Reading the Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers’ Intertextual Aesthetic

This article argues that reading films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) requires attention to their various modes of intertextuality, which are derived from both Hollywood cinema and comic books. I examine the ways in which MCU films adapt narrative and stylistic strategies developed in superhero comic books to manage complex networks of texts. These adaptive practices produce an intertextual aesthetic that harnesses relations with other texts in an effort to make individual films and the wider fictional universe coherent. Close analysis of The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012) reveals how MCU films’ intertextual aesthetic shapes their sociopolitical meanings by carrying over and reconfiguring meanings from other texts.