“Why ‘Iron Man’ Was The Most Pivotal Movie Of The Last Decade”

While you all are talkin’ about your “Infinity wars,” I’m talkin’ about Iron Man, the movie that really actually started it all, even if everyone likes to say the Marvel Cinematic Universe really began with The Avengers. 

I guess it did, in a way. But Iron Man put the MCU in motion in the first place. Ten years later, you look back at that post-credits stinger with Samuel L. Jackson and you see it as a middle finger aimed at doubters in the then-gestating Marvel experiment. 

I’m up and down on Marvel movies, and I haven’t seen Avengers: Infinity War yet, but there’s something truly gutsy about Iron Man‘s open confession of its studio’s greater ambitions. If I’m not exactly thrilled that pop culture is so heavily dominated by discussion of superheroes and Marvel heroes in particular, I still respect the chutzpah, as per my latest piece for The Week.