I saw the Avengers: Endgame yesterday.
It is a movie that continues to shatter box office records…biggest opening weekend domestically ($350 million)…biggest opening weekend globally ($1.2 billion)…fastest movie to $1 billion in box office sales…and it is likely to be the highest grossing movie of all-time by the time all is said and done.
It is a well-done movie. A blend of humor, action, special effects, and a great story line…culminating an eleven-year saga featuring twenty-two Marvel films. I am amazed at how they wove all twenty-two movies…and multiple characters…into a coherent, climatic finale.
I have seen most of the twenty-two films.
I was a comic book reader as a kid. I had almost all of the issues of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America…along with Archie and Richie Rich…before I knew that collecting them was a potential future financial investment. Most of mine were read to shreds and cut up for my own comic book compilations. I wish someone would have told me to put them in plastic protectors and stash them away in the attic to be unearthed at the present time.
But my childhood fascination with superhero comic books is nothing compared to the worldwide, multi-generational fascination with superhero movies today.
Our culture is practically addicted to superhero movies. And it is not just our culture. People throughout the whole world are enamored and enthralled with their stories as well.
Superhero movies have touched a nerve that resonates in the human psyche…particularly in this present age.
I wonder why.
Here are my thoughts:
1. We live in chaotic, perilous, uncertain times.
The emergence of superheroes dates back to the 1930s and 40s in America, the time of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. As one comic book historian noted:
In the 1930s, the American Dream had become a nightmare, and I think comic books and superheroes in particular provided an escapist form of entertainment that allowed the American public to go into a fantasy world where all the ills of the world were righted by these larger-than-life heroes. (Erin Clancy, curator at the Skirball Cultural Center)
Superheroes not only offer us an entertaining form of escape from our present distresses but they also touch a deep desire in us for a leader or a “hero” who can stand for “truth and justice” and have the power to correct all that’s wrong in our lives and in our world.
2. We are drawn to great stories.
Give it to Marvel. They know how to tell a great story. (Unlike DC…which seems to hope that their endless special effects and smoldering movie stars (aka, Aquaman) can somehow suffice.) The three hours of Endgame were not overloaded with non-stop special effects, sensuality, or violence. They told a real story. They wove together various characters, various plot lines, various relationships into an emotional, humorous, somewhat believable narrative.
We are a “story people.” We love stories. We are drawn into stories. Our own lives are stories.
And superhero movies capture some of the elements that we long for in a story. The triumph of good over the evil. The strength of a hero. The excitement of adventure. The importance of family and friendships. The rescuing of what is in jeopardy. The restoring of what is lost.
3. We long for redemption.
Here is the gist of most superhero movies. Our world is in trouble. Humanity is threatened by a power or an enemy that is beyond its own capability to defeat. There are heroes among us who have special power and ability to defeat the enemy. And these heroes are willing to sacrifice everything out of a sense of “right-ness” and love to achieve victory.
Isn’t that what Endgame…the climax of the past twenty-two Marvel movies…came down to?
Thanos (a shortened form of the Greek word for “death”) has a power that is beyond collective human strength. He is unstoppable. Inevitable. Time…Soul…Reality…Power…Mind…Space…all come under his influence. He takes away all that is dear to our hearts. All that is loved.
We are helpless and hopeless. And we cannot save ourselves.
But then the superheroes step in with a super-human strength and courage to fight him…to defeat him…for the sake of restoration…even resurrection…of all that is lost.
Ultimately it takes the sacrifice of one hero to defeat Thanos (I won’t totally spoil the climax by saying who).
It takes a death to defeat Death.
Isn’t that interesting?
And looking beyond Endgame, isn’t it interesting that the stories that we love all seem to follow a similar plot line? Protagonist. Antagonist. Rising conflict. A point of desperation when all seems lost. Then a soul-satisfying, enemy-nullifying, conflict-rectifying climax that brings all things back together.
I believe that this story resonates in our hearts because it resides in our hearts.
We do live in a world that is broken. We do have an enemy that we cannot defeat. We do need Someone with a strength beyond our own to enter our world and to save it. We do need redemption…a selfless sacrifice that can rectify all that is wrong.
The best a superhero movie can offer us is a return to “normal.” The world that is saved in Endgame is still a world with immorality, violence, disasters, conflicts, and death. And, as good of a movie as it is, it still leaves us longing for more.
In the real endgame, we need a hero much greater than Iron Man or Captain Marvel.
And surprisingly…unexpectedly…marvelously…God’s Hero comes as a Lamb.
One who conquers with His own blood.
Who dies in our place.
Who rises again.
To defeat our real enemies of sin and death.
And to restore this world…not back to “normal”…but to its original.
Paradise.
No more tears…no more sorrow…no more pain…no more death.
This is the real story.
The story that we live in.
And this is ending we are longing for.
