Clint_L
Legend
Couldn't agree more. And per my earlier point, the Infinity Saga worked as well as it did because it was built around the intersecting character arcs of these two fundamental and brilliantly portrayed characters. End Game pays off because we see the culminating stories of a fundamentally selfish man who learns to enough to commit the ultimate selfless act, and a fundamentally selfless man who finally earns the right to make one selfish choice.2) I think it is understated just how much the franchise rested on the charisma of its two leading characters: Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man/Tony Stark and Chris Evans' Captain America. I like Anthony Mackie, but his version of Cap is just not as interesting or magnetic as Evans' character. And of course Downey was so central to everything, his wit and ability to bridge the absurd and serious second to none. He was and is irreplaceable. To a lesser extent this was true of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, who while not carrying the films like Evans or Downey, at least expressed a distinct vibe that potentized every scene she was in.
The Multiverse Saga, such as it is thus far, seems to be more interested in the setting than the characters.