possible.183"
Fandom has been subjected to several hard hits when companies bought up the platforms
upon which it flourished: in 2002 and 2012, two 'purges' occured on Fanfiction.net when the
moderators decided to delete all mature fanfictions off the website with no warning whatsoever. The
corporations who had bought up Fanfiction.net would not support any mature or NSFW content,
and as such, all the mature content had to be effectively 'purged' from the platform, in an act of
mass-censorship in the hopes of saving a capitalistic investment in a fanfiction website.
The reason why AO3 and OTW are nonprofit is because of companies buying up hosting
services (Geocities, Quizilla, etc.) and expecting the users to create enough content to generate
turnover, as capitalistic companies do. Fans literally took matters into their own hands in order to
fight the companies and corporations trying to monetize what was being done freely: they made
AO3 as an archive of their own.184.
This follows the developments of fandom in the second half of the 2000s. As this graph
shows, by the middle of the 2000s, different forms of social medias were officially taking their
place in the landscape of Web 2.0 and followed the shift from what Manovich calls "old familiar
terms" to more modern, individual themes185:
By the time Iron Man was released in theaters in 2008, we had YouTube, Facebook, Reddit,
Tumblr, Twitter, which were joined in 2010 by Instagram and 2011 by Snapchat 186. The MCU exists
182Some friends of mine attended SDCC 2014 and prior to the Marvel-panel that year waited in line for over 35 hours.
183Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 325.
184systlin, “Purge of 2002? Of 2012? What ARE Those?”
185MJ, “Timeline of Social Media, 2017.”
186The above timeline is available in bigger size in appendix #7.
56 / 133
in an online environment that faciliates the expression of someone's content, opinion and
conversation in a mix-match of blog posts, opinions, stories, art and memes (illustration #11):
Illustration 11: Timeline of Social Medias (2017) (source: Miriam J. Johnson)
Manovich later quotes the work of social media designer Adrian Chan, in order to describe
this shift in online behavior: the conversation happens in the content created (what gets posted on
these social medias) and in the comment section of these items. For example, anyone who has been
on the internet in the past decade knows that YouTube's comment section is "the only place where a
polite discussion about kittens can lead to a flame war about government conspiracies. 187" This
follows exactly what Manovich explains in his own text:
"[...] Web infrastructure and software allow such conversations to become distributed in space and
time; people can respond to each other regardless of their location, and the conversation can in theory go
forever.188"
Conversations are happening all the time at the same time and can be about anything. From
there, Manovich goes ahead and discusses the options in the art world and cinema world showing
precedence of fan culture – transformative works can be defined as a critique of the original canon
material.
The following text post shared on Tumblr by user actuallylotor has been shared more than
50.000 times across the blogging platform and perfectly illustrates the line between canon, fandom
and commentary189 (illustration #12):
187“Urban Dictionary: Youtube Comments.”
188Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 327.
189actuallylotor, “My Favorite Kind of Fanfics Are ‘Canon Divergence’ Because It’s Always like Handing Back a
Reviewed Essay with Comments like ‘I Enjoyed the Strong Beginning but Here Is Where You Lost Me, I’ve Made
Some Notes.’”
57 / 133
Illustration 12: Tumblr post by user actuallylotor (Source: Tumblr.com)
Therefore, a good amount of fanfiction writers (and other fans) consider their works to be
responses to the original material. But the line between canon and fandom, as well as commentary
goes beyond that, when one takes a step back and looks at art and literature history. Additionally,
Manovich highlights the possibility of interaction between the company itself and the users, canon
vs fandom in a way:
"In the case of web 2.0, individuals, rather than only professional producers, directly talk to each
other using different media, and the exchange can happen within hours.
Because of their two-way nature, conversations between people conducted through and around
visual and/or sound objects can also be related to exchanges between professional critics.190"
There are many examples of such interactions on the internet – one of which I can provide
myself. In October 2014, after The Winter Soldier was released and the marketing strategy for
Spectre191 had begun, I asked the creator of the HYDRA logo in Marvel-comics, Jim Steranko, on
Twitter, whether or not he had been inspired by the Spectre logo from the James Bond movies:
To which Jim Steranko replied the following192:
190Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 328–29.
191Mendes, Spectre.
192Steranko, .“.@CMRoedere I Designed the HYDRA SYMBOL in My First SHIELD Tale Maybe Thinking If It Was
Good Enough for 007, It Was Good Enough for Hydra!”
58 / 133
Effectively, looking at the two symbols side by side, the inspiration becomes obvious, but
thanks to the availability of Steranko through his Twitter-account, I was able to confirm what I was
suspecting because of the similarity between the two logos – and from the time-line I had managed
to piece together at the time:
The SPECTRE-logo with the effective octopus shape debuted
in From Russia With Love193 in 1963 (illustration #13), whereas the
similarly looking HYDRA logo debuted in August of 1965 194
(illustration #14).
The conversations between fans and professionals can then
produce new content that is "fan-service", that is an ode to the
different comments and opinions fans share on these internet
services in Web 2.0.
Illustration 13: The SPECTRE
logo from Eon Productions, first
appearing in 1963, updated in
2015 for Spectre (Source: Eon
Productions)
The other aspect that Manovich introduces with the opposition
between mass consumption and mass production, is that fans have a
much larger voice: they can scare professionals off social medias as
happened in the Star Wars-fandom both to actresses Daisy Ridley195
and Kelly Marie Tran196 and can even rattle productions and get
directors fired, as happened to James Gunn getting fired (July 2018)197
from his position as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 over
decade old tweets – a position to which he has since been restored
(March 2019)198. This is a perfect example what Manovich himself
says:
"[Conversations between users and fans] play increasingly
important roles in shaping professionally produced media. Game
producers, musicians, and film companies try to react to what fans
Illustration 14: The HYDRA logo
from Marvel Comics, first
appearing in 1965 (Source:
Marvel Comics)
say about their products, implement fans' wishes and even shape story
lines in response to conversation among cultural consumers.199"
And, according to Manovich, fans can have a much more
193Young, From Russia With Love.
194Wallace et al., Marvel Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the Marvel Universe, 178.
195Bryant, “Daisy Ridley Deletes Instagram Account over Post About Gun Violence.”
196Chuba and Chuba, “‘Star Wars’ Actress Kelly Marie Tran Leaves Social Media After Months of Harassment.”
197Lang and Lang, “James Gunn Fired From ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.’”
198Donnelly and Donnelly, “James Gunn Returns to Direct ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3.’”
199Manovich, “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life,” 329.
59 / 133
important role on the officially produced materials and even get to be a part of the projects they
were fans of.
Going off on a tangent that does not relate to the MCU in general, I can mention the example
of DeviantArt artist "arvalis", known as RJ Palmer, who rose to fame on the internet in 2012 by
drawing "realistic Pokémon200", and eventually got hired to work on the concept art for the official
Detective Pikachu-movie201, released in 2019202. There was no way for Arvalis to know, at the time
he began drawing these fanarts, that he would end up working officially for Pokémon – but that is
the world that exists thanks to Web 2.0 and the creative culture that comes with it.
Discussing Manovich's Practice of Everyday (Media Life) is an interesting way to look at how
interactive the internet is and can be – nobody exists on the internet in a vacuum and is the result of
the environment they coexist in. Especially MCU-fans – the MCU was born in the midst of an
explosion of social medias and its first movie premiered the same year as AO3 was founded –
therefore the fan-community and landscape has been entirely dependent on the eco-system it was
born into in 2008.
4.3.
Participatory culture
Before I can look at what participatory culture was in 2008, I need to take a look at what it
was before the age of digital medias and what it meant to be a fan, looking back in history books
and throughout the different landmarks of what created fandom. In order to do that, I will look at
transformative works, fanfiction and the world of fans and try to map out how it all began and who
the modern fan is.
4.3.1. Fandom as seen through fandom
In order to discuss the origins of fandom, it is quite interesting to look at how fandom itself
defines its origins – and how important it is to remember what came before the Internet and what
came before social media.
The first official, organized fandom is widely believed to be fans of Sherlock Holmes. In the
late 19th Century, it was fans of the detective who became the first version of fans that we know of,
by writing fanfiction – although it was called pastiches and parodies at the time 203. The term
fanfiction would only appear later on, especially around the 1930s when the first Convention
200Arvalis, “Realistic Pokemon by Arvalis on DeviantArt.”
201Letterman, Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
202Life, “‘Realistic Pokémon’ Artist Landed Detective Pikachu Movie Job After Being Discovered On Google.”
203Staff, “Scott Brown on Sherlock Holmes, Obsessed Nerds, and Fan Fiction.”
60 / 133
(World Science Fiction Convention) was held – a convention which is still held today.
However, there are other aspects of fandom and fanculture that often get forgotten in
discussions. It is important to remember that fandom and transformative works are but one aspect of
a long history of story-telling, and a quote from 2012 on Tumblr sums it up pretty well: "without
people doing what fanfiction writers do, literature wouldn't exist. 204" Fanfiction is but the retelling
of an already known story, transforming it into something new. As the quote below:
"Most of the history of Western literature [...] is adapted or appropriated from something else.
Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic [...] Milton wrote Bible
fanfic, and everyone and their mom spent the Middle Ages writing King Arthur fanfic.[...] Shakespeare
doesn’t have a single original plot–although much of it would be more rightly termed RPF [Real person
fic, red.].205"
And, as far as fanart goes, this other Tumblr post explains it pretty well206 (illustration #15):
Looking at the advance
of technology and the move
from
literary
(Sherlock
characters
Holmes)
to
tv-
characters, it becomes obvious
that a major shift in fandom
Illustration 15: Tumblr post by user twinkleofafadingstar (Source:
Tumblr.com)
happened around the same
time that televisions made
their ways into modern homes in the 1970s. At the time, Star Trek 207 had been launched, as had The
Man from U.N.C.L.E208.
Before one could simply open a new internet tab and search for fanfictions through
established folksonomies, fans had to meet in public or through the publication of fanzines. As such,
bringing media into the home was the perfect launch for a massive surge of fancreated content,
through different mediums. They simply became more interconnected with each other as technology
advanced, and even more so when Web 2.0 opened up the web, and through that, folksonomies
became an integral part of the fandom experience.
An example of these folksonomies is illustrated by a popular text post on Tumblr 209
(illustration #16):
204inkandcayenne, “What You Think about Fanfiction?”
205inkandcayenne.
206twinkleofafadingstar, “FANART IS NOT REAL ART!!!”
207“Star Trek: The Original Series.”
208“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
209bootycap, “Ao3 Mcu a:Aou Abo Bdsm Ot3 Hs Au Pwp.”
61 / 133
Illustration 16: Tumblr post by user bootycap (source: Tumblr.com)
The use of these folksonomies210 would then find a very specific type of fanfiction, which
allows users to find what seek.
Conventions started becoming more and more widespread, and mailing groups (public and
private) appeared on the early landscapes of Web 1.0, right up until the 1990s and the beginning of
the shift towards a more open internet, leading up to the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. As one
documented fan entry on Fanlore reminds us, there were a lot of big fandoms well into the 1990s:
"EXAMPLES OF BIG FUCKING DEAL FANDOMS, 90s EDITION: X-Files, Xena, Star Trek, Star
Wars, AsoIaF, The West Wing, Buffy211."
Taking a moment and looking back at the fandoms listed above, we can notice that X-Files,
Star Trek, Star Wars, and A Song of Ice and Fire all have been kept visible in the cultural
atmosphere since they debuted officially.212 However, fandom owes a great deal to Star Trek – it is
generally accepted that Star Trek was the main inspiration for a variety of widespread fanfiction
tropes or settings. Such as the infamous "sex pollen" trope which comes from one of the early Star
Trek-episodes213, and has found its way to wider fandom through there and since then214.
But what is fandom? Is it solely the discussion of media creations or productions, such as
books, tv-shows and movies? Or is it a broader term for 'hobbies'? For, is there really a difference
between the Game of Thrones-fan who wears his merchandise every single day to work and the
210The folksonomies in the text post are as follows: ao3: Archive of Our Own; mcu: Marvel Cinematic Universe;
a:aou: Avengers: Age of Ultron; abo: Alpha/Beta/Omega-dynamics; bdsm: Bondage and Discipline, Sadism and
Masochism; ot3: pairing with three characters; hs au: High School Alternate Universe; pwp: Porn Without Plot.
211ofhouseadama, “A Brief History of fandom, for the Teenagers on Here Who Somehow Think Tumblr Invented
fandom,” Fanlore.org, n.d., http://thishedgehog.tumblr.com/post/99399043330/notyourexrotic-ofhouseadama-abrief-history.
212The X-Files originally finished its run in 2001, but was picked up for broadcast in 2016. Star Trek has continuously
produced movies and tv-shows since it premiered in the 1960s, Star Wars, appeared in the 1970s only to be picked
up again in the 2000s and now in the 2010s, and lastly, A Song of Ice and Fire has been adapted into one of the
world's most popular tv-shows under the name Game of Thrones.
213Senensky, “This Side of Paradise.”
214According to Fanlore, Sex Pollen is "a common fanfiction triope used to bring two characters together in a sexual
encounter. It involves [characters] becoming infected with a pollen [...] that causes them to lose inhibitions and/or
revs up libido." (Source: Fanlore.org)
62 / 133
football fan who wears his Manchester United-jersey to work and watches the matches every week?
An argument has presented before that it may have to do with gender:
"Of course, sports fandom is masculine. It’s overwhelmingly male-dominated, it’s macho, it’s
something we as a culture have decided is "manly." [...] Media fandom’s image is, if not feminine, at the
very least a hell of a lot less masculine than sports fandom — and that makes it weird. And fanfiction is
not only "unmasculine" but actively feminine, designed for women rather than men — and that makes it
gross and dangerous.215"
For media fans, according to my survey, are mostly female. It can be considered a response to
most of the media being targeted towards what Laura Mulvey introduced as the male gaze216 in her
work on feminist film criticism in 1989: most superhero-movies are seen through the eyes of the
hero, and as such, the eyes of the male spectator 217. Thus, the female fans are met with a need to
transform it into something that caters to their female gaze instead.
But is it true, that females are
Gender Identification
dominant in the cultural landscape of
(survey results)
transformative works? In my survey, 80%
of the responders were female, 10% were
Female
Male
Non-binary
male and 10% identified as non-binary.
That's four out of five. Effectively, they
are fangirls, rather than fanboys. When
most people think of a 'fangirl', they
might imagine someone young, usually in
high school, probably a woman, who
probably writes slash fiction (porn).
However, that is not the case in the results of my survey:
The average age of responders is 25 years old, with the median being 23. The below graph
shows that a vast majority of responders are not teenagers anymore, but also well educated.
As a matter of fact, looking at the numbers again, we can see that only 1 out of 3 is a teenager
– that is, between the ages of 12 and 19, 12 being the youngest responder to the survey, with the
oldest responder being 70 years old. That means that the remainder, 2 out of 3 are effectively older
than teenagers, and as such, not in high school anymore.
215Grady, “Why We’re Terrified of Fanfiction.”
216Rose, Visual Methodologies, an Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials, 165.
217Rose, 159.
63 / 133
Age of respondents to the survey
200
150
100
50
Age
And, as far as education goes, the majority of responders had an education which ranked
higher than the high school degree:
What is your highest education qualification?
Would rather not say
Don't know
Doctoral or equivalent
Master or equivalent
Bachelor or equivalent
High School
Primary education
Pre-primary education
No education
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
More than half of the responders had an education higher than the high school diploma (55%),
whereas the remaining (45%) hadn't gotten past high school. And, looking at the location of all
responders, it becomes quite clear that the average responder lives in North America.
64 / 133
70
68
66
64
62
60
58
56
54
52
50
48
46
44
42
40
38
36
34
32
30
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
0
12
Number of answers
250
Where do you live?
Oceania
Europe
South America
North America
Africa
Asia
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
So, in reality, if we were to make an average member of organized fandom, she would be:
about 25 years old, have finished High School, would be in the process of taking a Bachelor degree
or equivalent, and be living in North America.
Although I earlier looked at the responses on whether or not fandom in general read or wrote
fanfiction and made or enjoyed fanart, I will look at the differences in reading or writing fanfiction
based on the responders' gender.
Do you read fanfiction?
sorted by gender (in %)
Female
Male
Non-binary
100
80
60
40
20
0
Yes
No
Here we can see that 88% of all females read fanfiction whereas 11% don't. But if we look at
the male responses, we can see that 43% of them read fanfiction, whereas 55% of them don't. Of the
non-binary responders, 90% of them read fanfiction whereas 10% don't.
We can see the gender bias in action here: women and non-binary people are far more likely
to read fanfiction than males are. Even more so, the norm for the men is actually to not read
fanfiction, as the majority of the male responders said that they didn't read fanfiction.
65 / 133
Do you write fanfiction?
sorted by gender (in %)
100
Female
Male
Non-binary
80
60
40
20
0
Yes
No
The same behavior becomes apparent when comparing who writes fanfiction: 43.7% of all
women write fanfiction, whereas 55.6% don't. Of the males, only 20.1% write fanfiction, with the
remaining 79.3% not writing fanfiction. And, of the non-binary responders, 55.6% write fanfiction,
43.8% don't.
Again, the different behavior towards fanfiction favors the females and non-binary
responders, as the males seem less interested in interacting with fanfiction directly. Could that have
to do with the way that media is targeted towards males rather than females and non-binary people,
and as such, males don't need to read another version of what happened on screen? That is a
hypothesis I will approach in the next chapter, when discussing the male gaze.
It is not a stretch to call the MCU-fandom a largely female space – or at least, a space mostly
built and entertained by females and non-binary people, in comparison to the official material,
which is mostly created by men, for men. The relationship between the MCU and its fandom is
largely influenced by which demography makes up the fandom space. The results gathered here are
a reflexion of the responses I got on my survey.
Thus, it is possible that if shared on another social media, like Reddit, the survey would have
gotten a different responses, as Reddit users represent largely more males than females 218, whereas
Tumblr, the channel through which I shared my survey, splits that representation down in the
middle219.
218Sattelberg, “The Demographics of Reddit: Who Uses the Site?”
219Blogger, “Tumblr Users Statistics 2016 Infographics | GMI.”
66 / 133
4.3.2. Social Media and Capitalism
However, speaking in terms of fandom and pop culture, it is impossible to discuss pop culture
and social media without looking at the advances Web 2.0 capitalism has had in the last decades or
so.
For, the MCU and its fandom are an excellent example of the blurring of lines between
consumers and producers – in a way that Christian Fuchs introduces in his commentary on Social
Media and Capitalism220. In his own words:
"The negative aspects of social media need to be further analysed in order to temper the uncritical
social media-optimism that is an ideological manifestation of the search for new capital accumulation
models, which are based on the exploitation of user labour in order to raise the profit rate in the digital
media industry.221"
What Fuchs describes as an exploitation of user-generated content to further capitalistic
motives, Tiziana Terranova calls "free labor" in her dissertation of the same title 222. Free labor is the
more critical view of fandom as an exploited labor, for fans, by creating new content (remixing,
rewriting, cosplaying, etc.) are in fact creating more advertising and giving the corporations new
platforms to exist on. And this, all without these corporations having to spend an extra cent on
marketing or publicity: the fans and consumers are doing it for them. That is exactly what Abigail
de Kosnik claims in her work, "Fandom as Free Labor":
"Online fan productions constitue unauthorized marketing for a wide variety of commodities –
almost every kind of product has attracted a fandom os some kind.223"
Free labor is defined as the unpaid exploitation of voluntary workers on the internet and goes
hand in hand with what Fuchs declares in a capitalistic model of society on social media: whatever
is done freely (voluntarily) represents labor for the corporations, and should be considered what
Terranova calls free labor.
Fuchs uses an older notion, that of the "prosumer", which was introduced in 1980 by Alvin
Toffler, defined as such: "the progressive blurring of the line that separates producer from
consumer.224" In such, the prosumer both creates and consumes products within their center of
interest. Both Fuchs and Terranova use a Marxistic approach to fandom and free labor, although
Fuchs discussed social media in general, from a capitalistic point of view.
220Fuchs, “Social Media and Capitalism.”
221Fuchs, 27.
222Terranova, “Free Labor,” 33.
223Abigail De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” in Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory, 2012, 99.
224Fuchs, “Social Media and Capitalism,” 32.
67 / 133
The previous chapter focused on the location of the MCU-fandom, and found out that it
existed online, within a very capitalistic skeleton: the loss of entire parts of fandom history due to
corporations buying up the platforms which hosted fandom and then getting rid of them when there
weren't profitable anymore is a primary example of this blurring of lines between existing on a free
social media and on a social media that is controlled by corporations.
This is where fandom comes through again, with what De Kosnik calls societies "with
particular hierarchies, values and belief systems.225"
Terranova uses an older term, digital economy226, to isolate what is happening on online social
media. Richard Barbrook introduced the term in the 1990s, right before the shift to Web 2.0
occured. Recalling what O'Reilly said before, it is logical that the entrance of capitalistic corporate
agendas onto the free internet created a more controlled use of the web: in a sense, although users
believe that they exist in a free, uncontrolled environment, they exist in fact, in a very closed
controlled environment, that exists solely to create profit.
Fuchs says this: the prosumers have become objects to sell (the data gathered online is sold to
third party corporations for capitalistic enrichment) but also objects to sell to (advertisements for
items or services they can buy) 227. The cross between Terranova's principle of free labor and Fuchs'
thoughts on capitalistic ventures onto the free internet create an interesting topic when talking about
the MCU-fandom.
As such, it is interesting to take the case of Endgame and how it reached $2 billion in ticket
sales within 11 days only – breaking all box-office records in the process228. It reached the $1 billion
mark within it's first five days 229 – something which hasn't been achieved before – and the closest to
the record, was the previous Avengers-movie, Infinity War, who reached the $1 billion milestone in
11 days.
So what is it, that made these movies so extremely successful within the very first days? I will
say that it is in part a mix of this capitalistic venture that Fuchs discusses, and of Terranova's idea of
free labor. It is necessary to understand that a huge part of the marketing and of the creation of
MCU-movies has had to do with spoilers and what modern media is calling "spoiler culture230".
225De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” 99.
226Terranova, “Free Labor,” 35.
227Fuchs, “Social Media and Capitalism,” 33.
228Brevet, “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Decimates Record Books with $1.2 Billion Global Debut - Box Office Mojo.”
229Brevet, “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Tops $2 Billion Globally, En Route to Dominant Second Weekend - Box Office
Mojo.”
230Collin, “Let’s Talk about Spoilers: Why ‘Spoiler Culture’ Is Demeaning to the Real Power and Beauty of Film.”
68 / 133
Spoiler culture is the exaggerated mystification of not discussing pop culture stories or plot
points with other people, in fear of spoiling their enjoyment of it – that is, destroying the "holy shit"
moments they could have had while watching the movie, playing the game or reading the books. It's
moments like the reveal in Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader reveals to Luke that he is in fact
Luke's father231, or when Eddard Stark's head got chopped off in the first season of Game of
Thrones232.
But, the intensive spoiler culture we have come to know wasn't as intense a thing as it is, until
very recently. Spoiler culture has always existed, but it has been extremely intensified by modern
pop culture and social media, especially with the MCU.
When the Russo brothers released an anti-spoiler campaign prior to the release of Infinity War
by using the hashtag #ThanosDemandsYourSilence,233 and when they repeated that anti-spoiler
campaign for Endgame with the hashtag #DontSpoilTheEndgame234, they created a statute of
secrecy surrounding their movies: a secretive media picture that Quentin Tarantino has copied in his
marketing of upcoming movie Once Upon A Time in Hollywood235. But when fans manage to guess
plot points prior to the release of the material, should said material then be changed in order to
surprise the audience? That is what happened with season two of the tv-show Westworld, whose
writer rewrote episodes because the plot had been guessed by some fans on Reddit 236. And, like a
popular Tumblr post said, having to do that, usually means that "the stakes are too high.237"
How does this relate to Fuchs and his stance on capitalism?
Well, it boils down to the fact that most consumers of pop culture have now been taught to
avoid spoilers at all costs, and that means watching the source of spoilers as fast as possible after it
has been released. For if you've already seen the episode or the movie, you can't be spoiled, can
you? And here comes the capitalistic kicker: if you're one of the first people to see it, you need to
buy a ticket to the theater among some of the first ones, and that means you need to see it on
opening night, along with the rest of the country. And that causes ticketing websites to crash 238. And
breaks pre-sale records239. And, as established previously, obliterates records, by grossing $1 billion
231Marquand, Star Wars - Return of the Jedi.
232Taylor, “Fire and Blood.”
233Williams, “‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Directors Russo Brothers Beg Fans to Avoid Spoilers:
#ThanosDemandsYourSilence.”
234Foreman, “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Directors Beg Fans: #DontSpoilTheEndgame.”
235Agar, “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Launches Avengers-Style Anti-Spoiler Campaign.”
236Hooton, “Westworld Season 2 Will ‘Fuck with the Metaphysical.’”
237thesaltofcarthage, “Avengers: Endgame and Stakes That Are Too High.”
238D’Alessandro and D’Alessandro, “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Sets First-Day Presales Record For Fandango & Atom;
Marvel High For Regal: CinemaCon – Update.”
239Cavanaugh, “Avengers: Endgame Has Just Broken Pretty Much Every Record Fandango Has.”
69 / 133
dollars in five days.
For a corporation like Disney and Marvel Studios, that record establishes them as the #1
movie studio and, if Endgame manages to dethrone Avatar from the highest-grossing movie spot, it
would be an achivement with no precedence whatsoever.
But, Disney can't break all these records without their fans, without the labor of their fans and
without the consumption that these fans bring. For, when headlines like "a five-minute Endgame
leak is making Marvel movie fans miserable 240" are being written, then it comes with the Web 2.0
territory. Just as Fuchs writes it:
"Corporate social media are not a realm of user/prosumer participation, but a realm of Internet
prosumer commodification and exploitation. The exploitation of Internet prosumer labour is one of the
many tendencies of contemporary capitalism. It is characteristic for a phase of capitalist development, in
which the boundaries between play/labour and private/public become blurred.241"
And, if we take the spoiler culture even further, Terranova plays into it as well, when she
discusses what she calls the gift economy:
"Participants in the gift economy are not reluctant to use market resources and government funding
to pursue a potlatch economy of free exchange.242"
Is there any way to correlate spoiler culture, free labor and social media capitalism to the
MCU and their movies?
By looking at their worldwide gross and their budgets, it should give a better idea to how
audiences reacted to the movies at the times of their release and the success that came with them
through time. If we look at the different MCU-movies and their respective budgets and worldwide
grosses, we can see, in fact, an acceleration in the box-office success that has come through time243:
240Robertson, “A Five-Minute Avengers: Endgame Leak Is Making Marvel Movie Fans Miserable.”
241Fuchs, “Social Media and Capitalism,” 39.
242Terranova, “Free Labor,” 36.
243The numbers for Captain Marvel and Endgame were picked on May 24th 2019 and may have changed since then,
since both movies are still running in theaters at the time of writing this thesis.
70 / 133
MCU lifetime gross (in millions)
Production budget
(source: Box Office Mojo)
Worldwide gross
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
Avengers: Endgame
Captain Marvel
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Thor: Ragnarok
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Doctor Strange
Captain America: Civil War
Ant-Man
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Thor: The Dark World
Iron Man 3
Marvel's the Avengers
Captain America: The First Avenger
Thor
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man
0
It becomes even more obvious through the above chart that the MCU is in another league
entirely when it comes to box-office successes. Worldwide, only 39 movies have grossed more than
$1 billion in the box-office, and out of those 39, eight belong to the MCU – that's one out of five.
However, if we look at how fan communities reacted in the immediate days following the
release of Endgame, it was to find a CAM-version of the movie online 244 and use the movie in
244A CAM-version is a version where someone has filmed the movie screen in the theater and uploaded footage online.
71 / 133
transformative ways to discuss or create gifts for each other, based on illegally obtained material.
One such example is the Tumblr-blog "starkked", where the owner saw Endgame on the 27th of
April, less than 24 hours after the worldwide release of the movie, and stated, publicly that: "ps:
gifs are coming :P245", implicitely promising fanart based on a pirated version of the movie. Gifs are
short animated pictures on social media.
This is where fanworks and free labor break off of Fuchs' view on social media and where it
approaches Terranova's a little bit more: as soon as prosumers begin to use illegally obtained
materials to create their content, it goes against the corporation behind it. For, the corporation
cannot endorse something that was done illegally, with the use of a pirated copy of the movie, can
it? No, Disney can't endorse user-generated content that goes against the law. But, even though the
movie was available online before even it was released worldwide, it hasn't stopped it from
breaking box-office records.
Thus, the corporation exists as momentum to fuel creativity in user-generated content that will
in turn fuel the corporation, which will feed back into the user-generated content – it is a wheel
spinning back and forth through which pop culture evolves forward. As such, the MCU has had a
positive capitalistic feedback from spoiler culture and user-generated content on social medias, as it
has benefitted by the engagement of its fans through fandom.
4.3.3: Free labor and fandom as free labor
This spinning wheel depends on free labor as "this excessive activity that makes the internet a
thriving and hyperactive medium, [...] a feature of the cultural economy at large and an important,
yet unacknowledged, source of value in advanced capitalist societies.246"
Terranova's text is a little bit outdated when it comes to the notion of something being
"unacknowledged", as movie directors Joe and Anthony Russo have acknowledged fan labor as
something that influenced their very professional and corporate roles in the MCU, when they were
making Winter Soldier.
The YouTube account Screen Junkies, established in 2011247, has become famous in doing an
Emmy-nominated series of parody trailers of films called Honest Trailers. These trailers are meant
as parodies of the official movie, where they tear movies apart by acknowledging plotholes or poor
story-telling. But, Honest Trailers surpassed its place in the fandom and unacknowledged part of
245starkked, “I Feel like Sharing My Thoughts about the Movie with You Guys.”
246Terranova, “Free Labor,” 33.
247“Screen Junkies.”
72 / 133
culture when Joe Russo said that "we literally tried to Honest Trailer proof the movie.248" This was
further addressed when the directors guested on a special-edition video hosted by Screen Junkies
and discussed the idea further: "it was always my phrase, like, I'm not gonna fucking let Honest
Trailers beat us up over this, so we're going to fix this story point.249"
The Russo brothers were , as such, breaking out of the preconceived idea of free labor as
being unacknowledged by capitalistic societies.
Another idea that Terranova uses a lot in her text is the idea of gift economy, which I have
already introduced. An example has already been presented, when discussing AMVs in section 3.2.2
when discussing Lev Manovich and his theories on the global village. This notion of gift economy
goes hand in hand with De Kosnik's work on fan culture. In it, she uses Henry Jenkin's and Matt
Hills' texts on fandom. Earlier, I mentioned the example of the "canon divergence" fanfiction, with a
Tumblr post as an example of such250, but, it is also another example of what Jenkins called
participatory culture and what Terranova calls gift economy:
"Media fans, Jenkins observes, write fan fiction and fan commentary, and make art and music and
videos, as a way to create their version of a text, the text as they would like it to be, the text that serves
their needs best. From Jenkins, we learn that fan labor is often the work of customization, the making of
mass-produced things into things that serve individuals' particular and peculiar desires and wishes. 251"
But isn't that what we've seen before, with the "canon divergence" fanfictions, with the
"Captain Hydra" videos on YouTube252, or the realistic pokémon253?
The very notion that billion-dollar industry movie directors are taking the words of fans and
using it as a criticism to their work, is where the interesting blur between lines happens: for how
many things in the movies have been put in there because a fan or a creative "hive-mind" said so? If
casting choices can be made through fanart 254, then what's to say that fans can't have a much bigger
effect?
248Weintraub, “Joe Russo and Anthony Russo Talk CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, the Deleted
Scenes, Trying to Make the Film Honest Trailer-Proof, and More.”
249Screen Junkies, Russo Brothers’ Honest Reaction to Winter Soldier Honest Trailer.
250actuallylotor, “My Favorite Kind of Fanfics Are ‘Canon Divergence’ Because It’s Always like Handing Back a
Reviewed Essay with Comments like ‘I Enjoyed the Strong Beginning but Here Is Where You Lost Me, I’ve Made
Some Notes.’”
251De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” 102.
252voordeel, “Captain Hydra || Lunacy - YouTube”; voordeel, “Captain Hydra || Thrill Me - YouTube.”
253Arvalis, “Realistic Pokemon by Arvalis on DeviantArt.”
254Mueller, “Joe Manganiello Was Offered Deathstroke Role Because Of Fan Art.”
73 / 133
Perhaps, an effect like the intense backlash and outrage255 of the upcoming Sonic-movie256:
after releasing the first trailer to the movie, fans were so angry at the design of the famous
videogame character that the director of the movie went to Twitter to announce that they were going
to redesign the character entirely to please the fans 257. Or when more than one million Game of
Thrones fans signed a petition to remake season 8258. This is exactly what De Kosnik meant when
she used Jenkins' ideas of fan positioning:
"Fans are eager to praise what is right about an object, point out what is wrong, and propose
solutions and new directions for the development of that object because they think that fandom is what
completes and perfects the object.259"
However, the praise can also be critical and even some form of distancing. There are many
types of fanfiction within fan communities, such as alternate universe or AU (putting Marvel
characters into the Harry Potter-universe, for example), fix-it (fixing whatever canon did that made
the fan unhappy), and everybody lives/nobody dies (where deaths in canon are reversed for the sake
of happier endings). This list is non exhaustive, but it gives an idea of how big the role of fandom
and transformative works is: it allows fans to create the "best and highest promise of their favored
objects.260"
An example of this, is the
reaction to the release of Endgame
brought upon the MCU-fandom a
nostalgia to 'better days', meaning
the time when The Avengers had
just come out and "everyone was
happy"261 (illustration #17).
Illustration 17: Tumblr post by captainleonardmccoy (Source:
Tumblr.com)
255Alexander, “Sonic’s Live-Action Design Upset the Entire Internet, so the Studio Is Changing It”; Pearson, “‘Sonic
the Hedgehog’ Director Says He’s Redesigning the Character Due to Fan Outrage”; Gramuglia, “Why Sonic the
Hedgehog’s Movie Design Is Being Fixed - and Why It Matters.”
256Fowler, Sonic the Hedgehog.
257Fowler, “Thank You for the Support. And the Criticism. The Message Is Loud and Clear... You Aren’t Happy with
the Design & You Want Changes. It’s Going to Happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega Are Fully Committed to
Making This Character the BEST He Can Be... #sonicmovie #gottafixfast.”
258Bennett and Bennett, “More Than 1 Million Disappointed Fans Sign Petition Demanding ‘Game of Thrones’ Season
8 Remake.”
259De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” 103.
260De Kosnik, 103.
261jezi-belle, “So Who Else Misses 2012 and the ‘They All Live in the Tower and Tony Made Them Separate Floors’
Fanfics after Seeing That Shit Fire Angsty Trailer.”
74 / 133
Within the MCU-fandom, there is an understanding of the limitations with which the canon
material exist: although Endgame broke all kinds of box-office records in the first weeks after its
release, it was still ill received for some of its writing and decisions regarding characters.
The decision, for example, to include
an openly gay character was met with
skepticism from the fandom262 (illustration
#18)- especially when the character was
revealed to be unnamed and unimportant. For
the MCU-fandom this was even more
vexxing, knowing that Tessa Thompson, who
played Valkyrie in Ragnarok, had fought hard
to show her character as being openly Illustration 18: Internet meme circulating online after the
release of Endgame (Source: Unknown)
bisexual on screen – including a scene
addressing the issue, which was cut out of the final movie263.
This goes hand in hand with the notion that "fans often think that it is official producers'
profit-seeking motives that lead them to make
incorrect or less-than-optimal decisions about
their products, leaving fans to salvage or modify
the products to which they have become attached,
spurred by love and frustration, not by money.264"
This has been discussed as "shock value" and
online fandoms have called that writing lazy265
(illustration #19).
Illustration 19: Tumblr post by thomasmxller
(Source: Tumblr.com)
And, to come back to something I have addressed earlier but haven't explained, this notion of
'queerbaiting' is also the reason why The Winter Soldier was the most popular movie in the survey I
conducted amongst fans. Another extremely important aspect of this, is the notion that one of the
most popular ships in the MCU-fandom is the one that pairs Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in a
same sex romantic relationship.
Shipping, as Sam Maggs explains it, "is taken from the word "relationship," and it describes
both a romantic pairing and the act of really, really wanting two people to kiss/be together
262Crooked Media, Time for a Gay Marvel Hero | Lovett or Leave It.
263“Let’s Talk About LGBTQ Representation in Avengers: Endgame.”
264De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” 109.
265thomasmxller, “Fucking up Character Arcs towards the End for Shock Value.”
75 / 133
forever/have lots of sex all the time.266"
I've used numbers of fanfictions using the pairing tag (the "slash" symbol) on AO3 in order to
numerize the number of works that include distinct pairings. AO3 has an easy way to filter works
when uploading them, and the system is used across the website. I have not filtered out any other
type of tag in my search, which means that the number represents the numbers of works under a
specific ship-tag – regardless of rating, fandom, crossovers, etc.
As such, the number of results has been taken from the ship tag "James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve
Rogers", as that is the most used relationship tag for that ship. Searching by "ship name" would give
different results, as there are several: Stucky, Winter Shield, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble. All are
Bucky Barnes 41653
Pepper Potts
Carol Danvers
131
38
45
2380
4012
101
45
8
27
315
7
116 10567 7
32
13
3676
4012 10757
Bruce Banner
336
101
5579
95
271
75
358
295 1773
10757 1210 1247
196
2
11
674
90
453 638
6
2345
652
156
94
249
681
1210
2345
1
4425
1423
0
2
235
7
29502 5579
1247
652
4425
57
505
3
7
8315
Thor
1051
95
196
156
1453
505
3
0
3
Peggy Carter
4348
271
2
94
0
3
0
2
3
10
Sharon Carter
869
75
11
249
2
7
3
3
0
Loki
1132
358
674
681
235
10
W. Maximoff
240
295
90
453
7
62
12
Sam Wilson
2537
1773
116
638
20
179
Phil Coulson
544
45
10567
141
52
Carol Danvers
23
8
7
23
1
Pepper Potts
131
27
38
1025
T'Challa
38
315
13
35
141
23 1025
35
20
52
1
1
62
179
240
18 12436 363
11315 12
24
24
19
15
22
0
15
4
7
12
1
0
9
127
3
1
8
8
0
95
57
11
36
3
73
2
0
9
57
0
64
1
49
14
4
24
15
127
11
64
0
3
9
11
193
240
24
4
3
36
1
3
1
0
121
1
18
19
7
1
3
49
9
0
0
2
0
15
12
8
73
14
11
121
2
0
0
22
1
8
2
4
193
1
0
0
0
8315 11315
157 12436
1
T'challa
23
N. Romanoff
Tony Stark
Phil Coulson
544
Sam Wilson
1132 240 2537
2380
Wanda Maximoff
336 29502 1051 4348 869
Loki
3676
821
Sharon Carter
821
Peggy Carter
41653
Clint Barton
Thor
Tony Stark
Clint Barton
Bruce Banner
36
Natasha Romanoff
Steve Rogers
Bucky Barnes
Steve Rogers
different versions of the same romantic pairing.
363
157
We can see in the above table with a higlight of the most popular ships with Steve Rogers,
that 41.653 works have been written with him in a relationship with Bucky Barnes. But, within
266Maggs, The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, 32.
76 / 133
canon stories, Steve Rogers is not in a same sex relationship. In the movies, he was in a relationship
with Peggy Carter, and later on, with her niece, Sharon Carton 267. In the comics, he has been in a
relationship with Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp), Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), Natasha Romanoff
(Black Widow) and Jane Foster (Thor) among others.
However, in the MCU-fandom, it is practically a given that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes
are an item. This follows what De Kosnik introduces, by using Dick Hebdige's work:
"Fans act upon commodities and imbue them with worth via their performances, which consist of
displays of certain expressions and specific actions, which can all be summed up in the concept of
attitude.268"
Taking
Steve
Rogers,
aka
Captain
America, and turning him into an LGBTQIA+
icon by making him either homo- or bisexual
is a way for the fandom to imbue the character
with their own values (illustration #20).
This has happened to other characters
throughout time, as mentioned earlier: Newt
Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts-movie as a
representation
of
an
autistic
character,
Sherlock Holmes in the show Sherlock as
representation of asexuality, the comicbook
character Kate Bishop as having Asian
ancestry, and lastly, Clint Barton struggles with
Illustration 20: A fanart of Steve Rogers in the
Bisexuality Pride Colors by artist asaethiel (Source:
Asaethiel, Tumblr)
dyslexia, etc. All of these traits – Scamander
being autistic, Holmes being asexual, Bishop
being Asian and Barton being dyslexic – are
usually not acknowledged within the canon material, and comes from subtext or unspoken efforts
by creators to give minorities more representation. This is usually done through follow-up
interviews or subtle nods to minority markers.
This is why fandom and fandom as free labor is important – it gives new possibilities of
267Steve Rogers was frozen in the arctic when he crashed a Nazi plane into the ice in 1945 and woke up in 2012, 70
years later. His romantic love interest, Peggy Carter, had grown old and started a family of her own. Steve was then
able to begin a relationship with Sharon, whom he didn't know was Peggy's niece until later.
268De Kosnik, “fandom as Free Labor,” 100.
77 / 133
representation to audiences who may be looking at ways to grow or establish themselves within a
new identity.
Eventually, fandom will allow consumers and users to perform their own identity, through
fanart269, fanfiction or cosplay. Or something else entirely. As this one survey responses put it:
"Steeb [sic] and Bucky are LGBT icons to me. They are not to the general public. I see the movies
perpetuating values of acceptance, diversity, casual heroism, resistance and Pride, that are
influence by my consuming of fan culture and my own values. A casual mcu viewer might not see
what I see in these movies and these characters. But you can pry bisexual icon Steve Rogers from
my cold, dead hands.270"
I will return to the notion of performativity in the next chapter. Fandom as free labor is then
one of the pillar engagement pillars the MCU has benefitted from during its time in the pop culture
landscape. Fans have taken elements and characters from the movies and twisted them into their
own items, in order to appropriate them and to identify with them. Whether the original material
responds to those things, either by baiting the audience with same-sex relationships or by refusing
to acknowledge Hawkeye's deafness for example, is up to the capitalistic corporation behind it.
269asaethiel, “BISEXUAL STEVE ROGERS IS ALL I CARE ABOUT.”
270Bold for emphasis by me.
78 / 133
V. Discussion: the blurry edges of fandom in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe
When I started working on this thesis, I had a preconceived idea that the MCU changed the
way people interacted with fandom. I had a theory that because of the amount of movies Marvel
released every year and because of the size and scale of the content produced through comicbooks,
fiction books and more, it had done something entirely different than any other fandom had before.
However, as I started looking at Marvel as an organization and at fandom's history, something
different started appearing in my results: the MCU didn't change fandom. Yes, fandom reacted to
the MCU, but eventually, I found out that the MCU-fandom was born out of changes in sociality on
the internet (Web 2.0 and social media). The analysis of fandom, as such, became more of an
explorer's task of mapping uncharted territories and trying to put it down on paper, in order to see
where the edges of the world were.
But what can we learn from this map of the MCU, if anything at all? In this chapter, I will
analyze the results of this survey through three aspects: firstly, I will look directly at the MCU and
its position as a media and cultural landmark. Over a period of 10 years, the MCU has brought
millions of people together and changed the way these people told their stories. Somehow, the
industry changed the way it created superhero-movies. Then, I will look at performativity in
fandom, and what that performative aspect has brought fans, through the use of the MCU as a
catalyst. Through fanart, fanfiction, cosplay and roleplaying, fans have been able to, almost literally,
become the characters they were looking at on screen. Thirdly, I will look at the relationship
between fans and the MCU, through a discussion of fanculture and the knowledge thereof, and what
the source materials brings to fandom.
5.1.
How did the MCU grow through fandom?
The MCU was born out of the interconnected world it came into: social media networks were
booming at the time Iron Man was released. As I have discussed earlier, the MCU didn't exist
before the media picture created by Web 2.0. The only Marvel-movies that existed before the
explosion of social media weren't created for viral marketing nor a viral existence to begin with. But
that viral marketing and viral advertising managed to grab the attention of the audience it was
supposed to grab: the average responder to my survey is 25 years old. That makes them a millenial.
And that specific demography is extremely important when discussing the MCU.
79 / 133
The millenial generation (or Generation Y) is the last generation to have grown up prior to the
current advancements in technology. They have different approaches to cultural consumption, as
they have been "taught to be assertive and to question everything271" which goes hand in hand with
Manovich's theories on the shift from mass consumption to mass cultural production. And this is
where the millenial audience works for the MCU. For, the success of the MCU is due to the way it
embraced social media from the get go. Through social media, millenials – today's 18-to-34-yearolds – engage in a different interaction with the media they consume. Andrew Sharma and Chrys
Egan brought a notion known as multistep flow back from history books in order to apply it to
millenial commercial social media interaction:
"Advertising has responded to [millenials'] habits with a new form that originates on television,
but continues on social media platforms. [...] These multistep conversations reflect [their'] values and
attitudes, layered within the programs and commercials [they] are watching. Conversations on social
media validate or challenge these values. This communication process, where [they] integrate media
content, personal conversations, and social influence, is known as Multistep Flow. Put simply, in
Multistep Flow, media messages overflow, from the mass media into inter-personal conversations with
influential people, and shape public opinion.272"
That interaction was one of the key elements that President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige,
producer Avi Arad and director Jon Favreau decided to bet on – although they wouldn't have called
it that. Favreau, who directed Iron Man, said that, prior to Iron Man, the studios would ignore core
fans in order to appeal to the mainstream audience and sell toys and DVDs 273. Before Iron Man had
begun production, Feige, Arad and others attended SDCC in 2006, and there announced that the
first movie would lead to the Avengers assembling, eventually. SDCC is the "one and most
important venues for direct interaction between the entertainment industry and audiences.274"
And, the choice of revealing this cinematic universe at SDCC itself wasn't a coincidence
either. As famous "Comic-Con Studies" professor Henry Jenkins himself puts it:
"[San Diego] Comic-Con is the center of the trends I describe in my book Convergence Culture:
Where Old and New Media Collide. It's the meeting point between a transmedia commercial culture and a
grassroots participatory culture, the place where an uncertain Hollywood goes when it wants to better
understand its always unstable relations with its audiences. Comic-Con is a gathering of the tribes, a
crossroads for many different communities drawn together by their shared love of popular mythology. 275"
SDCC is, then a crossroads of aca-fans, fan-studies, industries and fans themselves, and it is
no wonder then, that Marvel Studios took its first baby steps there, and grew from there.
In 2011, Marvel Studios lined up the main characters from the Avengers: Robert Downey Jr.
271Johnson and Ng, “Millennials: Who Are They, How Are They Different, and Why Should We Care?”
272Sharma and Egan, “Hashtag Television Advertising - The Multistep Flow of Millennial TV Usage, Commercial
Viewing, and Social Media Interaction,” 167.
273Robinson, “Marvel Looks Back at Iron Man—the Movie That Started It All.”
274Kohnen, “‘The Power of Geek’: Fandom as a Gendered Commodity at Comic-Con,” 75.
275Jenkins, “Superpowered Fans: The Many Worlds of San Diego’s Comic-Con,” 23.
80 / 133
(Iron Man), Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Scarlett Johanssen (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth
(Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye),
Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Joss Whedon (director) and Kevin Feige (producer).
In 2014, they stepped it up with a panel that brought together the cast and crew from Age of
Ultron, which assembled the previously mentioned Downey, Renner, Ruffalo, Hemsworth, Jackson,
Evans, and added Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver), Paul Bettany
(Vision), James Spader (Ultron),
and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet
Witch) to the line-up at the
convention – with a last minute
appearance
of
Josh
Brolin
(Thanos) at the end of the panel
Illustration 21: San Diego Comic-Con 2014 - Marvel Panel (Source: (illustration #21).
William Tung, Flickr)
And, as far as SDCC 2019 goes, "Marvel Studios odds of returning [...] is a 'spoiler' 276".
Coincidentally, SDCC 2019 will be my first attendance of the legendary Convention, and I hope to
take experiences from this thesis with me out in the field, both as a fan, and as an academic.
I've already introduced this Nick Fury quote from Iron Man, but it is important to note how
important it was to set up a whole universe: "You think you're the only superhero in the world? [...]
You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."
Originally, the line wasn't meant as a stepping stone into a bigger cinematic universe, but the
reaction on online and social media blew up immediately after the release of Iron Man. In the words
of Kevin Feige: "I thought it would just begin the potential conversation of hardcore fans going,
"Wait a minute, could that mean..." Instead, by that Monday, Entertainment Weekly was doing
sidebars about Nick Fury and who he was and what that meant. That blew up much faster than I
was anticipating.277"
Although the producers behind the MCU had made a movie that would appeal to core fans, it
still managed to capture the mainstream audience in a way that changed the game: it was different
from all the other superhero-movies because it was believable and it was solid. Iron Man opened
with a gross of $207.4 million in its first weekend, and sits at the 6 th highest opening weekend
ever278. The leading team behind the MCU was effectively talking to the fans, and more than that, it
276Dixon, “Marvel Studios Odds of Returning to San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Is a ‘Spoiler.’”
277Robinson, “Marvel Looks Back at Iron Man—the Movie That Started It All.”
278“Biggest Opening Weekends at the Box Office.”
81 / 133
was talking to millenial fans. In 2008, the average responder of the survey was 14 or 15 years old.
And, multistep flow was beginning to take an important step in pop culture.
Therefore, being a fan of Iron Man and of The Incredible Hulk, which were released less than
two months apart, became easy for it was possible to follow them on every platform available,
much in the way Web 2.0 had promised it. Creating this entertainment buzz, by having two movies
connect to each other, the MCU took baby steps in securing its place on social media and on the
entertainment landscape. It is a targeted contemporary use of multistep process in order to catch an
audience through social media engagement.279 Social media users "require marketing and media
that are creative, innovative and individualized.280"
Millenials, as such, were the perfect audience to create this enhanced fandom experience: the
MCU would exist on every platform available from then on. And that is the enhanced experience of
fandom that helped the MCU take its place in the entertainment and cultural landscape. It made it
all come together. Looking at the extensive marketing strategies put in place prior to the release of
Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame, it is no wonder that they have captured audiences: the movies
have become inevitable. And they have become inevitable because they are unavoidable in the
social chatter that happens on social media and mass media in general. They are the perfect example
of convergence culture, as Henry Jenkins presented it: both corporate and grassroots movements
have converged for the greater success of the MCU, and that happened mainly through the
participation of fans and fandom, through the joint input of creators and user-generated content, as
free labor. That is the shift from mass consumption to mass production: "the entertainment industry
depends on its fans like never before.281"
Because they cater to core fans, but also mainstream audiences, the MCU-movies have
become something that everyone can relate to: they have told stories for every generation, and have
given audiences origin-stories, romances, despair, Shakespearian family drama, funky space movies
and excellent spy-stories282. They aren't all serving the same superhero format that the beginning of
the 2000s was saturated with, and that is the strength of the MCU-movies: their variety.
But how does fandom change and how does it get enhanced? It has to do, in part, with the
franchise-boom that I examined when analyzing the top 100 highest-grossing movies of all time.
This boom has been underway since the turn of the millenia and seems to have peaked in 2018. I
279Sharma and Egan, “Hashtag Television Advertising - The Multistep Flow of Millennial TV Usage, Commercial
Viewing, and Social Media Interaction,” 170.
280Sharma and Egan, 176.
281Jenkins, “Superpowered Fans: The Many Worlds of San Diego’s Comic-Con,” 36.
282McKenzie-Ray et al., Marvel Studios: The First 10 Years, 9.
82 / 133
call it a franchise-boom, for movies that are attached to a franchise have been dominating the boxoffice for the past 20 years. In all, it would seem only once in a decade, does a movie come out
which isn't ingrained in a franchise storytelling: in the 1980s, it was E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982), in the 1990s, it was Titanic (1997), in the 2000s, it was 2012 (2009) and in the 2010s, it was
Inception (2010) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)283. And if we look at all the movies to have
grossed over $1 billion dollars, the vast majority of them have come out in the 2010s:
$1 billion dollar movies
(per year)
$1 billion Jurassic Park-movies
$1 billion Star Wars-movies
$1 billion MCU- movies
$1 billion movies (in general)
6
5
4
3
2
1
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
0
Comparing the MCU to the $1-billion dollar club (red in the above chart), it is, with eight
movies, the most efficient billion-dollar-club-Tumblr. Behind it is the Star Wars-franchise with four
billion dollar movies (yellow in the above chart), followed in turn by the Jurassic Park-franchise,
with three billion dollar movies (green in the above chart).
The MCU is twice as successful as the next two franchises in row immediately behind it –
and, looking at the numbers, out of 22 movies, having eight billion dollar movies places it as the
most successful franchise in history.
On the messaging board website Reddit, user /rebellious_scum posted a comparison of
283It could still be argued that both Titanic and Bohemian Rhapsody aren't originaly storytelling: both movies take
inspiration from real life events. The first, through the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the second, through a
biographic depiction of Queen's and Freddie Mercury's life and story.
83 / 133
franchise earnings over the past 20 years which illustrates fairly well exactly how much the MCU
has grossed worldwide284 (illustration #22):
Illustration 22: Screenshot of the video "Franchise Earnings Comparison over 20 Years" (Source:
The /dataisbeautiful subreddit on Reddit.com)
As this chart stops in beginning of April 2019, it doesn't include the earnings for Endgame
which would set the MCU's total gross at over $9 billion, worlwide and all time.
Thus, the MCU and its fandom are impossible to discern from one another. Jenkins himself
says that "a high percentage of Hollywood insiders have emerged from the ranks of fandom, 285" and
mentions the name of Joss Whedon in that context. Whedon directed the two first Avengers-movies,
The Avengers and Age of Ultron, and solidifies the link beetween industry and fandom. The MCU
became better because of the feedback of fans and because of the online chatter made available
through the advent of Web 2.0. The MCU benefitted from grassroots and corporate convergence:
both through the expanded use of social media, but also through the corporate agreements between
Universal Studios (who still retain the character rights to the Hulk), Sony Pictures Entertainment
(who still retain the character rights to Spider-Man) and Marvel Studios (who owns the MCU).
Without this corporate agreement, the MCU as we know it would not exist.
The social media landscape leading from 2008 to today helped the studio listen to what fans
wanted from their movies, and it helped, in certain ways, shape the movies that have been released
284rebellious_scum, “R/Oddlysatisfying - Movie Franchise Earnings Comparison over 20 Years by
u/Rebellious_scum.”
285Jenkins, “Superpowered Fans: The Many Worlds of San Diego’s Comic-Con,” 30.
84 / 133
in the last decade. Millenials have been the main targeted audience of the MCU because of their age
at the time of release for the first movie, and have remained loyal to the franchise ever since. As
such, they have been attracting more fans through their online labor – and through their
performativity, in response to the MCU. And, the more fans the MCU has, the more successful it
becomes.
5.2.
Performativity and fandom
One of the main driving forces in fandom is the transformative aspect of it. I have already
established that by transforming the original work, fans are doing a performance of some kind.
They are remixing and repurposing the original material to fit their own needs, in an appropriation
that fits their own narratives: the characters are puppets upon which fans can project their identities,
regardless of the backstory that has already been fed into these puppets.
I mentioned earlier that it could be a subversion of the Lacanian male gaze, as presented by
Laura Mulvey at the end of the 1980s: the average fan who responded to my survey was a female.
My survey did not analyze ethnicity or sexual orientation, as I initially did not think that it would be
relevant to the thesis. I was wrong. Fandom studies need to take into account the different
categories that make up its field of study, including gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality,
income, etc. Jenkins calls fans "an important force pushing the industry toward a fuller
representation of what America looks like – fans as influencers in a different sense.286"
Through the discussions done throughout this paper, excluding ethnicity and sexual
orientation in favor of discussions of gender seems limiting in the subject of fandom. I could have
oriented my research towards a more LGBTQIA+ friendly approach from the get go, and the same
could be said about ethnicity. However, I did not realize this opportunity until later, while analyzing
the data I had gathered, although I did include a 'non-binary' option in the survey.
In 1997, Judith Butler looked at the implicit politics of the performative action and used some
of Pierre Bourdieu's notions in order to find the force of performativity:
"The force of the performative is the effect of social power, and social power is to be understood
through established contexts of authority [...]287."
The force of the performative here, is a response to the social power established in the pop
cultural landscape. In the MCU-fandom, it can be making Steve Rogers, an otherwise American
icon, everything the average, conservative, straight, white male American opposes, like we see it in
286Jenkins, 29.
287Butler, “Implicit Censorship and Discursive Agency,” 141.
85 / 133
the artwork "No, YOU MOVE" from February 2017, where Steve Rogers stands in front of a crowd
representing grassroots political movements in the United States (illustration #23).
This piece of fanart is a response to the geo-political climate in
the United States at the time, and an echo of an official piece of
comicbook history, which was published in 2007.
The "no, you move" quote itself came in a time when, in the
Marvel Comics, characters were facing ethical choices in a conflict
known as the Civil War-crossover event, stemming from the
introduction of a Superhero Registration Act, which was set in place
to put superheroes and super powered individuals under official
regulation (illustration #24).
The crossover event pit Captain America and Iron Man against
Illustration 23: "No, YOU
MOVE" fanart by Tom Hodges
and Jeremiah Skipper (Source:
ComicArtFans.com)
each other, with other characters caught in the crossfire. Steve Rogers
gives the "You move"-speech to Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, who
has found himself torn between the side supporting the registration
act (Iron Man) and the side rejecting it (Captain America). It is a break from the established
authority.
If we look at the notion from Derrida that Butler quotes, the force of the performative comes
from a break:
"The force of the performative is thus not
inherited from prior usage, but issues forth
precisely from its break with any and all prior
usage. That break, that force of rupture, is the
force of the performative, beyond all question of
truth or meaning.288"
This break follows the above notion of
performativity as a response to something: it
has to come from a break. Fandom and
fanworks are then reactions to the source
material. I have already discussed the notion of
fanworks as pastiches and parodies (when Illustration 24: Iconic panel of the "No, you move"
discussing Sherlock Holmes-fanworks), but quote spoken by Steve Rogers in Civil War: The Amazing
Spider-Man, during the Civil War-storyline. (Source:
also as commentary to the original material, Marvel Comics)
288Butler, 148.
86 / 133
like I highlighted it with the Tumblr post by actuallylotor in section 4.2.2.
Performing fandom is a way then, to establish an identity through characters that exist within
an established story and social power. The established social power is called hegemony in terms of
audience studies, as Stuart Hall called it in his paper on Encoding/Decoding in 1980. Gillian Rose
explains the term as a political, economic, social and cultural order maintained by the state and by
society289.
Anything that the social power releases is encoded with a specific meaning, that the audience
needs to decode with the tools at their disposition. I will here concentrate on the social and cultural
order approached by Hall, as this is where the performativity of fandom comes in. Stuart Hall
introduced three different ways of decoding the hegemonic messages released in pop culture, which
I here take as the MCU:
The first, the preferred reading, affirms the expected hegemonic order. In the case of the
MCU, it could be the straight, white, male audience member who watches the movies, which are
made for him by people like him, without questioning plot or representation.
The second, the oppositional reading, is an interpretation of the hegemonic order, which
challenges it. With the MCU, it could be the response to Winter Soldier in reading the relationship
between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes as a same-sex romantic relationship.
The last and third reading, the negotiated reading, is
where the audience places themselves in the middle of the two
previous ones: compromising the preferred reading with the
oppositional reading. It could be the acknowledgement of the
romantic relationship between Natasha Romanoff and Bruce
Banner in Age of Ultron, although it had previously been
hinted that Natasha was in a romantic relationship with Clint
Barton in The Avengers and Winter Soldier, where the Illustration 25: Screen capture showing
character wore an arrow necklace to symbolize her the arrow necklace around Romanoff's
neck. (Source: Captain America: The
involvement with Hawkeye (illustration #25).
Winter Soldier (2014))
These different ways of decoding the media lead to the different responses fandom has to the
MCU. Because the MCU-fandom is a place of transformative creativity and because it is a place of
mass consumption – I have earlier talked about the speed with which fans consume the original
289Rose, Visual Methodologies, an Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials, 258.
87 / 133
material – it is also a place where hegemonic or legitimate readings are subverted by the fandom's
decoding of the original source material.
Some fans position themselves in a negociated reading, like this responder: "I interpret
character actions and decisions through the lens of head canons I've seen online and thought of
myself". The same way, being a fan is a breaking point in the interpretation and performative
reading of the character on the screen. Another responder said that: "Being a fan changes how you
view character/actor actions in the movie and how much you enjoy the movies based on
interpretation of prior character knowledge."
Performing fandom is also what some pointed at being a way to discern themselves from
casual audiences: one replied that "the desire to look for more content and interact with people who
share your interest, be it through YouTube videos, fanarts or cosplaying" is one way to perform their
fandom, whereas another replied that "since I’ve read other people’s ideas about the movies it
changes how I myself interpret characters actions and motivations.[...]"
But, the MCU has also provided their fans with plenty of material to integrate in their
transformative fandom: when Black Panther was released, many media outlets were surprised when
it grossed $1 billion dollars at the Box Office – but superheroes of color can hold their own against
white superheroes at the box-office. And the same response came in 2017, with the release of DC's
Wonder Woman290, followed in 2019 by the MCU's Captain Marvel: female superheroes can hold
their own against their male counterparts at the box-office.
The interpretive and transformative aspect of fandom subverts the hegemonic discourse
appointed to the MCU by its creators – although some of these creators are indeed giving back to
these fans with the stories and characters they set up. It's no wonder then, that the three most
popular movies are Winter Soldier, Black Panther and Ragnarok, according to my survey.
The first, Winter Soldier, introduced the first African American-superhero (Falcon, aka Sam
Wilson), and it subverted the usual forced romantic relationship with an intense friendship between
main characters as the main drive of the story. Many fans decoded that platonic friendship as being
a romantic relationship, since it used tropes known in romantic relationships and applied it to the
friendship between Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. I have already approached this notion in
section 4.3.3.
The second, Black Panther, directed by African American-filmmaker Ryan Coogler,
290Jenkins, Wonder Woman.
88 / 133
introduced a superhero-movie with barely any caucasian characters. As a matter of fact, the only
two white characters in Black Panther were played by Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis.It became a
joke to tall them the "Tolkien-white guys", as a play on word for the "token white guy" and because
both actors have portrayed characters created by Tolkien (Bilbo Baggins and Gollum, respectively).
This movie, released as the 18th MCU-movie was the first of the franchise to receive an
Academy Award. In fact, it received three: Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (for
the work by componist Ludwig Göransson), Achivement in Costume Design (for the work by
costume designer Ruth E. Carter) and Achivement in Production Design (for the work by
production designers Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart). The latter of these two wins mark the first
wins in the categories of Costume Design and Production Design to go to a person of color – which
makes Black Panther much more than a superhero-movie, but an extremely important milestone in
the history of the MCU, of superhero-movies and of representation in Hollywood.
And, even more so, although superhero-movies have won technical Academy Awards before,
and although Heath Ledger won the statuette for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight291, Black
Panther is the first superhero-movie to receive a nomination in the "Best Motion Picture"-category,
which makes it a groundbreaking acknowledgement from the movie-industry.
The third, Ragnarok, directed by New Zealander Taika Waititi, of Māori-ancestry, subverted
the otherwise established Shakespearian take on Thor's character throughout his previous movie
arcs, and gave him a different cultural approach 292. It subverted the Lacanian male gaze as Mulvey
presented it: the female characters of Hela and Valkyrie are (almost) never looked at like objects
and are (almost) always placed in a position of power.
Valkyrie embraces the trope of the usually male
hard-drinking loner, whereas the (male) main character,
Thor, undergoes a metaphorical Lacanian castration
twice: first, with the loss of his hammer, and second,
when his hair is shaved off (illustration #26). Thor even
goes through the objectifying process of being
Illustration 26: Thor gets prepared for a
gladiatorial fight in Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
(Source: Marvel Studios)
appraised like a disposable item, before being thrown
into an gladiatorial fight against the Incredible Hulk.
Instead of objectifying the female characters
291Nolan, The Dark Knight.
292Taipua, “Thor and His Magic Patu: Notes on a Very Māori Marvel Movie.”
89 / 133
involved in the movie, Waititi turned his camera to Hemsworth's incarnation of the god of Thunder,
and took hyper-masculine aspects otherwise associated with the character (power, leadership, poise)
and flipped them on their head.
All through the movie, Thor laments the loss of his powers through the loss of his hammer
(masculinity), and it is only during the last fight that he realizes his strength (masculinity) could be
found within, and that he had no need for the hammer. Instead of objectifying the female characters,
Waititi objectifies Thor, by reducing him to a character to be sold and bought for the pleasure of the
crowds in the arena.
But, it is not just thanks to the creators of these movies having embraced aspects which fans
notice and perform themselves. Fans' performativity itself also helped the MCU become so big: it is
through their engagement with the source material and hype that the mass cultural landscape opened
up to the movies. The shift from a nerdy niche genre to a popular cinematic universe happened
around the same time as the launch of the MCU, and it is through that mainstream audience
engagement and performativity that other movies have been successfully launched.
The first Deadpool-movie293 felt the wave of support from fans first hand before even going
into production. In short terms, the movie project had been gathering dust, sitting in a pile of
pending movies at 20th Century Fox, until leaked concept footage found its way onto the internet
and into the hands of fans. Fans who created enough hysteria surrounding the concept footage, that
the studio gave the green light less than 24 hours later. To this day, it still hasn't been confirmed who
leaked the footage294, but the world is richer with two Deadpool-movies295 thanks to them, and the
superhero-genre was boosted with the help of the merch-with-a-mouth, who reminded producers
and studios that adult superhero-movies also perform at the box-office.
Therefore, using the MCU to perform their identity, fans have been able to appropriate the
material in a way that made sense for them. Although some still sceptically call Winter Soldier
queerbaiting (the act of hinting at, but then not actually depicting same sex romance), others have
embraced the movies as a blank canvas to express themselves and perform their gender, their
ethnicity or their sexual orientation. The relationship between the MCU and its fans is a
complicated one, that goes hand in hand with geo-political movements throughout the last decade,
and it is through this creative exchange that the movies have become so popular.
293Miller, Deadpool.
294McGlynn, “Who REALLY Leaked The Deadpool Movie Test Footage?”
295Leitch, Deadpool 2, 2.
90 / 133
5.3.
Comic Cons and the relationship with fans
Although, I have addressed the notion of Comic Cons earlier in this chapter, I will use it here
again in a notion of interconnectivity.
Through the research I did on my survey, I have found that the average MCU fan is a woman
in her mid 20s, with a Bachelor degree or equivalent. While this may come as a surprise, women
and non-binary people have always been a much more active in fandom than men, as they are more
likely to read fanfiction (88% of women vs 43% of men) and write it (43.7% of women vs 20.1% of
men).
By delving deeper into fandom, I managed to explain why The Winter Soldier was one of the
most rewatched movies in the survey – fans liked it because of the subversion of familiar superheromovie tropes, because of the solid way the storytelling was set up and because of the chemistry
between all the characters in the movie. Because of this chemistry between characters, a lot of
transformative works – fanfiction – was created as a response to the movie. These fanfictions are in
a direct line with the moments in the MCU that make it a viable experience – and how the MCU
enhanced what it meant to be a fan. Earlier, I put forward the notion that it is impossible to watch
any of the later movies without having seen the previous ones, and this goes hand in hand with the
television series that have been airing simultaneously, as well as the influence that the movies have
had on their comicbook counterparts.
In a fitting manner, Endgame being released as I was writing this thesis only further
emphasizes this very real and huge interconnected universe the movies exist in: the story features
flashbacks and time-travel to the previous movies with cameos and appearances from former
characters, reprising their roles and creating small nods to what has been done before. Endgame
doesn't even introduce any new characters to the plot: all the ones appearing have already been
introduced in one of the previous 21 movies.
In the same way, Endgame uses both fan responses and comicbook responses to engage its
audience. The scene portraying Steve Rogers going into an elevator to retrieve an infinity stone,
which is vital to the plot of the movie is such an example 296. Two things are happening in this scene:
the directors of Endgame, who also directed Winter Soldier, are titillating the audience with a
remake of a similar elevator scene which took place in Winter Soldier297 and a very, controversial
plot twist that happened in a Captain America-comicbook in 2016298: Steve Rogers, a character
296Russo and Russo, Avengers: Endgame, 1 hour and 18 minutes in.
297Russo and Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 47 minutes and 50 seconds in.
298Spencer, Captain America: Steve Rogers.
91 / 133
originally created by two Jewish artists as a response to Hitler's nazi Germany, was in fact, a sleeper
agent of the nazi organization HYDRA (illustration #27).
That plot twist wasn't well received in the fandom 299. To see
the Russo brothers address this extreme controversy in the movie,
by taking the plot twist and turning it around is a way to include
comicbook fans and active members of fandom into the fold,
without losing the casual audiences, who didn't need background
context to understand the scene. This play between those who know
the comicbook lore and those who don't is again a reminder of what
Feige and Favreau did with Iron Man, at the beginning of the
MCU's journey: appeal to the core fans and to the broader audience.
Illustration 27: Screenshot of Steve
Rogers saying the nazi-slogan
"Hail Hydra" in Captain America:
Steve Rogers #1 (2016) (Source:
Marvel Comics)
This is but an example of how the MCU works with its fans:
it takes items that are known from the comics and transforms them
into what they need them to be in the movies. Without the fans, and
without the fandom's intensive remixing and remastering, the MCU would never have achieved this
incredibly strong visibility in the pop cultural landscape. Marvel embraced participatory culture and
convergence culture wholeheartedly.
And, that participatory culture took the characters from the MCU and fashioned them in a
way that they could relate to. Throughout the 11 year journey that the MCU has been on so far, an
emotional bond has been created with the characters seen on screen.
"There is sufficient evidence to show us those connections we have with these characters,
whether it's identification or relatability, are pretty strong300" says Andrea Letamendi, in a
discussions on the validity of emotional relationships with ficitional characters. For characters
imitate real life, and following their journey through all of these movies can be compared to
following the journey of a friend.
Through fandom, with an almost day to day interaction with the source material, fans are
engrossed in an interaction that is much deeper than the casual audience, who only remembers the
importance of the characters when watching the movies for the first time or when rewatching them
at a later date. For fandom, characters become friends, guides or inspirations, and through their
struggles, fans learn and grow themselves. About female characters, author Andrew Towers says
299Riesman, “That Time Captain America Said ‘Hail Hydra’ and Geekdom Imploded.”
300Towers, Geek Girls Don’t Cry, 4.
92 / 133
that "it's about seeing what she went through – her addictions, her fears, her traumas, her struggles
– and applying how she worked through those issues to my own life.301"
The relationship with fans is an all encompassing one: fans are the first to judge whether a
movie is to be considered successful or not, and through their judgement, they adapt the canon
material at hand to fit their own fantasies. For example, the fans' reaction to the introduction of
Clint Barton's wife, Laura Barton, in Age of Ultron was that of incomprehension.
Even Jeremy Renner, who plays the character, later told fans at a Comic Con that he didn't
understand it either, as the story up until that point had set Clint Barton up with Natasha Romanoff,
the female Avenger on the team.
Fans reacted to the development either by adhering to the preferred reading, which was to
accept Laura as a part of his storyline and introduce her to their works of fiction, or in the
oppositional reading, refuting what they had been presented. One fan claimed that Clint Barton,
from the MCU, was actually a Skrull instead of the "real" Clint Barton from the comics 302. Skrulls
are a race of shape-shifting race in the Marvel-universe that can mimic appearance and behavior
from other characters. Fans reacted with a feeling of betrayal from the writers. That happened again
after Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame, when some of the writing in those movies was critized
for not being concurrent with what had been built up in the previous installments.
Superhero movies per year
(Source: Wikipedia.com)
15
10
5
2018
2016
2014
2012
2010
2008
2006
2004
2002
2000
0
But, that is the life cycle of fandom: fans get pieces of media and transform them to fit their
needs. They build whole stories based on these characters, and then a new piece of the puzzle comes
out and crushes those user-generated stories. The hivemind that creates fandom, where writers and
artists work together and brainstorm on a daily basis put the writers and producers of the official
301Towers, 5.
302araniaart, “Theory - Hawkeye Is a Skrull.”
93 / 133
material to the test – especially when so many different creators are involved.
The MCU wouldn't exist without its fans. And, as its fans are changing, the MCU is changing
too: it's a matter of staying relevant in an age where superhero-movies have saturated the market for
the past two decades.
Thus, the MCU has been able to insert itself within a landscape dominated by superheromovies, with different eras and phases presented. Participatory culture, as discussed by Abigail de
Kosnik is still relevant: it is through the fan's labor, tributes and pastiches that original material
stays relevant in the public sphere and in mainstream culture.
94 / 133
Conclusion
It is important for the MCU to stay relevant with its fans, by introducing new characters and
new crew members that will continue to appeal to the fans and to the audience. The MCU needs
fandom to survive, and without it, it would never have reached the size it has now, nor been able to
reach the status it has achieved. It is therefore almost impossible to define a clear border to the
fandom: fandom exists as a fluctuation of the political, economic, social and cultural changes that
our society goes through. The lense through which fans observe these movies and television shows
varies then depending on the geo-political and social climate that the movies are released in.
Henry Jenkins has discussed convergence culture several times, updating the notions
presented each time with more appropriate views on the topic at hand. Likewise, Terranova's views
on free labor have become almost impossible to dissociate from mass cultural production on Web
2.0 where the borders between user-generated and official are always intercrossing with each other.
Abigail de Kosnik came close to defining fandom as free labor, but more than a capitalistic venture
to further marketing strategies, fandom is both judge, jury and executioner when it comes to giving
these movies a life of their own.
The MCU brought together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become
something more. Just like Nick Fury said, all those years ago: there was an idea. An idea that grew
into something much more than that, which grew into an institution and something so big that entire
cultural landscapes are being dictated by what the MCU is doing.
The MCU came into this world at the same time as all the social media that we all use and
live with today. As a franchise, it established itself on every single one of those platforms and made
sure to become inevitable by inviting established actors, producers and directors to tell the stories
they wanted to tell. By spreading wide and onto different platforms, including comicbooks,
television shows, movies and specials, it became even more than just a movie franchise. In order to
be a fan, most people had to have seen one, two or three movies, possibly even more, in order to
appreciate what was going on with the MCU.
Through its adaptation to the ever changing geo-political, social and cultural landscape, the
MCU has managed to stay relevant. When it came to greener energies, it provided a platform to
discuss clean energy for the planet, with Tony Stark's arc reactor. 303 When it came to global
303Whedon, Marvel’s The Avengers.
95 / 133
surveillance and crowd monitoring through national agencies, it provided a hypothesis for that. 304
When it came to post-colonial identities and responses, it provided an audience who could
understand the politics engrained in that tale.305 And, when it came to gender, race and ethnicity, the
MCU proved yet again that the audience will use these characters to perform identities that they will
relate to.306
As an aca-fan myself, I took a path laid before me through first hand experience with fandom.
Others doing academic studies may find results that divert from the ones presented in this thesis, for
mapping the relationship between the MCU and its fans is an wide task. Such a task involves
demographic studies of its audience, just as well as the politics and economics happening behind the
scenes in the production of its movies.
Further research to be done from here would include an analysis of fans' reception of the
movies and of the personal cultural identity fans bring to the table. As this thesis was written in the
period preceding and immediately following the release of Endgame, it is important that further
academic research responds to contemporary developments within franchise- and blockbusterculture. It is important that further research continues the mapping of online fandom spaces, in
order to keep the conversation relevant.
To finish this thesis, I leave you in the hands of Tony Stark – the first superhero introduced in
the MCU, Earth's Best Defender and the Father of the Avengers:
"God, what a world. Universe, now. If you told me
ten years ago that we weren't alone, [...] I wouldn't have
been surprised. But come on, you know? That's epic forces
of darkness and light that have come into play. [...] But
then again, that's the hero gig. Part of the journey is the
end. Everything's gonna work out exactly the way it's
supposed to." - Tony Stark, Avengers: Endgame (2019).
304Russo and Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
305Coogler, Black Panther; Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok.
306Samuel L. Jackson may play Nick Fury in the MCU, but the character wasn't always African American. That change
happened in 2002.
96 / 133
References and works cited
Abrams, J. J. Star Wars - Rise of Skywalker. Epic space opera. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2019.
Abrams, J. J. Star Wars - The Force Awakens. Epic space opera. Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures, 2015.
actuallylotor. “My Favorite Kind of Fanfics Are ‘Canon Divergence’ Because It’s Always like
Handing Back a Reviewed Essay with Comments like ‘I Enjoyed the Strong Beginning but
Here Is Where You Lost Me, I’ve Made Some Notes.’” Tumblr, August 14, 2018.
https://actuallylotor.tumblr.com/post/176993110243/my-favorite-kind-of-fanfics-are-canondivergence.
Agar, Chris. “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Launches Avengers-Style Anti-Spoiler Campaign.”
ScreenRant, May 20, 2019. https://screenrant.com/once-upon-time-hollywood-spoilercampaign-tarantino-endgame/.
Alexander, Julia. “Sonic’s Live-Action Design Upset the Entire Internet, so the Studio Is Changing
It.” The Verge, May 2, 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18527476/sonic-liveaction-cgi-redesign-sega-paramount-director-fan-edits.
araniaart. “Theory - Hawkeye Is a Skrull.” Tumblr, January 2018.
http://araniaart.tumblr.com/post/163613338533/theory-hawkeye-is-a-skrull.
“Archive of Our Own – Organization for Transformative Works.” Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://www.transformativeworks.org/archive_of_our_own/.
Arvalis. “Realistic Pokemon by Arvalis on DeviantArt.” DeviantArt. Accessed May 1, 2019.
https://www.deviantart.com/arvalis/gallery/39915677/Realistic-Pokemon.
asaethiel. “BISEXUAL STEVE ROGERS IS ALL I CARE ABOUT.” Tumblr. Accessed May 10,
2019. https://asaethiel.tumblr.com/post/84905887261/bisexual-steve-rogers-is-all-i-careabout-tbh.
“-Aticus - Wiktionary.” Wikipedia. Wiktionary. Accessed April 10, 2019.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-aticus#Latin.
Bendis, Brian Michael. Avengers. 1st ed. Vol. 1. 4 vols. The Complete Collection. New York:
Marvel Comics, 2017.
Bennett, Anita, and Anita Bennett. “More Than 1 Million Disappointed Fans Sign Petition
Demanding ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Remake.” Deadline (blog), May 19, 2019.
https://deadline.com/2019/05/fans-sign-petition-demanding-game-of-thrones-season-8remake-1202618278/.
“Biggest Opening Weekends at the Box Office.” Box Office Mojo, 2019.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/.
Bixby, Bill. The Death of the Incredible Hulk. Made-for-television superhero film. Disney - ABC
Domestic Television, 1990.
———. The Incredible Hulk Returns. Made-for-television superhero film. Disney - ABC Domestic
Television, 1988.
———. The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. Made-for-television superhero film. Disney - ABC
Domestic Television, 1989.
Black, Shane. Iron Man 3. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2013.
Blogger, G. M. I. “Tumblr Users Statistics 2016 Infographics | GMI.” Official GMI Blog. Accessed
May 23, 2019. https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/tumblr-users-statistics/.
Boden, Anna, and Ryan Fleck. Captain Marvel. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures, 2019.
bootycap. “Ao3 Mcu a:Aou Abo Bdsm Ot3 Hs Au Pwp.” Tumblr. Accessed May 8, 2019.
97 / 133
https://bootycap.tumblr.com/post/180924588190/prewars-bootycap-ao3-mcu-aaou-abobdsm.
Bowman, Rob. Elektra. Action film. 20th Century Fox, 2005.
Branagh, neth. Thor. Superhero film. Paramount Pictures, 2011.
Brevet, Brad. “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Decimates Record Books with $1.2 Billion Global Debut Box Office Mojo.” Box Office Mojo. Accessed May 24, 2019.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4507&p=.htm.
———. “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Tops $2 Billion Globally, En Route to Dominant Second Weekend Box Office Mojo.” Box Office Mojo. Accessed May 24, 2019.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4509&p=.htm.
Bryant, Adam. “Pow! The Punches That Left Marvel Reeling.” The New York Times, May 24, 1998,
sec. Business Day. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/24/business/pow-the-punches-thatleft-marvel-reeling.html.
Bryant, Kenzie. “Daisy Ridley Deletes Instagram Account over Post About Gun Violence.”
Vanities. Accessed May 1, 2019. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/08/daisy-ridleyquits-instagram.
Buck, Chris, and Jennifer Lee. Frozen II. Animation, Adventure, Comedy. Walt Disney Studios
Motion Pictures, 2019.
Bui, Hoai-Tran. “Hugh Jackman Now Has a Guinness World Record for Playing Wolverine.” Slash
Film, February 22, 2019. https://www.slashfilm.com/hugh-jackman-guinness-world-recordwolverine/.
Burton, Tim. Batman. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1989.
Busch, Caitlin. “An Archive of Our Own: How AO3 Built a Nonprofit Fanfiction Empire and Safe
Haven | SYFY WIRE.” Syfy.com, February 12, 2019. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/anarchive-of-our-own-how-ao3-built-a-nonprofit-fanfiction-empire-and-safe-haven.
Butler, Judith. “Implicit Censorship and Discursive Agency.” In Excitable Speech: A Politics of the
Performative, 1st ed., 127–63. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Captain America Serial 1944 - Trailer. Trailer. Accessed March 13, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=77&v=Q7GtCsXn1yE.
Cavanaugh, Patrick. “Avengers: Endgame Has Just Broken Pretty Much Every Record Fandango
Has.” ComicBook.com. Accessed May 9, 2019.
https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/04/25/avengers-endgame-ticket-sales-record-breaking/.
Chapman, Tom. “Which Studios Own the Rights to Marvel’s Characters?” ScreenRant, July 8,
2017. https://screenrant.com/marvel-movie-character-rights-explained-studios-sony-fox/.
Chitwood, Adam. “Marvel and Sony ‘Spider-Man’ Rights Explained: What’s MCU and What’s
Not?” Collider (blog), July 3, 2017. http://collider.com/spider-man-marvel-sony-dealexplained/.
Chuba, Kirsten, and Kirsten Chuba. “‘Star Wars’ Actress Kelly Marie Tran Leaves Social Media
After Months of Harassment.” Variety (blog), June 5, 2018.
https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/star-wars-kelly-marie-tran-leaves-social-mediaharassment-1202830892/.
Clifton, Elmer, and John English. Captain America. 15 episodes, Black and white serial film.
Republic Pictures, 1944.
Collin, Robbie. “Let’s Talk about Spoilers: Why ‘Spoiler Culture’ Is Demeaning to the Real Power
and Beauty of Film.” The Telegraph, May 5, 2019. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/talkspoilers-spoiler-culture-demeaning-real-power-beauty-film/.
Coogler, Ryan. Black Panther. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018.
Crooked Media. Time for a Gay Marvel Hero | Lovett or Leave It. Accessed May 10, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQWvv1fPeZY.
Cuccinello, Hayley C. “Fifty Shades Of Green: How Fanfiction Went From Dirty Little Secret To
98 / 133
Money Machine.” Forbes. Accessed May 23, 2019.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2017/02/10/fifty-shades-of-green-howfanfiction-went-from-dirty-little-secret-to-money-machine/.
D’Alessandro, Anthony, and Anthony D’Alessandro. “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Sets First-Day Presales
Record For Fandango & Atom; Marvel High For Regal: CinemaCon – Update.” Deadline
(blog), April 2, 2019. https://deadline.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame-presales-recordatom-fandango-amc-website-crash-1202586799/.
De Kosnik, Abigail. “Fandom as Free Labor.” In Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and
Factory, 2012.
“Definition of BLOCKBUSTER.” Merriam Webster. Accessed May 23, 2019.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blockbuster.
“Definition of FAN.” Merriam Webster. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/fan.
DeGuere, Philip. Dr. Strange. Made-for-television superhero film. NBC, 1978.
Derrickson, Scott. Doctor Strange. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016.
Desta, Yohana. “A Venom Sequel Is Officially in the Works.” HWD. Accessed May 23, 2019.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/venom-sequel-official.
Dixon, Kerry. “Marvel Studios Odds of Returning to San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Is a ‘Spoiler.’”
San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog (blog), April 9, 2019.
https://sdccblog.com/2019/04/marvel-studios-odds-of-returning-to-san-diego-comic-con2019-is-a-spoiler/.
Donnelly, Matt, and Matt Donnelly. “James Gunn Returns to Direct ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3.’”
Variety (blog), March 15, 2019. https://variety.com/2019/film/news/disney-reverses-courseon-james-gunn-director-to-return-for-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3-1203164489/.
Donner, Richard. Superman. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1978.
Douglas, Edward. “Robert Downey Jr. Is Iron Man!” SuperHeroHype, April 30, 2008.
https://www.superherohype.com/features/96459-robert-downey-jr-is-iron-man-2.
Edwards, Gareth. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Epic space opera. Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures, 2016.
“Fanaticus - Wiktionary.” Wiktionary. Accessed April 10, 2019.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fanaticus#Latin.
“Fanum - Wiktionary.” Wiktionary. Accessed April 10, 2019.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fanum#Latin.
“Fastest Movies to Hit $100 Million at the Box Office.” Box Office Mojo. Accessed March 17,
2019. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/fastest.htm?
page=100&sort=rank&order=ASC&p=.htm.
Favreau, Jon. Iron Man. Superhero film. Paramount Pictures, 2008.
———. Iron Man 2. Superhero film. Paramount Pictures, 2010.
———. The Lion King. Musical drama film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2019.
Filoni, Dave. Star Wars: The Clone Wars. 3D animated science fiction action-adventure film.
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008.
Finger, Bill. Detective Comics. 1st ed. Vol. 27. 1937-2011. DC Comics, 1939.
Fleischer, Ruben. Venom. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2018.
Foreman, Alison. “‘Avengers: Endgame’ Directors Beg Fans: #DontSpoilTheEndgame.” Mashable.
Accessed May 24, 2019. https://mashable.com/article/avengers-endgame-no-spoilers-leak/.
Fowler, Jeff. Sonic the Hedgehog. Live-action adventure comedy. Paramount Pictures, 2019.
———. “Thank You for the Support. And the Criticism. The Message Is Loud and Clear... You
Aren’t Happy with the Design & You Want Changes. It’s Going to Happen. Everyone at
Paramount & Sega Are Fully Committed to Making This Character the BEST He Can Be...
#sonicmovie #gottafixfast.” Tweet. @fowltown (blog), May 2, 2019.
99 / 133
https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.
Fromm, Keif. “Alter Ego.” Alter Ego, Unavailable.
Fuchs, Christian. “Social Media and Capitalism.” In Producing the Internet:: Critical Perspectives
of Social Media, 1st ed., 19. Nordicom, 2013. https://rex.kb.dk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?
docid=TN_swepuboai:lup.lub.lu.se:75e6cab3-e847-41f4-b304a191d027b666&context=PC&vid=NUI&lang=da_DK&search_scope=KGL&adaptor=prim
o_central_multiple_fe&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,social%20media%20and
%20capitalism%20fuchs%20producing%20the%20internet&sortby=rank&offset=0.
Goddard, Drew. Daredevil. Action, crime drama, legal drama, superhero. Netflix, 2015.
Goldblatt, Mark. The Punisher. American action film. New World International, 1991.
Goyer, David S. Blade: Trinity. Supernatural superhero film. New Line Cinema, 2004.
grable424, and djcprod. “MARVEL || Glitter & Gold (Collab w/ Djcprod) - YouTube.” YouTube.
Accessed April 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUrAvKNF8s.
Grady, Constance. “Why We’re Terrified of Fanfiction.” Vox, June 2, 2016.
https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11531406/why-were-terrified-fanfiction-teen-girls.
Gramuglia, Anthony. “Why Sonic the Hedgehog’s Movie Design Is Being Fixed - and Why It
Matters.” CBR, May 7, 2019. https://www.cbr.com/sonic-the-hedgehogs-movie-designfixed-why-matters/.
Gunn, James. Guardians of the Galaxy. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2014.
———. Guardians of the Galaxy V2. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2017.
Harris, Hunter. “All of the Avatar Sequel Announcements: A Timeline.” Vulture, May 7, 2019.
https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/avatar-sequel-announcements-timeline-jamescameron.html.
Hensleigh, Jonathan. The Punisher. Action crime thriller film. Lionsgate Films, 2004.
Hills, Matt. “‘Proper Distance’ in the Ethical Positioning of Scholar-Fandoms: Between Academics’
and Fans’ Moral Economies?” In Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, 1st ed., 14–37. Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 2012.
———. “Star Wars in Fandom, Film Theory, and the Museum: The Cultural Status of the Cult
Blockbuster.” In Movie Blockbusters, 1st ed., 178–89. London: Routledge, 2003.
Holcomb, Rob. Captain America. Made-for-television superhero film. NBC / ABC, 1979.
Hood, Gavin. X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2009.
Hooton, Christopher. “Westworld Season 2 Will ‘Fuck with the Metaphysical.’” The Independent,
March 27, 2017. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/westworldseason-2-plot-reddit-storyline-jonathan-nolan-details-news-a7651506.html.
Howard, Robert E. The Phoenix in the Sword. 1st ed. Vol. 1. Conan the Cimmerian. Rural
Publishing Corporation, 1932.
Howard, Ron. Solo: A Star Wars Story. Space opera. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018.
Howe, Sean. “The Amazing Merrill Lynch Deal That Made <em>The Avengers</Em> Possible.”
Slate Magazine, September 28, 2012. https://slate.com/business/2012/09/marvel-comicsand-the-movies-the-business-story-behind-the-avengers.html.
Huyck, Willard. Howard the Duck. Comic science fiction film. Universal Pictures, 1986.
inkandcayenne. “What You Think about Fanfiction?” Tumblr, February 23, 2018.
https://inkandcayenne.tumblr.com/post/29097051054/tywinning-asked-you-2012-08-090337-as-a.
“Introduction.” The Hugo Awards (blog), July 18, 2007. http://www.thehugoawards.org/about/.
Jefferson, David. “The Walt Disney Company Announces It Expects No Further Extension of
Exchange Offers and Consent Solicitations for 21st Century Fox America, Inc. Notes.” The
Walt Disney Company, March 12, 2019. https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-waltdisney-company-announces-it-expects-no-further-extension-of-exchange-offers-andconsent-solicitations-for-21st-century-fox-america-inc-notes/.
100 / 133
Jenkins, Henry. “Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media
Convergence.” In Fans Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture 2006, 152–
72. New York University Press, n.d.
———. “Superpowered Fans: The Many Worlds of San Diego’s Comic-Con.” Boom - A Journal of
California 2, no. 2 (June 1, 2012): 32–36. https://doi.org/10.1525/boom.2012.2.2.22.
Jenkins, Patty. Wonder Woman. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2017.
jezi-belle. “So Who Else Misses 2012 and the ‘They All Live in the Tower and Tony Made Them
Separate Floors’ Fanfics after Seeing That Shit Fire Angsty Trailer.” Tumblr. Accessed May
10, 2019. https://jezi-belle.tumblr.com/post/181005244514/so-who-else-misses-2012-andthe-they-all-live-in.
Johnson, Derek. “Cinematic Destiny: Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial
Convergence.” Cinema Journal, Project MUSE, 52, no. 1 (2012): 1–24.
https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2012.0108.
Johnson, Jasmine McGinnis, and Eddy S. W. Ng. “Millennials: Who Are They, How Are They
Different, and Why Should We Care?” In The Multi-Generational and Aging Workforce:
Challenges and Opportunities., 1st ed., 121–37. Edward Elgar Pub, 2015.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282368010_Millennials_Who_are_they_how_are_
they_different_and_why_should_we_care.
Johnson, Mark Steven. Daredevil. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2003.
———. Ghost Rider. Supernatural superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2007.
Johnson, Rian. Star Wars - The Last Jedi. Epic space opera. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2017.
Johnston, Joe. Captain America: The First Avenger. Superhero film. Paramount Pictures, 2011.
Kershner, Irvin. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 1980.
Kinberg, Simon. X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2019.
Kohnen, Melanie. “‘The Power of Geek’: Fandom as a Gendered Commodity at Comic-Con.”
Creative Industries Journal 7:1 (April 10, 2014): 75–78.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2014.892295.
Lang, Brent, and Brent Lang. “James Gunn Fired From ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.’” Variety
(blog), July 20, 2018. https://variety.com/2018/film/news/james-gunn-fired-from-guardiansof-the-galaxy-vol-3-1202879817/.
Larsen, Katherine, and Lynn Zubernis. “Introduction.” In Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, 1st ed.,
1:1–13. 1. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.
Lealos, Shawn S. “10 Ways Marvel’s Multiverse Can Introduce The X-Men and Fantastic Four.”
ScreenRant, May 13, 2019. https://screenrant.com/marvels-multiverses-x-men-fantasticfour/.
Lee, Ang. Hulk. Superhero film. Universal Pictures, 2003.
Lee, Stan. Amazing Fantasy. 1st ed. Vol. 1. 18 vols. Marvel Comics, 1962.
Lee, Stan. Fantastic Four. 1st ed. Vol. 1. 611 vols. Fantastic Four. Marvel Comics, 1961.
Leitch, David. Deadpool 2. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2018.
Lester, Richard. Superman III. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1983.
Lester, Richard, and Richard Donner. Superman II. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1981.
Leterrier, Louis. The Incredible Hulk. Superhero film. Universal Pictures, 2008.
“Let’s Talk About LGBTQ Representation in Avengers: Endgame.” The Mary Sue. Accessed May
10, 2019. https://www.themarysue.com/gay-representation-avengers-endgame/.
Letterman, Rob. Pokémon Detective Pikachu. Urban fantasy mystery film. Warner Bros. Pictures,
2019.
Life, Nintendo. “‘Realistic Pokémon’ Artist Landed Detective Pikachu Movie Job After Being
Discovered On Google.” Nintendo Life, November 13, 2018.
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/realistic_pokemon_artist_landed_detective_pika
101 / 133
chu_movie_job_after_being_discovered_on_google.
Lucas, George. Star Wars - A New Hope. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 1977.
Lucas, George. Star Wars - Attack of the Clones. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 2002.
———. Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 2005.
Lucas, George. Star Wars - The Phantom Menace. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 1999.
Maggs, Sam. The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2015.
Mangold, James. Logan. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2017.
———. The Wolverine. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2013.
Manovich, Lev. “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life: From Mass Consumption to Mass
Cultural Production?” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 2 (2009): 319–331.
https://doi.org/10.1086/596645.
Marquand, Richard. Star Wars - Return of the Jedi. Epic space opera. 20th Century Fox, 1983.
Marvel. “Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Interactive Exhibit | Las Vegas,” 2016.
http://www.stationattraction.com/.
“MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC (Form Type: 10-K, Filing Date: 04/16/1998).”
Accessed March 13, 2019. http://edgar.secdatabase.com/1964/95013698000700/filingmain.htm.
McGlynn, Anthony. “Who REALLY Leaked The Deadpool Movie Test Footage?” ScreenRant, May
15, 2018. https://screenrant.com/deadpool-movie-test-footage-who-leaked/.
McKenzie-Ray, Mark, David Leach, Dan Boultwood, and Nick Jones. Marvel Studios: The First 10
Years. 1st ed. London: Titan Magazines, 2018.
Mendes, Sam. Spectre. Spy-film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2015.
Miller, Tim. Deadpool. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2016.
Mitchell, Nigel G. “Visual Guide to Marvel Live-Action Movie Rights, Before and After DisneyFox Merger.” The Geek Twins (blog). Accessed March 13, 2019.
http://www.thegeektwins.com/2017/12/visual-guide-to-marvel-live-action.html.
MJ. “Timeline of Social Media, 2017.” Books Are Social (blog), June 14, 2017.
http://www.booksaresocial.com/timeline-social-media-2017/.
Morris, Anthony. “‘Howard the Duck’: The Film Marvel Is Too Embarrassed to Talk About.” SBS
Movies. Accessed March 13, 2019.
https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2018/02/21/howard-duck-film-marvel-tooembarrassed-talk-about.
Mueller, Matthew. “Joe Manganiello Was Offered Deathstroke Role Because Of Fan Art.”
Comicbook, June 9, 2018. https://comicbook.com/dc/2018/06/09/joe-manganiellodeathstroke-role-thanks-to-fan-art/.
Nolan, Christopher. Batman Begins. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005.
———. The Dark Knight. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008.
———. The Dark Knight Rises. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2012.
Norrington, Stephen. Blade. Supernatural superhero film. New Line Cinema, 1998.
ofhouseadama. “A Brief History of Fandom, for the Teenagers on Here Who Somehow Think
Tumblr Invented Fandom.” Fanlore.org, n.d.
http://thishedgehog.tumblr.com/post/99399043330/notyourexrotic-ofhouseadama-a-briefhistory.
O’Reilly, Tim. “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of
Software.” IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, 2007.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1699077841/?pq-origsite=primo.
Pearson, Ben. “‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Director Says He’s Redesigning the Character Due to Fan
Outrage.” Slash Film, May 2, 2019. https://www.slashfilm.com/sonic-the-hedgehogredesign/.
Pham, Jason. “How Anna Todd’s Harry Styles Fanfiction Became a Bestselling Book—& Now a
102 / 133
Movie.” StyleCaster (blog), April 12, 2019. https://stylecaster.com/after-anna-todd-harrystyles-fanfiction/.
Philbrick, Jami. “EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Feige Talks Iron Man 2, The Avengers and More.”
Movieweb, April 26, 2010. https://movieweb.com/exclusive-kevin-fiege-talks-iron-man-2the-avengers-and-more/.
piratesandsuperheros. “LADIES OF MARVEL, Wicked Ones. - YouTube.” YouTube. Accessed
April 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8wbsRcrZio.
Pyun, Albert. Captain America. Superhero film. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1992.
Raimi, Sam. Spider-Man. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2002.
———. Spider-Man 2. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2004.
Raimi, Sam. Spider-Man 3. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2007.
Ratner, Brett. X-Men: The Last Stand. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2006.
Raymond, Alex. Buck Rogers. King Features Syndicate, 1934.
rebellious_scum. “R/Oddlysatisfying - Movie Franchise Earnings Comparison over 20 Years by
u/Rebellious_scum.” reddit. Accessed April 24, 2019.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/bgm420/movie_franchise_earnings_co
mparison_over_20_years/.
Reed, Peyton. Ant-Man. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2015.
———. Ant-Man and the Wasp. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018.
Renaud, Chris. The Secret Life of Pets 2. 3d computer animated comedy film. Universal Pictures,
2019.
Riesman, Abraham. “That Time Captain America Said ‘Hail Hydra’ and Geekdom Imploded.”
Vulture, April 28, 2019. https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/marvel-hydra-captain-americanick-spencer.html.
Robertson, Adi. “A Five-Minute Avengers: Endgame Leak Is Making Marvel Movie Fans
Miserable.” The Verge, April 16, 2019.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/16/18411071/avengers-endgame-leak-social-mediaspoilers-russo-brothers-letter.
Robinson, Joanna. “Marvel Looks Back at Iron Man—the Movie That Started It All.” Vanity Fair,
November 29, 2017. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/marvel-looks-back-atiron-man-the-movie-that-started-it-all.
Romano, Aja. “The Archive of Our Own and Its Hugo Nomination, Explained - Vox.” Vox, April
11, 2019. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/11/18292419/archive-of-our-own-hugo-awardnomination-related-work.
Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies, an Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. 4.
revised edition. London, UK Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.
Russo, Anthony, and Joe Russo. Avengers: Endgame. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures, 2019.
———. Avengers: Infinity War. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018.
———. Captain America: Civil War. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016.
———. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures, 2014.
Russo, Tom. “SUPER GROUP.” Newspaper. The Boston Globe, April 29, 2012.
http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/04/29/the_avengers_collects_all_your_fa
vorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbustersuper_groupthe_avengers_as
sembles_all_your_favorite_marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbuster/.
Sattelberg, William. “The Demographics of Reddit: Who Uses the Site?” Tech Junkie, March 22,
2019. https://www.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/.
Schatz, Thomas. “The New Hollywood.” In Movie Blockbusters, 1st ed., 15–44. London:
Routledge, 2003.
103 / 133
Schumacher, Joel. Batman & Robin. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1997.
———. Batman Forever. Superhero film. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1995.
Scott, Suzanne. “Who’s Steering the Mothership? The Role of the Fanboy Auteur in Transmedia
Storytelling.” In The Participatory Cultures Handbook, 1st ed., 1:43–52. New York:
Routledge, 2013.
Screen Junkies. Russo Brothers’ Honest Reaction to Winter Soldier Honest Trailer. Accessed May 9,
2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpk1TE2_Gcc.
“Screen Junkies.” YouTube. Accessed May 9, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOpcACMWblDls9Z6GERVi1A.
Senensky, Ralph. “This Side of Paradise.” Star Trek: The Original Series. CBS, March 2, 1967.
Sharma, Andrew, and Chrys Egan. “Hashtag Television Advertising - The Multistep Flow of
Millennial TV Usage, Commercial Viewing, and Social Media Interaction.” In
Communication Theory and Millenial Popular Culture, 1st ed., 167–76. New York: Peter
Lang Publishing, Inc., 2016.
Sholem, Lee. Superman and the Mole Men. Black and white superhero film. Lippert Pictures, 1951.
Siegel, Jerry. Action Comics. 1st ed. Action Comics 1, 1938.
Singer, Bryan. X2: X-Men United. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2003.
———. X-Men. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2000.
———. X-Men: Apocalypse. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2016.
———. X-Men: Days of Future Past. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2014.
Spencer, Nick. Captain America: Steve Rogers. 1st ed. Vol. 1. 10 vols. Captain America: Steve
Rogers. New York: Marvel Comics, 2016.
Spielberg, Steven. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Action adventure film. Paramount
Pictures, 1981.
Staff, WIRED. “Scott Brown on Sherlock Holmes, Obsessed Nerds, and Fan Fiction.” Wired, April
20, 2009. https://www.wired.com/2009/04/pl-brown-6/.
“Star Trek: The Original Series.” Star Trek: The Original Series. CBS, 1970 1966.
starkked. “I Feel like Sharing My Thoughts about the Movie with You Guys.” Accessed May 9,
2019. https://starkked.tumblr.com/post/184489435788/avengers-endgame.
Steranko, Jim. .“.@CMRoedere I Designed the HYDRA SYMBOL in My First SHIELD Tale
Maybe Thinking If It Was Good Enough for 007, It Was Good Enough for Hydra!” Tweet.
@iamsteranko (blog), October 20, 2014.
https://twitter.com/iamsteranko/status/524032585815830529.
Story, Tim. Fantastic Four. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2005.
Story, Tim. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2007.
Swackhamer, E. W. Spider-Man. Made-for-television superhero film. Columbia Pictures, 1977.
systlin. “Purge of 2002? Of 2012? What ARE Those?” Tumblr. Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/post/184123536373.
Taipua, Dan. “Thor and His Magic Patu: Notes on a Very Māori Marvel Movie.” The Spinoff (blog),
October 31, 2017. https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/31-10-2017/thor-and-his-magic-patu-noteson-a-very-maori-marvel-movie/.
Taylor, Alan. “Fire and Blood.” Game of Thrones. HBO, June 19, 2011.
———. Thor: The Dark World. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2013.
Terranova, Tiziana. “Free Labor.” Social Text 18, no. 2 (2000): 33–58.
https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-18-2_63-33.
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” The Man from U.N.C.L.E. NBC, 1968 1964.
thesaltofcarthage. “Avengers: Endgame and Stakes That Are Too High.” Tumblr. Accessed May 9,
2019. https://thesaltofcarthage.tumblr.com/post/184201457397/avengers-endgame-andstakes-that-are-too-high.
“These Curious Times Interview with Voordeel - Fanlore.” Fanlore. Accessed April 30, 2019.
104 / 133
https://fanlore.org/wiki/These_Curious_Times_Interview_with_Voordeel.
thomasmxller. “Fucking up Character Arcs towards the End for Shock Value.” Tumblr. Accessed
May 24, 2019. https://thomasmxller.tumblr.com/post/184679790070.
Thompson, Ben. Marvel Comics #1. 1st ed. Vol. 1. 1000 vols. Marvel Comics. New York: Marvel
Comics, 1939.
Toro, Guillermo del. Blade II. Supernatural superhero film. New Line Cinema, 2002.
Towers, Andrea. Geek Girls Don’t Cry. 1st ed. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., n.d.
Trendle, George, and Fran Striker. “The Green Hornet.” The Green Hornet. WXYZ, January 30,
1936.
———. “The Lone Ranger.” The Lone Ranger. WXYZ, January 30, 1933.
twinkleofafadingstar. “FANART IS NOT REAL ART!!!” Tumblr. Accessed May 23, 2019.
https://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com/post/185059834854/soumeki-twinkleofafadingstarfanart-is-not.
“Urban Dictionary: AMV.” Urban Dictionary. Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=AMV.
“Urban Dictionary: Youtube Comments.” Urban Dictionary. Accessed May 1, 2019.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Youtube%20comments.
Vaughn, Matthew. X-Men: First Class. Superhero film. 20th Century Fox, 2011.
voordeel. “Captain Hydra || Lunacy - YouTube.” YouTube. Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baZtDDQUBpE.
———. “Captain Hydra || Thrill Me - YouTube.” YouTube. Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKqwoVuyCcI.
———. “Marvel || Battle Royale - YouTube.” YouTube. Accessed April 30, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEBjh_MTNzQ.
Waititi, Taika. Thor: Ragnarok. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2017.
Wallace, Daniel, Tom Brevoort, Andrew J. Darling, Tom DeFalco, Peter Sanderson, and Michael
Teitelbaum. Marvel Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the Marvel
Universe. 4th ed. New York: DK Publishing, 2014.
Watts, Jon. Spider-Man: Far From Home. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2019.
———. Spider-Man: Homecoming. Superhero film. Sony Pictures Releasing, 2017.
Weintraub, Steve “Frosty.” “Joe Russo and Anthony Russo Talk CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE
WINTER SOLDIER, the Deleted Scenes, Trying to Make the Film Honest Trailer-Proof,
and More.” Collider (blog), September 4, 2014. http://collider.com/captain-america-thewinter-soldier-joe-russo-anthony-russo-interview/.
Whedon, Joss. Avengers: Age of Ultron. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
2015.
———. Marvel’s The Avengers. Superhero film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2012.
Williams, Trey. “‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Directors Russo Brothers Beg Fans to Avoid Spoilers:
#ThanosDemandsYourSilence.” TheWrap, April 3, 2018.
https://www.thewrap.com/avengers-infinity-wars-directors-russo-brothers-beg-fans-toavoid-spoilers-thanosdemandsyoursilence/.
Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. 1st. The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Young, Terence. From Russia With Love. British Spy film. United Artists, 1963.
105 / 133
Appendixes
Appendix #1: MCU and fandom cheat sheet
1.1. Acronyms
AO3: Archive of Our Own. It is a non-profit Hugo-nominated hosting archive for fanfiction and
other fanworks. It was created in 2008 by the Organization for Transformative Works.
IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. It is an online database of all information relating to the
entertainment industry: films, television, home videos, video-games, streaming-videos and includes
notes on cast, crew, plot summaries, quotes and more.
LGBTQIA+: An all-inclusive term that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
intersex, asexual and more. It is less exclusionary than the preferred LGBT-term.
MCU: Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the broad definition of all media texts falling under the
interconnected universe relating to the stories produced by Marvel Studios.
NSFW: Not Safe For Work. It is an internet term to mark urls or works containing sensitive
subjects including but not limited to sexual content, profanity or violence.
OTW: The Organization for Transformative Works. It is a non-profit, fan activist organization
whose mission is to preserve fan activity and make it accessible worldwide.
SDCC: San Diego Comic Con. It is a non-profit entertainment and comic convention held in San
Diego, California, USA. It was founded in 1970. Attendance in 2017 was roughly 130.000+
attendees.
1.2. Fandom-dictionary
Canon: It represents the material accepted as officially part of the fictional universe of the story.
Alternatively called mythology, universe or continuity.
Comic Con: Comic book convention. Event focusing primarily on comicbook culture.
Cosplay: Portmanteau of the words costume and play. An event or performance where
participants dress up as specific characters.
Easter egg: An intentional inside joke, detail, wink or secret within a work.
Fanart: also fan art. Artwork created by a fan based on official material.
Fandom: Subculture of fans who share a common interest.
Fanfiction: also fan fiction, fanfic. Work of fiction created by a fan based on official material.
Fanon: Used of something that reaches enough popularity within a fandom space to be spread on
a canon-wide level, without any official endorsement from the source of the material.
Headcanon: A fan's personal interpretation of something in a fictional universe.
Queerbaiting: Marketing technique tricking audiences into thinking official content will contain
same-sex romance.
Shipping: The act of wanting two or more characters to be engaged in a romantic relationship.
106 / 133
1.3. Marvel character cheat sheet
Each character is outlined as such:
Civilian name of the character: superhero name of the character (actor/actress).
If there is no superhero name, the outline skips directly to the actor/actress. Actor names are
for actors in the MCU. Other versions of the characters are not mentioned in this list. Non-MCU
characters are shown in red. This list is non-exhaustive. Some characters have had different
superhero monikers, both are listed below.
Billy Kaplan: Wiccan (no live action)
Bruce Banner: The Hulk, Professor Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)
Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier, The White Wolf (Sebastian Stan)
Carol Danvers: Captain Marvel (Brie Larson)
Charles Xavier: Professor X (James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart)
Clint Barton: Hawkeye, Ronin (Jeremy Renner)
Danny Rand: Iron Fist (Finn Jones)
Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung)
Eric Brooks: Blade (Wesley Snipes)
Everett Ross (Martin Freeman)
Frank Castle: The Punisher (Jon Bernthal)
Gamora (Zoe Saldana)
Hope Van Dyne: The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly)
James Howlett: Wolverine, Logan (Hugh Jackman)
James Rhodes: War Machine (Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard)
Johan Schmidt: Red Skull (Hugo Weaving)
Kamala Khan: Ms. Marvel (no live action)
Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston)
Luke Cage: Power Man (Mike Colter)
Mantis (Pom Klementieff)
Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)
Matt Murdock: Daredevil (Charlie Cox)
Natasha Romanoff: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)
Nebula (Karen Gillan)
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)
Okoye (Danai Gurira)
Peggy Carter. (Hayley Atwell)
107 / 133
Pepper Potts: Rescue (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Tom Holland)
Peter Quill: Star-Lord (Chris Pratt)
Pietro Maximoff: Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)
Robbie Reyes: Ghost Rider (Gabriel Luna)
Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper)
Sam Wilson: The Falcon, Captain America (Anthony Mackie)
Scott Lang: Ant-Man, Giant-Man (Paul Rudd)
Sharon Carter: Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp)
Shuri (Letitia Wright)
Stephen Strange: Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch)
Steve Rogers: Captain America, Nomad (Chris Evans)
T'Challa: Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman)
Teddy Altman: Hulkling (no live action)
Thanos (Josh Brolin)
Thor Odinson (Chris Hemsworth)
Tony Stark: Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.)
Ultron (James Spader)
Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis)
Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson)
Vision: formerly J.A.R.V.I.S. (Paul Bettany)
Wade Wilson: Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds)
Wanda Maximoff: Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)
1.4. Marvel employees and executives
The names of several people are repeated throughout this thesis. Here is a list of all the most
important ones (non-exhaustive)
Avi Arad: producer and chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, CEO and founder of
Marvel Studios.
Brian Michael Bendis: prize winning author. He has written Marvel comicbooks, such as the
New Avengers, Secret War, House of M, Secret Invasion, Siege and Age of Ultron.
Ed Brubaker: prize winning author. He has written Marvel comicbooks, such as Captain
America, Daredevil, and Immortal Iron Fist.
Frank Miller: prize winning author. He has written Marvel comicbooks, and is most famous for
his take on Daredevil and for introducing the character Elektra Natchios.
Jack Kirby: prize winning author, artist and editor. One of the creators of the character of Captain
America, Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
108 / 133
Jim Steranko: prize winning author, artist, and publisher. He has written Marvel comicbooks,
such as Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and known for the introduction of HYDRA.
Joe Simon: prize winning author, artist, editor and publisher. He is the co-creator of Captain
America and was the first editor of Marvel Comics (called Timely Comics at the time).
John Byrne: prize winnning author and artist. He has worked on characters like the X-Men and
the Fantastic Four. He also created the characters of Scott Lang, Sabretooth and Emma Frost.
Jon Favreau: actor, director, producer and screewriter. He directed Iron Man and has starred as
Happy Hogan in several MCU-features.
Kelly SueDeKonnick: prize winning author. She has written Marvel comicbooks, such as Captain
Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Avengers Assemble.
Kevin Feige: It represents the material accepted as officially part of the fictional universe of the
story. Alt
Louis D'Esposito: co-president of Marvel Studios. Executive producer on all MCU-movies.
Margaret Stohl: New York Times bestelling author. She has written Marvel comicbooks, such as
Black Widow: Forever Red, The Mighty Captain Marvel and The Life of Captain Marvel.
Mark Gruenwald: author, editor and penciler. He has worked on Marvel comicbooks such as
Captain America, Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions and more.
Martin Goodman: publisher. He launched what would become Marvel Comics.
Matt Fraction: prize winning author. He has written Marvel comicbooks, such as Hawkeye, The
Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men.
Seanan McGuire: prize winning author. She has written Marvel comicbooks, such as SpiderGwen, Age of X-Man: The Amazing Nightcrawler and more.
Stan Lee: prize winning author, editor, publisher and producer. He is one of the most famous
names associated with Marvel. He co-created Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Black
Panther, and more. He has appeared as a cameo in all Marvel-movies.
109 / 133
Appendix #2: Marvel-movies and IMDb scores
Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Year Movie
IMDb score (out of 10)
2008 Iron Man
7.9
2008 The Incredible Hulk
6.7
2010 Iron Man 2
7.0
2011 Thor
7.0
2011 Captain America: The First Avenger
6.9
2012 Marvel's the Avengers
8.1
2013 Iron Man 3
7.2
2013 Thor: The Dark World
7.0
2014 Captain America: The Winter Soldier 7.8
2014 Guardians of the Galaxy
8.1
2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron
7.3
2015 Ant-Man
7.3
2016 Captain America: Civil War
7.8
2016 Doctor Strange
7.5
2017 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
7.7
2017 Spider-Man: Homecoming
7.5
2017 Thor: Ragnarok
7.9
2018 Black Panther
7.3
2018 Avengers: Infinity War
8.5
2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp
7.1
2019 Captain Marvel
7.1
2019 Avengers: Endgame
8.8
Average: 7.5
110 / 133
Marvel-movies:
Year Movie
IMDb score (out of 10)
1986 Howard the Duck
4.6
1989 The Punisher
5.7
1990 Captain America
3.3
1994 The Fantastic Four
3.9
2003 Daredevil
5.3
2003 Hulk
5.6
2004 The Punisher
6.5
2005 Elektra
4.7
2005 Fantastic Four
5.7
2007 Ghost Rider
5.2
2007 Fantastic Four and the Rise of the Silver Surfer 5.6
2008 Punisher: War Zone
6
2011 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
4.3
2012 The Amazing Spider-Man
7
2014 The Amazing Spider-Man 2
6.6
2015 Fantastic Four
4.3
2018 Venom
6.7
Average: 5.4
The Blade-trilogy:
Year Movie
IMDb score (out of 10)
1998 Blade
7.1
2002 Blade II
6.7
2004 Blade: Trinity 5.9
Average: 6.6
The Spider-Man-trilogy:
Year Movie
IMDb score (out of 10)
2002 Spider-Man
7.3
2004 Spider-Man 2 7.3
2007 Spider-Man 3 6.2
Average: 6.9
111 / 133
The X-Men-franchise:
Year Movie
IMDb score (out of 10)
2000 X-Men
7.4
2003 X2
7.5
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand
6.7
2009 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
6.6
2011 X-Men: First Class
7.7
2013 The Wolverine
6.7
2014 X-Men: Days of Future Past 8
2016 Deadpool
8
2016 X-Men: Apocalypse
7
2017 Logan
8.1
2018 Deadpool 2
7.8
Average: 7.4
112 / 133
Appendix #3: Marvel character rights before acquisition of 20 th Century
Fox by Disney
113 / 133
Appendix #4: Marvel character rights after acquisition of 20 th Century
Fox by Disney
114 / 133
Appendix #5: Highest-grossing movies as of May 2019
1. Avatar (2009)
2. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
5. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
6. Jurassic World (2017)
7. Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
8. Furious 7 (2015)
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
10. Black Panther (2018)
11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part
2 (2011)
12. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
13. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
14. Frozen (2013)
15. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
16. The Incredible 2 (2018)
17. The Fate of the Furious (2017)
18. Iron Man 3 (2013)
19. Minions (2015)
20. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
21. Aquaman (2018)
22. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
23. Captain Marvel (2019)
24. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King (2003)
25. Skyfall (2012)
26. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
27. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
28. Toy Story 3 (2010)
29. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's
Chest (2006)
30. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
31. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger
Tides (2011)
32. Despicable Me 3 (2017)
33. Jurassic Park (1993)
34. Finding Dory (2016)
35. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom
Menace (1999)
36. Alice in Wonderland (2010)
37. Zootopia (2016)
38. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
(2012)
39. The Dark Knight (2008)
40. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(2001)
41. Despicable Me 2 (2013)
42. The Lion King (1994)
43. The Jungle Book (2016)
44. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
(2007)
45. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
46. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part
1 (2010)
47. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
(2013)
48. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
(2014)
49. Finding Nemo (2003)
50. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(2007)
51. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
(2009)
52. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(2002)
53. Shrek 2 (2004)
54. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
55. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
56. Spider-Man 3 (2007)
57. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
58. Spectre (2015)
59. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
60. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
(2002)
61. Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)
62. The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
63. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
(2016)
64. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of
the Ring (2001)
65. Wolf Warrior 2 (2017)
66. The Hunger Games. Catching Fire (2013)
67. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
68. Inside Out (2015)
69. Venom (2018)
70. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
71. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the
Sith (2005)
72. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(2009)
73. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
(2012)
74. Inception (2010)
115 / 133
75. Wonder Woman (2017)
76. Spider-Man (2002)
77. Independence Day (1996)
78. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
(2016)
79. Coco (2017)
80. Shrek the Third (2007)
81. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(2004)
82. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell
No Tales (2017)
83. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
84. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
85. Fast & Furious 6 )2013)
86. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull (2008)
87. Deadpool 2 (2018)
88. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
89. Deadpool (2016)
90. Star Wars (1977)
91. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
92. 2012 (2009)
93. Maleficent (2014)
94. The Da Vinci Code (2006)
95. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
96. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
(2014)
97. Shrek Forever After (2010)
98. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
99. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
(2012)
100.
Suicide Squad (2016)
116 / 133
Appendix #6: Franchises in the top 100 highest grossing movies
Non-franchise movies:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million)
Avatar
2009 1
$2,788.00
Titanic
1997 3
$2,187.50
Frozen
2013 14
$1.276.5
Zootopia
2016 37
$1,023.80
The Lion King
1994 42
$968.50
Bohemian Rhapsody
2018 54
$903.20
The Secret Life of Pets
2016 62
$875.50
Inside Out
2015 68
$857.60
Venom
2018 69
$855.00
Inception
2010 74
$828.30
Coco
2017 79
$807.10
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 1982 83
$792.90
2012
$769.70
2009 92
Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Title
Year
Position
on top
100
Gross (in million)
Position in
franchise
Avengers: Endgame
2019
2
$2,531.40
22/22
Avengers: Infinity War
2018
5
$2,048.40
19/22
Marvel's The Avengers
2012
7
$1518.80
06/22
Avengers: Age of Ultron
2015
9
$1405.40
11/22
Black Panther
2018
10
$1346.90
18/22
Iron Man 3
2013
18
$1214.80
07/22
Captain America: Civil War
2016
20
$1153.30
13/22
Captain Marvel
2019
22
$1125.10
21/22
Spider-Man: Homecoming
2017
59
$880.20
16/22
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2017
67
$863.80
15/22
Thor: Ragnarok
2017
70
$854.00
17/22
Guardians of the Galaxy
2014
91
$773.30
10/22
117 / 133
Star Wars:
Title
Year
Position on
top 100
Gross (in
million)
Position in
franchise
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2015
4
$2068.20
08/12
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
2017
12
$1332.50
10/12
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2016
30
$1056.10
09/12
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 1999
35
$1027.00
04/12
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith 2005
71
$848.80
06/12
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
90
$775.40
01/12
1977
Jurassic Park:
Title
Year
Position on
top 100
Gross (in million) Position in
franchise
Jurassic World
2015
6
$1671.70
04/05
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2018
13
$1309.50
05/05
Jurassic Park
33
$1029.50
01/05
1993
Fast and Furious:
Title
Year
Position on top
100
Gross (in million) Position in
franchise
Furious 7
2015
8
$1516.00
07/08
The Fate of the Furious
2017
17
$1236.00
08/08
Fast & Furious 6
2013
85
$788.70
06/08
Harry Potter and the Wizarding World:
Title
Year
Position on Gross (in
top 100
million)
Position in
franchise
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 2011
11
$1341.70
08/10
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2001
40
$975.10
01/10
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 2010
46
$960.40
07/10
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007
50
$940.00
05/10
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2009
51
$934.50
06/10
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2005
55
$897.10
04/10
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002
60
$879.20
02/10
Fantastic Beasts and Where fo Find Them
2016
78
$814.00
09/10
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2004
81
$796.90
03/10
118 / 133
Disney-remakes:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million)
Beauty and the Beast 2017 15
$1263.50
Alice in Wonderland 2010 36
$1025.50
The Jungle Book
2016 43
$966.60
Maleficent
2014 93
$758.50
The Incredibles:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
The Incredibles 2 16
2018
$1242.80
2/2
Despicable Me:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Minions
2015 19
$1159.40
03/04
Despicable Me 3 2017 32
$1034.80
04/04
Despicable Me 2 2013 41
$970.80
02/04
DC Extended Universe:
Title
Year
Position on
top 100
Gross (in
million)
Position in franchise
Aquaman
2018
21
$1147.80
06/07
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 2016
63
$873.60
02/07
Wonder Woman
2017
75
$821.80
04/07
Suicide Squad
2016
100
$746.80
03/07
Transformers:
Title
Year
Position on Gross (in
top 100
million)
Position in franchise
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
2011
23
$1123.80
03/06
Transformers: Age of Extinction
2014
26
$1104.10
04/06
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2009
72
$836.30
02/06
119 / 133
Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit:
Title
Year Position on Gross (in
top 100
million)
Position in
franchise
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003 24
$1119.90
03/06
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
2012 38
$1021.10
04/06
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2013 47
$958.40
05/06
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies
2014 48
$956.00
06/06
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2002 52
$926.00
02/06
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2011 64
$871.50
01/06
James Bond:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Skyfall 2012 25
$1108.60
23/24
Spectre 2015 58
$880.70
24/24
The Dark Knight:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
The Dark Knight Rises 2012 27
$1084.90
03/03
The Dark Knight
$1004.90
02/03
2008 39
Toy Story:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Toy Story 3 2010 28
$1067.00
03/03
Pirates of the Caribbean:
Title
Year
Position on Gross (in
top 100
million)
Position in
franchise
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2006
29
$1066.20
05/05
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
2011
31
$1045.70
04/05
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007
44
$963.40
03/05
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
2017
82
$794.90
05/05
120 / 133
Finding Nemo:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Finding Dory 2016 34
$1028.60
2/2
Finding Nemo 2003 49
$940.30
1/2
Jumanji:
Title
Year Position on top Gross (in million) Position in franchise
100
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 2017 45
$962.10
03/03
Shrek:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Shrek 2
2004 53
$919.80
02/05
Shrek the Third
2007 80
$799.00
03/05
Shrek Forever After 2010 97
$752.60
04/05
Spider-Man (Sam Raimi):
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Spider-Man 3 2007 56
$890.90
03/03
Spider-Man
2002 76
$821.70
01/03
Spider-Man 2 2004 88
$783.80
02/03
Ice Age:
Title
Year Position on
top 100
Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 2009 57
$886.70
03/05
Ice Age: Continental Drift
$877.20
04/05
2012 61
Wolf Warrior:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Wolf Warrior 2 2017 65
$870.30
121 / 133
02/02
The Hunger Games:
Title
Year Position on
top 100
Gross (in
million)
Position in
franchise
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
2013 66
$865.00
02/04
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 2014 96
$755.40
03/04
Twilight:
Title
Year
Position on top Gross (in
100
million)
Position in
franchise
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
2012
73
05/05
$829.70
Independence Day:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Independence Day 1996 77
$817.40
01/02
Mission Impossible:
Title
Year Position on top Gross (in million) Position in franchise
100
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
2018 84
$791.10
6/6
Indiana Jones:
Title
Year Position on Gross (in
top 100
million)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 2008 86
$786.60
Position in
franchise
04/04
X-Men:
Title
Year Position on top
100
Gross (in million) Position in franchise
Deadpool 2
2018 87
$785.00
11/12
Deadpool
2016 89
$783.10
08/12
X-Men: Days of Future Past 2014 98
$747.90
07/12
The Da Vinci Code:
Title
Year Position on top 100 Gross (in million) Position in franchise
The Da Vinci Code 2006 94
$758.20
122 / 133
01/03
The Amazing Spider-Man:
Title
Year
Position on top
100
Gross (in million) Position in
franchise
The Amazing
Spider-Man
2012
95
$757.90
01/02
Madagascar:
Title
Year Position on
top 100
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted 2012 99
123 / 133
Gross (in
million)
Position in franchise
$746.90
03/03
Appendix #7: The Timeline of Social Medias (2017)
124 / 133
Appendix #8: The Complete Survey conducted for this thesis
This questionnaire was made available online through a Google Form, which exported all
individual responses into an Excel-sheet, which I then analyzed.
Questionnaire:
Hi there! Thank you for clicking the link to this questionnaire.
The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
on fanculture, and the effect of fanculture on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is a
research project being conducted by Christine Roederer, as her final thesis at the University of
Copenhagen, for a Master of Arts in Visual Culture.
Your participation in this research study is voluntary. The procedure involves filling an
online survey that will take approximately 10-15 minutes. Your responses will be confidential
and we do not collect identifying information such as your name, email address or IP address.
The survey questions will be about your relations to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to
fanculture, to comicbooks and to Social Media.
We will do our best to keep your information confidential. To help protect your
confidentiality, the surveys will not contain information that will personally identify you,
unless you choose to share that information. The results of this study will be used for
scholarly purposes only. If you have any questions about the research study, please contact
Christine Roederer at kwm144@alumni.ku.dk. This research has been reviewed according to
the University of Copenhagen procedures for research involving human subjects.
By Marvel Cinematic Universe, we mean the following films: Iron Man, The Incredible
Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel's the Avengers, Iron
Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the
Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange,
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther,
Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel*, Avengers: Endgame*,
Spider-Man: Far From Home*. Marvel Cinematic Universe will be mentioned as MCU in the
questionnaire.
1. MCU-Movies
1. Have you ever seen a MCU-film?



Yes
No
Don't know
2. When is the last time you saw a MCU-film?







Today
This week
This month
Within the last 6 months
During the last year
More than a year ago
Don't know
125 / 133
3. Was it...




at home?
at the movie theater?
Other, please explain:
Don't know
4. Have you seen a MCU-movie more than once in the theater?


Yes
No
5. Which movie(s) have you seen more than once in the theater?












Iron Man
Iron Man 2
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 3
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Captain America: Civil War
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Thor: Ragnarok
Avengers: Infinity War
Captain Marvel*
Spider-Man: Far From Home*











The Incredible Hulk
Thor
Marvel's The Avengers
Thor: The Dark World
Guardians of the Galaxy
Ant-Man
Doctor Strange
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Black Panther
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Endgame*
6. If yes, what is the highest number of times you've seen a same MCU-movie in the theater?



1 time
3 times
5 times



2 times
4 times
more than 5 times











The Incredible Hulk
Thor
Marvel's The Avengers
Thor: The Dark World
Guardians of the Galaxy
Ant-Man
Doctor Strange
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Black Panther
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Avengers: Endgame*
7. Which movie was it?












Iron Man
Iron Man 2
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 3
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Captain America: Civil War
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Thor: Ragnarok
Avengers: Infinity War
Captain Marvel*
Spider-Man: Far From Home*
126 / 133
8. Have you seen all 21 films? (and are you planning on seeing the upcoming ones?)





Yes, several times
Yes, but I haven't seen all of them more than once
No, and I don't mind having skipped some
No, it isn't important to me
Don't know
9. Do you watch movie trailers and promotional material?



Yes
No
Don't know
10. Is it important to you to know about the comics/background of these movies, before you
see them?



Yes
No
Don't know
11. Do you own any of the MCU-movies on VHS/DVD/BluRay/Digital?




Yes, some of them
Yes, all of them
No
Don't know
2. Fanculture
12. Do you read fanfiction?



Yes
No
Don't know
13. Do you write fanfiction?



Yes
No
Don't know
14. Do you draw fanart?



Yes
No
Don't know
15. Do you enjoy fanart (print out, commission, reblog, like, share, etc.) ?



Yes
No
Don't know
127 / 133
16. Do you follow fanfiction writers on Social Media?



Yes
No
Don't know
17. Do you follow fanartists on Social Media?



Yes
No
Don't know
18. How often do you consume fancreated content (fanart, fanfiction, memes, cosplay etc.)?









Once a day
Several times a day
Once a week
Several times a week
Once a month
Once every six months
Once a year
Never
Don't know
19. Have you ever attended a Comic Convention?




Yes, once
Yes, more than once
No, and I don't want to
No, but I want to
20. Have you ever paid for an autograph session/picture session at a Comic Con?






Yes, once
Yes, more than once
No, but I want to
No, and I don't want to
I didn't know that was a thing
Don't know
21. Have you ever commissioned another fan to create fancontent for you? (fanart, fanfic,
crafted objects or clothing, etc.)



Yes
No
Don't know
22. Is it important for you to be involved in fanculture?



Yes
No
Don't know
128 / 133
23. Do you consider these to be fanculture?












Following actors/actresses/producers/directors/other crew on Social Media
Sharing memes
Reading fanfiction
Wearing merchandise
Watching informational videos on YouTube or other video hosting platforms
Reading comics
Reading news/behind-the-scenes events from the movies
Watching interviews with actors/actresses/producers/directors/other crew
Collecting figurines
Going to the movie theater
Cosplay (dressing up in a costume from the movies)
Buying food/beverages that are Marvel-merchandise
24. Do you own merchandise from the MCU-movies?



Yes
No
Don't know
25. Do you own kitchenware/home decorations relating to the MCU?



Yes
No
Don't know
26. Have you ever customized an object, clothing or other with something relating to the
MCU?



Yes
No
Don't know
27. Have you ever traveled to a location that appears in a MCU-movie? (ex: Monaco because
it was featured in Iron Man 2, New York because it was feature in Marvel's The Avengers, San
Francisco because it was featured in Ant-Man, etc.)






Yes, once
Yes, to different locations
No, I don't want to
No, but I want to
No, but I didn't know that was something you could do
Don't know
28. Have you ever been to any of these because of their relation to the MCU?





Disney World (face characters such as the Avengers, etc.)
Avengers Station
Avengers Cruise
Other
No
129 / 133
29. Have you watched a movie that was not in the MCU because one of the
actors/actresses/members of crew was involved?





Yes, I've gone down the IMDb list of my favorite actors from the MCU
Yes, but not because of the actor/actress/member of crew
Yes, but it was a coincidence
No
Don't know
30. Do you listen to the soundtracks from any of the MCU-movies?



Yes
No
Don't know
31. Do you play video-games or board-games that have a link to the MCU?



Yes
No
Don't know
32. Do you consider yourself to be a fan?



Yes
No
Don't know
33. In your eyes, what is the difference between a casual audience and a fan?
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
34. If you are a fan, do you think it has an impact on how you view these movies?



Yes
No
Don't know
3. Comicbooks
35. Do you read comicbooks?



Yes
No
Don't know
36. Did you read comicbooks before you knew about the MCU?



Yes
No
Don't Know
130 / 133
37. Did you start reading comicbooks after you saw a MCU-movie?



Yes
No
Don't know
38. How often do you read comicbooks?







Once a day
Once a week
Once a month
Once every 6 months
Once a year
Whenever there's a new release I am interested in
Never
4. Social Media
39. Are you on...









Tumblr
Twitter
Facebook
DeviantArt
Reddit
DreamWidth
Archive of Our Own
YouTube
Other
40. Do you watch explanatory videos on video hosting services like YouTube to better
understand MCU-movies?



Yes
No
Don't know
41. Do you repost/share/reblog memes about MCU-movies on your own Social Media
channels?



Yes
No
Don't know
42. Do you read news articles about the MCU-movies? (excluding official promotional
material)



Yes
No
Don't know
131 / 133
43. Do you engage in these?







Podcast
News articles
TV programs
Reviews
Cosplay (dressing up in a costume)
fanart
Fanfiction
44. Do you follow Marvel-actors/actresses/producers/directors/other crew on Social Media?



Yes
No
Don't know
45. Do you follow Marvel comicbook artists on Social Media?



Yes
No
Don't know
46. Have you ever tried to contact one of the above on Social Media?



Yes
No
Don't know
47. Did you succeed in getting a response?



Yes
No
Don't know
48. What for?









Criticism
Feedback
To clear up a plot point
To clear up an acting choice
To get more details
To express discontempt
To signal boost an issue (environmental, economic, politic, etc.)
To show them something you made/wrote/drew
Other, please explain:
5. You
49. Are you/do you identify as...



male
female
non-binary
132 / 133
50. How old are you?
______________________________________________________________________________
51. What is your highest education qualification?






No education
High school
Bachelor or equivalent
Master or equivalent
Doctoral or equivalent
Other (please specify)
52. What is your employment status?




Unemployed
Part time
Full time
Other (please specify)
53. Which country do you live in?
______________________________________________________________________________
54. How did you find this questionnaire?





Through Social Media
A friend/colleague sent me the link
E-mail chain
Newsletter
Don't know
55. If I send out a follow up questionnaire for my thesis research, can I send it to you via
email?


Yes, my e-mail is:
No
56. Do you have comments to this questionnaire, or something relevant to the field of
research that you think I need to check out? (academic papers, news articles, quotes, etc.)
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
133 / 133