The real power of Marvel…
…is giving America its common ground.
You would be hard-pressed to scroll through any media platform without finding some reference to the prevalent bias and obvious polarization in the US. In my experience, most people are aware of this and love to talk about what a travesty it is that people don’t get along anymore. Then, they will blabber on regurgitating partisan scripts that place blame opposite their political camp—no doubt failing to see the irony. We get it: people hate each other; humans are hardwired to believe what they want, rather than what they should. It is looking bleak.
If there is one pastime that is safe from the whirlpool of political or classist stereotypes, something that people from all walks of life can connect about, it is the movies. That isn’t to say there is no controversy over characters, writing choices, plot-lines, or the right amount of “cheesy”. There is, but when people talk about movies, even in dissent, they are speaking the same language. That is a rarity, and I think it is exceptional. And I do not think it is a coincidence that the rise of political controversy and blockbuster movies have co-occured. I’m not suggesting anything as bold as a causal relation, but it makes intuitive sense that as the state of things becomes less-friendly, the most prevalent sources common ground becomes more popular.
Marvel’s popularity explored through Wikipedia data
Every year, wikipedia traffic centers around world leaders, celebrities, famous criminals, causes and numbers of deaths, controversial political figures—searches that, in retrospect, provide a little reminder of the state of the world. Reading back, we recall people and events that characterized the year: in 2019 for example, Donald Trump, Greta Thurmberg, central park jogger case, Elon Musk, Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, The Mandalorian, Jeffery Epstien, Freddie Mercury. These names presented in the context of a certain time provide powerful insights into commonly-held salient thoughts. And there is no other search more prevalent in the past decade than that of the Marvel cinematic universe.
It is everywhere. Marvel’s movie origins began back in the 2010s with Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger. People became obsessed with Stan Lee’s comics come to life on the big screen. It is impossible to look through each year’s top wikipedia searches without finding Marvel movie titles. In the past 5 years especially, Marvel-related searches have topped the political or disastrous.
Marvel now has 23 movies released, not including several TV shows. Marvel’s Wikipedia pages typically recieve between 1,000 and 10,000 visitors per day. However, it is difficult to draw objective conclusions about popularity from Wikipedia alone. There are some interesting lessons that come from visualizing this data over time.
Part of what makes Marvel so popular is its immense fantasy universe. People are bound to find characters to identify with, and as the universe becomes more integrated, people will look forward to seeing their favorite characters and plot-lines develop. We can observe how the popularity of different pages ebb and flow (ostensibly around their release dates). But also, early movies’ pages make resurgences before upcoming releases: people are re-watching their favorite films in anticipation of new Marvel films.
The Avengers movies, pinnacle’s of each of Marvel Universe’s “Phase” are easy fan-favorites; stories converge, favorite characters meet, and evil is defeated! Despite an earlier inception, the “Phase 1” movie pages like Iron Man, Hulk, or Thor are much lower on the list. Going forward, Marvel must balance the growing integration of its over-crowded universe with developing unique, rich characters and stories.
