The Last Hurrah Part 1

Next week's Avengers: Infinity War unites all your favourite Marvel superheroes to face the ultimate threat... and not everyone will make it back. 

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Do you know how the universe was created? It’s a complicated question, and one common answer is The Big Bang Theory, which — according to Wikipedia — posits that the universe began as a very hot, small, and dense super-force, and over the course of the next 13.8 billion years, expanded to become the endless cosmos that it is today. Or something like that. Neil deGrasse Tyson would probably do a better job explaining.

It’s much easier if you ask us how the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU) came about. That started circa 2008 AD when Marvel Comics decided to bankroll its own movies via Marvel Studios. (Before that, Marvel had licensed out some of its characters from its 8,000-strong library — notably, the A-listers — to other studios: Sony Pictures got hold of Spider-Man, and 20th Century Fox has their hands on the X-Men and Fantastic Four properties.)

The nascent flick factory staked their future on Iron Man, a B-list superhero back then, with Robert Downey Jr, a talented leading man with a troubled past with addiction, better known for grabbing tabloid headlines than headlining a tentpole blockbuster. The risky gamble paid off: Iron Man was both a commercial and critical hit; Downey was a star reborn. It was the big bang Marvel Studios needed to launch its ambitious cinematic cosmos, which currently consists of 18 films (see page 35) that have collectively grossed more than US$15 billion (S$20 bil) at the global box-office.