Will we ever witness a superhero spectacle as grand as Avengers: Endgame?

My original article here.

6 May 2019

Last year, at pretty much exactly this time I sat down and wrote about how Avengers: Infinity War lives up to the 10 years and 18 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies worth of hype. And here I am doing it again for the spectacle that is Avengers: End Game.

Avengers: Infinity War lives up to high expectations

Ten years, 18 movies, a lot of hype and finally Avengers: Infinity War arrives. The question is, does the movie deliver?

BY CHARLES SIBOTO 2 MAY 2018

I say spectacle because this is what directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, have given us. They’ve made a film that surpasses ridiculously high expectations and services, now, 21 preceding MCU films with an insane amount of love and detail. This is by no means a perfect film in the sense that when YouTubers pick it apart and agonise over every detail that everything makes sense. We live in a time in which everyone’s a screenwriter and knows better than the people paid to do so – no film or series can meet those expectations.


This past weekend was huge for the geeky fandom. Avengers: Endgame was released to huge hype and the third episode of the last season of Game of Thrones promised us the biggest and longest night battle sequence since the battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Social media was buzzing (and still is) with memes, spoilers and on Monday morning perhaps a sense of disappointment. I think both Endgame and Game of Thrones delivered and that emptiness that we now feel is that we won’t see such spectacle for a long time. Both Thanos and the Night King represent such a huge scale of threat and villainy that we just honestly don’t know where to go after this.

Picking up where we left off

I digress, though, we’re here for me to tell you about Endgame. I thought that after Avengers: Infinity War that all this movie could hope for is to be as good as that but, no, it goes and far surpasses that movie! The 181 minutes of runtime means that the movie pays attention to all the characters and give them all a bit of the spotlight. This also means that the movie can hit different thematic beats in its story. The movie opens with the remaining Avengers and the rest of the world recovering from and dealing with the repercussions of that finger snap from the last film that resulted in half of all life in the universe being wiped out. Everyone’s grieving and we spend time with the surviving characters, all of whom have lost people. The Avengers are not used to losing and Thanos has soundly defeated them so they’re at their lowest.

Avengers: Endgame is emotive and impactful

Avengers: Endgame has ensured that a 10-year journey has come to an end with a film so emotive and impactful that it will be spoken about, in reverence, for some time to come...

BY NATALIE LE CLUE 30 APR 2019

All the characters deal with their grief in their own way. Hawkeye is back and pretty much on a criminal murder spree after his family gets dusted. Tony Stark is angry at Captain America for not being there when he needed him and for the rift created between the team after the events of Captain America: Civil War. The Cap is running a survivor’s support group where he helps people move on from their grief but admits that he can’t move on.


Natasha tries to hold the rest of the Avengers team together because they’re the only family she has. Thor is in a state of self-loathing because he should have gone for the head. Everyone’s pretty much not having a great time. This part of the story also reveals a flaw in Thanos’ plan. He erased half of life in the universe but the remaining half hasn’t forgotten and instead of moving on people are stuck in their grief and the world goes through somewhat of an apocalypse because, well, half of the universe’s workforce is just gone.

Fan service and Easter eggs abound (*Spoiler alert*)

You can’t keep the Avengers down for too long, though, and the movie kicks it up a gear when Ant-Man escapes from the quantum realm and puts time travel on the table for the team. They come up with a plan they refer to as a time heist and go off to try and get back everything they lost. The time heist allows for many, many callbacks through the MCU’s past movies. This part is pure fan service and just a treasure trove of Easter eggs. The references to the MCU are just brilliant and the nods to other time travel movies make for a lot of laughs.

This part of the film is Marvel showing off their amazing ability to use humour whilst still making you feel like everything you love will be lost. It’s quite magical. The time heist itself is wibbly wobbly timey wimey and probably doesn’t make sense if you overthink it. Things obviously go wrong when you mess with time and the action kicks in on an epic scale from here on. It would be too much of a spoiler to tell you how huge everything becomes from here! Again, all I can say is that it’s a spectacle of astounding proportions! Thanos is still very much the main threat and he is still as menacing as ever.



Marvel has crafted a masterpiece with Endgame and I think whatever they do from here on out, it will remain as a highlight that will not be overshadowed anytime soon. You don’t need to have watched all the 21 preceding movies to enjoy this movie, but it sure as hell makes your experience so much better if you did. The MCU has taken what for the longest time could only be successfully done on the pages of comic books, showing off the sheer spectacle of a huge space villain like Thanos, that Mad Titan hell-bent on destroying half the universe on a massive scale. You don’t even understand, this movie is me reading Grant Morrison’s epic comic book, Final Crisis (DC, I know) and wondering how a comic book can be so massive in scale and emotion. Watching Endgame is like that and as the credits roll up you wonder if you’ll ever feel this way again.

Avengers: Infinity War lives up to high expectations

My original article here.

2 May 2018

Ten years, 18 movies, a lot of hype and finally Avengers: Infinity War arrives. The question is, does the movie deliver?

Especially when expectations are so high? When the Avengers first assembled in 2012 it was the sort of ambitious event that comic book fans never dreamed was possible for a film. When 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron landed the magic was still there but Joss Whedon, the man at the helm of both those Avengers films felt the strain and bowed out. After a great showing with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), directors Antony and Joe Russo were hired to direct Infinity War and its 2019 sequel. 

One epic package

Over the last 10 years, Marvel Studios has managed to deliver blockbuster after blockbuster and the Russos were tasked with taking all of that material and putting it together in an epic package. I am happy to report that they deliver a movie that takes all the different tones and characters from all of the preceding movies and blends them together to produce something quite magical. There are a lot of moving parts in this movie and somehow it all comes together perfectly.

Infinity War is not the best movie Marvel Studios has produced if you look at it as a standalone and it was never meant to be. This is meant to be grand-scale spectacle following 10 years of build up and, yet, the movie manages to have pathos and carry itself with a sort of grace I did not expect. You know that the stakes are quite high coming into the film but you don't expect the movie to make you feel as deeply as it does. As a fan who knows that the movie draws heavily from Jim Starlin's 1991 comic book The Infinity Gauntlet, I knew what to expect coming in but somehow the events that take place managed to surprise and somewhat shock me. 


All the characters we know and love are all there but this is Thanos's story, for the most part, Thanos on his quest to collect all of the Infinity Stones. Josh Brolin's Thanos is larger than life, he has gravitas, commands respect and dominates all the scenes he is in. As soon as you first see him you feel that you are in the presence of a superior being. He is on a mission to wipe out half of life in the universe, balance the scales, as it were and he has an indomitable will to get it done. He is not just a generic big bad, there is a charm to him and a certain sadness. You almost want to take his side.

Character continuity

We have seen the Avengers assemble and have had a bunch of them onscreen at the same time, but not like this. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) did stand out for me among the good guys and his arc is quite strong and well done. All your other favourites are here and definitely not to be messed with. Events pretty much kick off straight after Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther. All the players in those movies are where we last saw them, in space and in Wakanda. 

The Guardians of the Galaxy show up (with all the humour they always bring to a party), as do Doctor Strange, Wong, Iron Man, Spider-man, Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, Scarlett Witch, Vision, and War Machine. There are some surprise characters that are a nice touch as well. The story even takes time to throw in some Norse mythology Easter eggs with Thor's storyline. You can't be a self-respecting villain without some henchmen and Thanos has some zealous and pretty scary ones referred to as his Children. There is the hulking (pun intended) Cull Obsidian, the truly terrifying sorcerer Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive.

The film is quite long at 149 minutes but the pacing is done so well that you don't get tired of watching or feel like scenes are merely there as padding, which was the case in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Like The Last Jedi, this movie does spend some time subverting fan theories and delivers some nice surprises as a result. Many people will find it annoying that issues aren't resolved and that is to be expected. The movie does all it can to be the spectacle that it is and that we wanted, it delivers a villain worthy of waiting 10 years for and it is a good story that manages to juggle a huge cast of characters and locations quite nicely. 



Avengers: Infinity War manages to live up to very high expectations and though it's quite self-contained it does leave you wanting more, which you will get in the 2019 sequel. As is tradition, stay for the end-credits scene and its Easter egg.

Avengers: Infinity War is upon us

We have waited 10 years to get to this point and it looks like Marvel Studios is going to deliver their most epic movie to date. When that first trailer dropped and I heard Thanos' menacing voice I was simultaneously excited and had chills running down my spine.

"In time, you will know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail all the same. Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives."
―Thanos

Marvel has just been going from strength to strength since first giving us Iron Man as an introduction to their shared universe. They have had some low points in their 17-movie run but they had a long-term vision and learned from their setbacks.

The first Iron Man movie has stood the test of time and remains a classic and many still consider it to be the best movie in the MCU. The sequel is less than memorable and then they made up for it again with a solid third installment, post-Avengers. The first Captain America was so-so and then the sequel, the Winter Soldier was so good that the directors, the Russo brothers were bumped up to direct Avengers: Infinity War. The third entry, Civil War served a bit like Avengers 2.5 movie. The first two Thor movies struggled to find their feet but with last year's Thor: Ragnarok they made a gem. The Incredible Hulk is probably their lowest point and one that I always skip when I have a Marvel marathon.

Guardians of the Galaxy came out of nowhere with James Gunn at the helm. It was another Iron Man situation with Marvel taking a risk on fairly unknown characters and making a space opera. The risk paid off because both Guardians of the Galaxy movies are a lot of fun and fan favourites. This opened the door for movies like Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. Marvel also had a big win when they managed to get the rights to Spider-Man from Sony as he is quite critical to the Infinity Gauntlet in the comics and just a great character. Black Panther deserves a post all of its own. I expected it to be good but it exceeded all expectations and is a phenomenon.

We have seen the Avengers assemble 2.5 times now and the Guardians team up twice but on April 27 we see the whole MCU come together to face the Mad Titan, Thanos! It looks like it's going to be a great day at the movies.

Inclusive storytelling with Black Panther

My original article here.
26 Feb 2018

Shall we discuss the giant black panther currently in the room? I have been keeping track of the production of Marvel's Black Panther for the last two years and the end result is beyond anything I could have imagined. I honestly thought that Black Panther would be on the same level as Dr Strange and Spider-Man: Homecoming; that it would be solid but serve more as just another introduction of a new character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You know, setting up all the pieces for Avengers: Infinity War. I should have known better, I really should. I should have know when the legendary South African actor, John Kani appeared as King T’Chaka in Captain America: Civil War and greeted his son, T’Challa, in Xhosa that it was a foreshadow to something that would turn the world on its head. Black Panther is a great Marvel movie but it has also managed to give black people a sense of pride at a time when we need it most. When I went to see Wonder Woman last year I walked out of the cinema grinning from ear to ear because it came at a time women needed a heroine. I walked out of the cinema after watching Black Panther and I was stunned at how good it felt to see a comic movie and relate to it with your heart and soul. As a black, Xhosa-speaking South African I’d venture to say that I got more from the film than a black American did. But, hey, there is more than enough meaning in the movie to go around for everyone. I don’t know if what I am writing next is going to be a review or a verbal rain dance giving thanks to Marvel Studios and Ryan Coogler for telling a story that gives voice to a people.

I do not dare to give away too much of the plot because you really have to experience it for yourself but, in a nutshell: Black Panther kicks off right after Civil War and T’Challa arrives back in Wakanda to take up his deceased father’s mantle as king. Chadwick Boseman plays the character of a son who has to step up and be king in a quiet and thoughtful manner. His rule is challenged from within Wakanda and also from without. There is also conflict within himself about what sort of king he wishes to be and in what direction he will lead his people. Andy Serkis’s Ulysses Klaue is cruel and has this crazy sense of humour that you can’t help but like. They have Andy Serkis really lay that South African accent on you and it works. Klaue quickly gives way to Erik Killmonger as the main villain of the piece. Michael B. Jordan steals the show and his Killmonger sends chills down your spine whilst simultaneously breaking your heart. Killmonger is the MCU’s most tragic villain and while you know that he has to be stopped the reasons he does what he does, make sense. He is the Hamlet of Wakanda.


The female characters are my favourite. The women of Wakanda are intelligent, resourceful, and will definitely kick your ass! T’Challa’s love interest is Nakia played by the gorgeous Lupita Nyong’o. She is an undercover spy and can more than hold her own in any situation. Letitia Wright plays T’Challa’s sister, Shuri. At age 16 she is Wakanda’s genius inventor who takes every opportunity to make fun of her older brother. Danai Gurira’s Okoye is Wakanda’s greatest warrior. She is head of the Dora Milaje, the elite, all-female unit that guards the king. She is no-nonsense and loyal to the throne.

Other characters that stand out are Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out as W’Kabi, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Forest Whitaker as Zuri, and the graceful Angela Basset as Romanda, T’Challa’s mother. John Kani returns from Civil War to portray T’Chaka and his son, Atandwa Kani portrays a young T’Chaka. Another South African television and film veteran, Connie Chiume appears as the elder of the Mining Tribe.

The Wakanda that director Ryan Coogler and his team have brought to life is a visual miracle. In the trailer, you hear Everett Ross’s character say: “I have seen gods fly. I have seen men build weapons that I couldn't even imagine. I've seen aliens drop from the sky. But I have never seen anything like this.” We have seen places like Asgard and Xandar but we have not seen anything like Wakanda. The research that Coogler’s team did was clearly extensive. They took inspiration from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, and many other African countries to create the aesthetics of Wakanda. Throw in some advanced tech and you have an Afro-tech society like no other. We have long known that black culture inspires many fashion trends so it comes as no surprise that everything in Wakanda drips style. Black culture has also always been at the forefront of music so it makes sense that the music in Black Panther, like in Luke Cage, can almost be seen as a character in its own right. The soundtrack, spearheaded by the urban poet (as Malusi Gigaba referred to him in the Budget Speech) Kendrick Lamar is worth listening to on its own. If you’re a fan of the Black Panther comic books, you’re also covered. The movie digs quite deep into the lore with many of its Easter eggs.



Black Panther is not merely a comic book film but a celebration that I think anyone can enjoy. You don’t have to be black or into comic books to enjoy this movie. It is not perfect but where it falters you can easily forgive those missteps. At some points, the actors butcher the Xhosa language but you can see that they gave it their best and you appreciate the effort. If you have not seen Black Panther yet, go out and do so. #WakandaForever

A note on representation and gatekeeping

I have been involved in nerd, geek, and pop culture ever since I picked up a copy of Spider-Man in my first year of school and I love the community with my heart and soul but there is a large part of our culture that is toxic. The culture still has too many fragile male egos that rail against making room for women or people of colour. There is also still a hipster-like gatekeeping culture that bars anyone with only a casual or mainstream interest in the culture. If you don’t know what happened in The Uncanny X-Men #141-142, you’re not one of us. If you don’t know who the wizard, Radagast the Brown in The Lord of the Rings is, do you even really nerd, bro’? Seeing projects like Wonder Woman, Luke Cage, Black Panther and the new Star Wars films become more inclusive gives us hope that our culture will get to a point where we can tell the stories that make room for all of us as human beings. I always go back to Grant Morrison’sFinal Crisis as the high-water mark for the grand scale in which comic books can tell stories and a quote by one of the celestial beings (I always forget if it was Zillo Valla or Weeja Dell) monitoring the multiverse is what I think inclusive stories should be: “We all now have names and stories; there are heroes and villains, secrets and lovers.” That is what we all want, to have names and stories in the media. Films like Black Panther bring us closer to that.