Marvel: But are we really sure that comics are always superior to movies?

With the’Holiday Specials of the Guardians of the Galaxynow streaming on Disney+, officially closes controversial Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). A particularly prolific two-year period in which Marvel superheroes – from Black Widow to Spider-Man, from Doctor Strange to Moon Knight – have extended their sprawling presence from the cinema to the small screen. A sequel of films, TV series and special appearances that has turned everything – perhaps too much – on experimentationleaving fans to comment and critique the direction of one of the largest and most lucrative cinematic universes of all time.

“Yes, but in the comics it’s different” is the nerd phrase par excellence, to be whispered in the cinema to friends who don’t read comics and only know superheroes from movies. A phrase that is also a gasp of pride when something alarming happens on the screen, an omen of disappointment, a joke out of place. To say yes, it’s funny, but look at that in the comics there is morethe characters are not specks, the stories are more articulated, situations that are resolved on the screen in two hours often require years of sagas, prequels and sequels.

All of this was and remains true, and the comparison is merciless. There is no comparison between what can be told in hundreds of pages and dozens of stapled albums, and what instead must be condensed and usable in 2 hours and 19 minutes of movies (the runtime medium of Phase 4). But if we were to draw an honest balance sheet of the entire MCU, we would notice that there is at least one major point where movies trump comics. And that’s exactly what Marvel comics once prided itself on: the continuitythe idea that everything happens in a world where time moves linearly and past events have an impact on what happens in the present.

Mind you, when we talk about superiority of Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity on the Marvel Universe let’s not talk about inconsistencies in the timeline of events – those are there in the movies as much as in the comics. But of the malleability of continuity itself.

All comic readers are used to deaths and resurrections constants of their favorite heroes. All comic book readers, sooner or later, will have sighed with resignation when the narrative arc of a character (protagonist, supporting character or villain, it makes little difference) is swept away by later screenwriters or “an exciting new beginning! Back to the origins! The perfect entry point for new readers! (TM)”. At least, DC Comics is more honest in its necessity: every now and then a cosmic event reset the universe, and so on. At Marvel, on the other hand, reboots are always soft, on mirrors so smooth that not even Spider-Man can climb it well.