Here Are the Theatrical Posters for Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown to become the biggest thing in entertainment, and some sixteen (almost seventeen) films later, it's sometimes hard to fully comprehend how far we've come.
With the recent release of a new poster for Black Panther, we now have a nice lineup of Marvel Cinematic Universe teaser posters - enough to decorate an entire room with!
Take a trip down memory lane by checking out the first theatrical posters for every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, from Iron Man to Black Panther!
Iron Man
This poster for Iron Man is the one that kicked off the entire MCU - as well as shaping the mold for a lot of the MCU movie posters that would follow.
The stacked design of photoshopped character images looks pretty good in this initial poster - but the quality definitely waned in later one-sheets.
The Incredible Hulk
This poster, like the movie it represents, is an outlier. It's a design that's meant as a throwback to the classic Incredible Hulk TV series, but lacks the grandeur and splendor of a now-traditional MCU one-sheet.
Just one more aspect of The Incredible Hulk that has been swept under the rug of the MCU.
Iron Man 2
This is when the MCU formula really began to lock into place.
Of course, having the villain in the foreground was an early design aspect that would later be altered (putting the villain in the background), but the shoddy photoshop was beginning to show.
Thor
As you can see, by the time that 2011 came around, Phase I of the MCU was in full swing, and Thor's theatrical poster reveals that the gameplan was taking hold.
Captain America: The First Avenger
Marvel's first throwback story got a standard poster.
However, most fans would probably agree: The flames are a bit of overkill. With the exception of that one WWII montage, The First Avenger didn't even really have that many explosions. An odd choice.
The Avengers
Obviously the game had to change when The Avengers came around, as the film brought together the MCU's biggest solo franchise heroes into one place.
There is no real overriding design to this one-sheet - it's just all the heroes of The Avengers, positioned and scaled according to their respective popularity. Iron Man and Thor are clearly the biggest and most prominent - as were their franchises at the time.
Iron Man 3
In the beginning of Phase II, Marvel Studios had gotten almost too comfortable with its own formula, which would lead to a new set of problems.
However, given the departures that Iron Man 3 director Shane Black took with his film, it's almost ironic that it got such a standard poster.
Thor: The Dark World
What's there to say about Thor: The Dark World? It's pretty much one of the most forgettable movies in the MCU lineup, so it's little surprise that it got a cookie-cut and forgettable one-sheet to match.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America 2 has almost the opposite problem than Thor 2.
The Winter Soldier was a bold departure for Marvel Studios - the moment when the rote and routine formula was abandoned, in favor of bigger stylistic risks. And yet, even with a change in stylistic approach, the film still got a rote and routine one-sheet, which barely even features the titular character.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Like Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy was a bold departure from the standard MCU movie formula - but definitely not a departure from the MCU poster formula.
Guardians does get a pass, though, thanks to the sheer colorfulness of this poster.
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The second Avengers team-up took a more equal opportunity approach to its character heirarchy, by putting the various franchise characters on the same plane, in relatively equal sizing.
If anything, it's a sign of how far the franchise had come: The Avengers, as a team, were now big stars.
Ant-Man
Phase II of the MCU ended with one more disappointing stacked design, photoshopped, one-sheet.
Of course, unlike its predecessors in Phase II, Ant-Man wasn't a stylistic departure, it was just another standard MCU origin movie. So in this case the one-sheet design fits.
Captain America: Civil War
Phase III of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been all about diversity, in every sense of the word. That includes a new approach to the posters, and Captain America 3 kicked off that new era.
This poster was pretty easy to nail: put a bunch of MCU superheroes on opposing sides, getting ready for a major battle. Films like Harry Potter 7 and Batman v Superman contextualized their big rivalries with similar visual designs - and it works.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange was all about visual presentation, and the film's ambitiously psychedelic concepts of multiverse theory and magic are captured well in this initial one-sheet.
It's also the only time since The Incredible Hulk that the hero has gotten to occupy the poster all on his own.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
If you think Guardians of the Galaxy went for a colorful approach with its first theatrical poster - get a load of how the poster design team upped the ante with this one-sheet for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2!
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Oddly enough, after so much work to break new ground with the visual representation of its Phase III movies, Marvel put out a hilariously bad one-sheet for Spider-Man: Homecoming, one that definitely got the Internet buzzing in a bad way.
However, since this was also the only film in Phase III that involved another studio (Sony), maybe they are to blame for why this poster is such a disappointment.
Thor: Ragnarok
Thor: Ragnarok will be a major stylistic departure for the franchise, thanks to director Taika Waititi, so it's been good to see that the one-sheet for the film is taking some new stylistic approaches, as well.
While the Thor 3 poster definitely echoes the elements of previous MCU posters, the way it stacks the characters, and the colorful aesthetic certainly capture the eye more so than most Marvel one-sheets.
Black Panther
Like Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther takes the classic Marvel one-sheet design and twists it around into something new(ish).
What makes the poster different are the aesthetic flourishes that help to convey the movie's style and world-building, instead of just featuring the cast of stars in all their photoshopped glory.
*Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War is the biggest event to happen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and although it doesn't have an official one-sheet yet, fans have been designing some pretty great mock.
Hopefully, the official version is as impressive as this:
Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters on May 4, 2018.
Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Black Panther on February 16, 2018, Avengers: Infinity War on May 4, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.
