MCU Trilogy Battle.

[The Natural]

Mine:

1. Captain America.

2. Avengers.

3. Thor.

4. Iron Man.

Easy choice for the best, Captain America. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) was a very good starter, it's an underrated MCU film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) is great delivering on my expectations as it was one of my most anticipated MCU entries. Amazing seeing the source material make the big screen before it turned ten as Cap faces the Winter Soldier. Captain America: Civil War (2016) was great as well. I appreciated the "I can do this all day" callback but more than anything, Spider-Man finally making his MCU arrival stealing the show in THAT airport battle. It's a better Avengers sequel to the one we wound up with in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Cap Trilogy is second only to Batman's Dark Knight Trilogy when it comes to comic book trilogies.

Avengers Assemble (2012) remains my top MCU film, what an accomplishment bringing four separate superhero franchises together. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) is one of my biggest MCU letdowns and brings the trilogy down. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) is another accomplishment with the ten year build, how it balances the cast as it did and Thanos as a true big bad. 

The difficult choice was between Thor and Iron Man. Reflecting, it was easy because Thor has a good film (2011), a bad one in Thor: The Dark World (2013) and saving its best till last in Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Iron Man peaks with the first while the other two (2010, 2013) were big disappointments to me to go with AoU.

You?

[JonnyLaw]

To me both are consistency vs peaks/valleys. 

Cap’s the easy winner due to consistency. I’ve always been a big Cap fan (it’s the only trilogy that I saw each in the theaters), but I think the highs of a) seeing the Avengers together for the first time and b) Infinity War (the first movie I’ve seen in the theaters twice since I don’t know when) make it surprisingly close.  

I give Iron Man the edge.  Ragnarok is far and away better, but it’s not a trilogy.  It really does speak to how good Loki is that he’s become such a key part of the MCU despite being the focus of the Thor movies.

[Technico Support]

I voted the same as @The Natural, and have pretty much the same views, so there's not much for me to sum up at all. 

1a: Placeholder for Guardians of the Galaxy when 3 comes out

1b. Captain America: 3 good movies

2. Avengers: 2 good movies and one turd (Ultron)

3. Thor: Original was above average, Ragnarok was really good, didn't see Dark World but it looked very average

4. Iron Man: 1 was good, 2 and 3 were crap.

[Craig H]

I went with Avengers as the best and Thor as the worst, but Ragnarok is sooooooooo good. If every movie in the Thor trilogy were as wild as Ragnarok then that would easily win. Captain America is a close second to the best trilogy for me. Iron Man 2 and 3 are both pretty forgettable for me, but they're both better than Thor 1 and 2.

[RRR]

Got to vote earlier but not elaborate. 

Had to give the nod to the avengers even though I kinda feel it has a bit of an unfair advantage being ensemble films. 

Truthfully I would just take IM1, CAP2, and Ragnarok as the best trilogy even if they aren’t directly linked. 

Had to give the worst to IM though based on three alone putting me off theater viewings for a long time. Still not sure what I watched. 

[Casey]

10 hours ago, Craig H said:

I went with Avengers as the best and Thor as the worst, but Ragnarok is sooooooooo good. If every movie in the Thor trilogy were as wild as Ragnarok then that would easily win. Captain America is a close second to the best trilogy for me. Iron Man 2 and 3 are both pretty forgettable for me, but they're both better than Thor 1 and 2.

Yeah, this is my line of thinking. I just re-watched Infinity War for like, the 4th or 5th time now. I've seen the original Avengers and Age of Ultron more times that i can even remember. I can't do that with any of the other stand alone films. The Avengers movies are just straight up fun, with IW being fun and really fucking sad. I liked AoU more than a lot of other people, mainly because of the introduction of Scarlet Witch and Ultron was a great villain I thought.

I'm going to be real honest here and say that the next tier of trilogies behind the Avengers franchise is tied between Cap and Iron Man, honestly. Each of them has entries I don't care for (The First Avenger and Iron Man 3, respectively) with the other films being some of my favorites in the MCU (IM2 is underrated, IMO). Cap's might be slighty ahead because The Winter Soldier is just perfectly written and Civil War is loads of fun, while the Iron Man films are basically dependent on the charisma of Robert Downey Jr. and that's it.

Thor is easily the worst trilogy of films, but only because I can't stand the Asgard stuff. It's too.... medieval? or whatever for me, and I get no enjoyment out of that stuff. I don't know how to explain why I don't like the Thor films. Taking Thor (and I guess Loki even though I don't care about him) and putting him in a different setting where people don't talk like it's 1400s England and there aren't elves and shit worked wonders.

[John from Cincinnati]

I'm in Casey's camp of finding the Avengers flicks the most rewatchable. 

Worst was between Thor and Iron Man. Both franchises feature one good flick and two duds. Ultimately went with Iron Man because that bit where he takes the Stark Expo map or whatever and discovers a new element is a low for the MCU that'll be difficult to match. 

[Matt D]

I'd rather watch Thor 2 than Avengers 2 randomly on TV. 

Cap wins for having the best second movie, basically. 

[Technico Support]

5 hours ago, Zartan said:

Had to give the worst to IM though based on three alone putting me off theater viewings for a long time. Still not sure what I watched. 

Man, Iron Man 2 was such a  dull letdown that I felt bad even though I saw it for free (tech demo from Dell).  Still, I let myself get excited for Iron Man 3 like a moron.  I know what I want to see from Iron Man, and it's not PTSD Tony Stark getting facetime like keeping him out of the suit was mandated by his contract, and remote control Iron Man suits doing all the work.

[The Man Known as Dan]

This is kinda intetesting as I think each of the group has one standout movie that almost nullifies the others top movie (Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Ragnarok, Avengers).

 

Which then turns this into which of the non great movies are better. And I'm not super high on basically any of the other 8 save Infinity War. Both of Caps movies (especially Civil War) I'd probably be a low voter for overall, but I also can't call them worse then the Iron Man or Thor side of the argument. Also, while its not the worst, Age of Ultron tends to piss me off the most of these movies because Ultron is such an incredibly great villian they botched the shit out of.

I still gave Avengers a slight lead over Cap, with Thor last just because man those first w were the character introduction and they are just rough.

[RRR]

5 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Man, Iron Man 2 was such a  dull letdown that I felt bad even though I saw it for free (tech demo from Dell).  Still, I let myself get excited for Iron Man 3 like a moron.  I know what I want to see from Iron Man, and it's not PTSD Tony Stark getting facetime like keeping him out of the suit was mandated by his contract, and remote control Iron Man suits doing all the work.

I totally forgot to put the 3 on my worst pick of IM3 and you were not the only one who got excited for it like a moron. I blame the trailer which did not include Tony being stuck in the town that contains the most annoying kid on the planet all the while having panic attacks nonstop(as someone who suffers from them I about had one myself seeing RDJ fake them so much in the movie) for at least half the movie. 

Fuck IM3 I would watch Thor 2 in slow-mo before I ever watch that piece of trash again. 

[J.T.]

What El Dragon said.  Each trilogy has a standout movie that cancels out the worst film in the set.

Overall, Cap wins for best overall.

If Iron Man had pulled the trigger on an actual Mandarin instead of the bait and switch, IM would have been the best franchise.

[Raziel]

It's odd for me, because since it came out, I hated Civil War and the end of Winter Solider, but with Infinity War, and seeing how everything panned out, there seems to be a logic to the choices, at least ones among the Russo Bros movies that ended up reversing my views and problems with the stuff I didn't like from Cap.  I'd still say the Avengers are the best, 

 

I'd say the Thor Trilogy was the weakest, because 2 really drug it down, and even the bad parts of the other trilogies are counteracted by the good.  

[Casey]

25 minutes ago, J.T. said:

If Iron Man had pulled the trigger on an actual Mandarin instead of the bait and switch, IM would have been the best franchise.

The Fake Mandarin was still pretty awesome, but the swerve killed everything that came before it. Kudos to Marvel for trying to salvage the idea with the one shot, but they haven't touched it since so it just seems like fan service unfortunately.

[Technico Support]

28 minutes ago, J.T. said:

What El Dragon said.  Each trilogy has a standout movie that cancels out the worst film in the set.

Overall, Cap wins for best overall.

If Iron Man had pulled the trigger on an actual Mandarin instead of the bait and switch, IM would have been the best franchise.

By "the actual Mandarin," you don't mean strict adherence to the comics villain, right?  A cartoonishly yellow-skinned Asian stereotype with magic rings would have been awful for a lot of reasons, and it still wouldn't have fixed all the other things that made the film suck.

[(BP)]

The Iron Man franchise is probably the most frustrating to me because it had the most potential and was supposed to be the linchpin for everything else. The second one I sort of give a pass to because it was before Feige had figured everything out and they rushed it to strike while the umm...iron was hot. It's pretty comparable to the unexceptional superhero sequels that preceded it.

Iron Man 3 has Shane Black and an intriguing premise, and it's generally pretty good until the Mandarin reveal. I wouldn't have even cared about the twist if there was anything remotely more interesting than Ben Kingsley's meta mannered villain performance going on, but once that's taken away it's a big disappointment. The first two acts are Tony being overwhelmed by internal struggles and a foe unlike any he's faced. Then, any tension that's been built up is popped like a bubble when he realizes the actual antagonist is just another Stane/Hammer figure. I still can't get over that they made three movies that all boiled down to industrial espionage being the biggest threat. 

The Avengers I'm very iffy on and actually voted as the worst. I'm a Dark World apologist and I loved Ragnarok, but I can understand an argument for Thor being the worst trilogy. The Cap movies are just head and shoulders above everything else in the MCU for me. I was never a big Marvel reader though, so I didn't have the characterization issues others did with some of Steve's decisions in Winter Soldier or Civil War. 

[J.T.]

22 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

By "the actual Mandarin," you don't mean strict adherence to the comics villain, right?  A cartoonishly yellow-skinned Asian stereotype with magic rings would have been awful for a lot of reasons, and it still wouldn't have fixed all the other things that made the film suck.

• Yes. I mean the actual Mandarin.  He is The Joker to Iron Man's Batman.
• The Mandarin as racially neutral global terrorist was a perfectly fine concept.  You could keep Ben Kingsley as the main villain and let him chew on scenery and it would've turned out just fine.
• I have no idea why people shit on the "magical rings," when stolen Chitarui technology fills that void.  You could've run with that concept as early as this movie rather than waiting to introduce it in Spider Man:  Homecoming.
• If the Mandarin were such an awful concept that no one would've liked, Marvel wouldn't have felt compelled to issue a "We're sorry that we fucked up The Mandarin..." apology in the form of this:

 

[Contentious C]

Agreeing whole-heartedly with Technico about placeholding the # 1 spot for Guardians once there's 3 of them. 

Then again, I feel like Captain America: the First Avenger is the single most underappreciated film of the whole set Marvel's done, one that ages better over time, because its relationships allow it to hold up. And even I was one of those people who didn't appreciate it. I can recall distinctly coming out of the theater thinking, "That was good, but I just watched a 2-hour trailer for another movie." With the spectacle of Avengers 1 well in the rearview, Cap 1 looks a Hell of a lot better. As much as The Rocketeer is a boring movie for its time and place, it served as a near-perfect dry run so that Joe Johnston could get Cap 1 right.

I rewatched Civil War not long before seeing IW and was reminded what a huge influence Peggy's character has over that whole arc, even though she has only a cursory appearance in Winter Soldier after Cap 1: pushing Steve into the field in the first film, watching him have to tear down everything she spent her whole life building in the second film, her words resonating with his decision in Civil War. And to Raziel's point, that really did make IW even stronger. No mistake whatsoever that we had 3 movies' worth of fights and hassle and craziness about trying to redeem Bucky, only for him to be the first one we see fade out. Such a great choice: "Oh, everything you fought for? This a-hole with Dusty Rhodes' forehead for a chin just rendered all your busted relationships and exile and everything else totally obsolete. GFY, Captain Rogers." It makes the Cap trilogy a pretty easy choice for best.

I'm not anywhere near as low on Iron Man 3 as a lot of you are. Expecting Shane Black to do a not-Shane-Black movie is kind of silly. It's totally got the same structure and beats and build that Last Boy Scout or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang would have had, if everyone had superpowers. The Mandarin, the lack of suits, the panic attacks: they don't bother me and, if anything, made it seem like Tony actually earned being a hero for once. Iron Man 2's biggest offense was just being dull. Thor: Dark World always felt more actively bad to me than either IM 2 or IM 3: not well-written, not even occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, no standout action, boring villain, boring premise. The bit with Loki mourning Frigga might be the lone moment in the film that seemed at all genuine. It still seems like the lowest low since Iron Man 1, so I went that direction for worst trilogy (even though Ragnarok is one of the top 3-5 movies they've done). 

[Casey]

Seriously, where are people coming up with this idea that The First Avenger is somehow underrated? Everyone and their mother raves about it.

[Bustronaut]

7 years of nerds crapping on it?

[odessasteps]

16 minutes ago, Casey said:

Seriously, where are people coming up with this idea that The First Avenger is somehow underrated? Everyone and their mother raves about it.

I think certain demos really love it and others really dislike it and might be more vocal about it. 

[J.T.]

I think most of the venom for First Avenger was more ideological than anything.  For some reason, Cap can't be a good guy and a patriot at the same time.

I still roll my eyes at the opinions of people who dislike the final scene of Spider-Man because the American flag is unfurled on the pole atop the Empire State Building that Spider-Man lands on.

It's an American city, guys.  That's why the American flag is flying.

[Casey]

39 minutes ago, Betsy Zeidler said:

7 years of nerds crapping on it?

I guess you and I are on a different internet, then. All I’ve ever seen is praise for that movie.

[Contentious C]

32 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I think most of the venom for First Avenger was more ideological than anything.  For some reason, Cap can't be a good guy and a patriot at the same time.

 

Is this something you're basing on reviews of the movie, or just opinions of people you've spoken to? Seeing Cap's style of patriotism really just ought to say to the average American: "Patriotism: You're Doing It Wrong". Any film reviewer who could write their way out of a paper bag should pick up on that.

Then again, there was a whole swath of people who despised American Beauty because it hit way too close to home for them, so I'd expect certain people to react poorly to Cap's portrayal, and a whole other bunch of people to fail to pick up on the criticism being leveled at them.

[Eivion]

The Cap movies just about edge out Avengers for me due to Age of Ultron's weakness. I don't dislike it, but I like all of the Cap movies more. Meanwhile I might actually rate Infinity War the highest out of all of the MCU movies (Winter Solider is just behind it).

I rated Thor the worst. I actually like all of the Iron Man movies. I like parts of Thor & Dark World, but Ragnarok is the only one I love. I actually do rank Ragnarok over all of the Iron Man movies.