My Top 20 Marvel Cinematic Universe Posters
To me, posters have always represented the promise of what that movie could become. An iconic image, forever immortalized on paper. The Avengers/MCU movies have been some of the best in recent memory, and fans always look forward to any new poster that gets released prior to its movie. If you look at all the posters that have been released since
Iron Man, they paint a coherent picture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is a great record of memorable characters. Since I started this list, I remembered more posters and I’m sure more posters could be added as time goes along. But for now, here are my favorites…
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Classic Avengers
It was the end of Phase One, and Joss Whedon and Marvel had brought all of our superheroes into one unprecedented mega-movie. You have Tony Stark in the middle of the poster, dramatically posed, showing that even though everybody else is in this movie, it’s Tony Stark’s world. Nick Fury’s in the background as usual, Captain America’s looking patriotic with his shield, unmasked and ready to go, and Hawkeye and Thor are ready for action.
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier Black Widow
Black Widow’s third appearance in a Marvel movie. Somebody described this poster as over-Photoshopped, but I like it. She’s been described as an avenging angel, wafting down from the heavens with guns drawn and hips out.
FUN FACT: This has been my phone’s wallpaper since the poster came out. Don’t judge me.
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Iron Man 3 The Mandarin
P.I.M.P! Trevor Slattery just looks like he’s running things, posed casually with his sunglasses and cammo pants. If you saw Empire Magazine’s uncut image of the poster, you also saw his foot on Iron Man’s helmet, UN helmets with incense sticking out of them, Chinese iconography, and stone foo dogs. Incredible imagery for what you thought would be an incredible villain. This is what AIM and Marvel wanted you to think. The poster, of course, came before the movie’s reveal of Trevor being an actor and not the real Mandarin. Well done, sirs.
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Avengers preview Bruce Banner
Our first look at Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner as opposed to the Ed Norton version we saw in the original Hulk movie. If you look carefully at his eyes, they’re green! It was also quite interesting they decided to show Banner in the preview poster as opposed to “the other guy.”
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Captain America War Bonds
Not technically an Avengers poster. It’s actually from scenes in Captain America: The First Avenger during WWII. During the war, the government would sell war bonds in order to pay for the war effort. It perfectly shows Cap’s USO days and his patriotic fervor, his willingness to become an American symbol. It’s beautifully painted by Ryan Meinerding, concept artist extraordinaire.
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Agents of SHIELD Skyeward
This poster was released late in Agents of SHIELD’s first season, right after you found out that (spoilers) Grant Ward is HYDRA. It has two really good looking people in it and it just has betrayal written all over it. Plus, Ward looks really predatory.
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Avengers Phil Coulson, Agent of SHIELD
The original Agent of SHIELD, cool enough to get his own Avengers poster, despite dying during the movie. Just shows how popular the character of Coulson really is—fan boys brought him back to life.
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier preview Cap’s shield
One of the first images released for the new Cap movie, it kind of gives you an idea of what’s going to happen in the movie. The iconic shield looks a bit tarnished; you can just see red and blue peeking out in some places. What’s going to happen to Captain America? Who’s the Winter Soldier? If you go further, it also shows what happens to the SHIELD organization during the movie…
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The Incredible Hulk
Just a cool image with Banner and the monster back to back. As the movie itself shows, it has the sensibilities of the original TV series with Lou Ferrigno, and the guy playing Banner—Ed Norton in this case-- could easily be Bill Bixby in the shot. Gives you an idea of the immense power that this man has just behind the surface.
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Thor: The Dark World Thor
As KISS once said, bow before your god of thunder. A really cool shot of Thor in action, lightning bolts everywhere, Mjölnir raised high…
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Thor: The Dark World Loki
Hey, it’s Thor’s movie but we’re all living in Loki’s world. He quickly became a breakout star of the MCU after Thor and Avengers and I’m glad to see him with his own character poster. Besides having a cool poster, it resonated with me even more after I saw the movie. Loki’s on the throne of Asgard now, and this image just reminds of me a king, plotting against his enemies and ruling his kingdom.
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Agents of SHIELD: The End of the Beginning episode poster
A simple poster, but it accurately shows what’s going on in SHIELD during this episode. It’s falling away, revealing the HYDRA logo.
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Agents of SHIELD: The Light in the Darkness episode poster
On one hand, you have Coulson with his SHIELD badge standing in the white, then you have his lady love, the cellist, in the darkness. I was glad to see they cast such a Whedon favorite, Amy Acker, as the famous Cellist—mentioned in the Avengers several times. She does represent what Coulson left behind when he joined a darker aspect of SHIELD after dying. “The light in the darkness” is what her stalker referred to her as, since he was literally comprised of darkness.
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Iron Man 2 IMAX
Showcases the suitcase armor (the Mark V), which is the coolest armor revealed in the movie.
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier Falcon
The first reveal of a brand-new character in the MCU, The Falcon. Check out the wings and sunglasses. Badass.
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Agent Carter One-Shot
Very retro, very noir. Looks kinda like an old WWII pulp novel cover.
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Avengers Hawkeye preview
Dude, how could you go wrong with a Charlie Wen painting? Paired with the other Ryan Meinerding paintings, this whole Avengers series is incredible. These came out during Comic Con and made everybody who saw them online really want to have the posters and see the movie. It’s also our first real look at Hawkeye in uniform.
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Iron Man 2 Iron Man and War Machine
Ever since Terrence Howard said “next time” when he saw the Iron Man armor for the first time in the first Iron Man, fans have wanted to see War Machine come on screen and dominate. Well, here’s the two of them, back-to-back, ready to take on drones from Iron Man 2. And it’s only a tantalizing glance, with Tony Stark taking up the majority of the poster.
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Item 47 One-Shot
There have been other Marvel One-Shots before on previous DVD’s, like The Consultant, but nothing like this. This was a huge feature, at least 15 minutes and had a plot line and special FX. More importantly, it allowed us another look into one of the biggest movies of all time, The Avengers. We were able to go inside that universe again. And if you were a fan of that movie, you’d recognize the gun, and you wanted to know what would happen if some ordinary bank robbers were able to get a hold of alien technology! Plus, it was one of the reasons why Agents of SHIELD made it to TV.
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Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket and Nebula
Two of the more interesting characters to be featured in the upcoming Guardians movie. Rocket has always been a favorite of mine ever since seeing him in a Rocket Raccoon comic in my mother’s hair salon. It’s an interesting image to say the least, with a bipedal raccoon in an orange jumpsuit with an alien-looking gun. The other poster is that of Nebula. While I hate the fact that they made gorgeous redhead Karen Gillian shave her head for this role, she does look good despite being bald and blue.
BONUS:
Spider-Man 2 Doctor Octopus
This one’s an extra: one of the first comic book posters I remember to feature the bad guy. It’s a now-familiar pose, with the hero (or villain) to stand with his back to the audience. This time, however it serves a purpose. You can now see his deadly mechanical arms.
See ya with more posters in the future!!
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