Marvel Drops 2 New MCU Trailers, Leagues Apart in Tone

For the comic book lovers and Marvel maesters out there, the connective tissues one release to another are as clear to see as power lines to buildings. For others, it’s either a month-long binge utilising the Disney+ “MCU Complete Timeline” watch bar to *try* and get up to speed, or it’s a total eclipse of any co-relevancy movie-to-movie, series-to-series or book-to-book on just who is where and why and how that relates to them also being over there and with those at any given moment. 

In some ways, we respect the latter group of people because keeping up with the Marveldashians… man, that’s a full-time job.

In addition to the info overload and convoluted timelines of the above is that most of these releases -- movie-to-movie, series-to-series and book-to-book -- also come with unique tones. Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange, for example, are fairly far apart in terms of their writing, pacing and characterisation, alongside the obvious visual differences between the pair, meaning audiences are usually in for something unique, regardless of the heroes and villains set within. And so today’s unveiling of not one but two new trailers for upcoming Marvel Studios fare by way of Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*, unsurprisingly highlighted all of the above with the latter being of almost slapstick origins, while the former presented an almost Tom Clancy-like feel to proceedings, despite being about a red Hulk and a Super Soldier with vibranium wings.

Check each of them out below in order of their intended release:

We’ve seen these setups before, of course, with Brave New World almost harkening back to the brilliant and gritty Captain America: The Winter Soldier (the irony being that Bucky is in the more comedy-focused one) while Thunderbolts* is definitely channelling the aforementioned Gunn classics in his Guardians trilogy, leaning heavily into the ‘team of misfits’ trope who we know by the end of the film will all gel, forge strong relationships together and win the day. 

Both movies look good, though some questionable effects in the Brave New World trailer have us a bit concerned and on a personal note, how Red Hulk is utilised will be very interesting considering the traditional Hulk has, till now, been severely underutilised (and whom is in dire need of his own focused movie or series efforts, namely a proper Planet Hulk adaptation or World War Hulk at least, if the fans are to be heard).