On May 2nd, 2008, I had a tennis match. I was on the first doubles team, and my partner and I were an insanely talented duo. We didn’t drop a match together. We only dropped maybe 5 sets in two and a half years playing together, we were ranked 1st in our division, first in Eastern Maine Class B, and the year before we’d go on to win our State Championship match. My best friend Ben was an alternate for the second doubles team, and I don’t think he played that day, but my other friends Nathanael and Jamie did. Amazing players in their own right, they still struggled to close out their matches in a timely manner. I sat there on the sidelines pacing back and forth wildly, confused as to what was taking them so long. The sun was starting to set, and we had a road trip to make.
After the match finally wrapped we piled into someone’s car, and drove 40 miles north to Hoyts Cinema on Stillwater Ave. in Bangor, Maine - the closest theater to us that played movies on opening day before the tourists showed up for the summer.
My three best friends and I - we saw Iron Man. We saw the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
We dressed for the wrong occasion, but we were dressed regardless
The next month, on June 13th, 2008, the month we all graduated, we saw The Incredible Hulk at the Criterion in Bar Harbor, Maine, between our landscaping and lifeguarding jobs. We liked it, but didn’t love it. There wasn’t the same magic that made Iron Man so special to us.
So, we were only a little upset when there wasn’t a Marvel movie released in 2009. But that was the last year we were able to say that.
In 2010 I went to see Iron Man 2 at the Roxie Theater in downtown Burlington, Vermont. My date wasn’t the most enthused, but I was blown away. It’s still one of my favorite Marvel movies.
On May 6, 2011 I was living in Canterbury England. For a friend’s birthday, I took her to see Thor at the Odeon downtown. She wasn’t the biggest comic book fan, but she loved fantasy. And I just sat there, amazed that I lived long enough to see a Thor movie. It still feels surreal to me.
I’m sure England loved having me
By July I was bouncing back and forth between Burlington for summer classes and Bar Harbor to see my family. A little over a week after my 21st birthday, I went to see Captain America with my father, still unsure the movie would work. I didn’t like it at the time, and to be honest it’s still one of my least favorite Marvel movies to date, but every re-watch I appreciate it a little more.
On May 4th, 2012, Avengers came out, a movie none of us thought would ever happen, and a movie that none of us thought would be good, let alone great. We left Burlington to go to Essex, the town over, to see it on a bigger screen.
We couldn’t shut up about it. The impossible movie came out and it blew us all away.
And a few days after Avengers, someone would take this photo of me which is way less weird with the right context.
A few months after graduating college, and a few months after a back surgery, it was May, 2013. I’d take myself to see Iron Man 3 at the Roxie in downtown Burlington. The biggest fan of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (y’know, the movie that got Robert Downey Jr. the gig as Tony Stark), I saw it again. And again. I eventually saw it with someone I’d been seeing off and on, and was seeing off and on later.
Now we’re just on, living together in San Francisco.
Just before the NBA Draft Heist of 2013 (thanks for all those picks, Brooklyn) I’d drive across the country and try to live and be poor in LA. On November 8th, I’d see Thor the Dark World at the Arclight Theater on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, about a mile west of my apartment. It gets shit on and I don’t really understand why. This was before The Force Awakens had come out, which basically meant it was the most Star Wars ass movie we’d gotten since 2006. I like it, and I think it holds up.
The next spring, I’d see Captain America: The Winter Soldier at the same theater with my friend Matt. It’s still my favorite Marvel movie to date.
GodDAMN that Matt kid had a face on him
That summer I’d see Guardians of the Galaxy there too. Then I’d visit Boston and see it again at the AMC Commons just off Tremont. I convinced the On Again/Off Again girl from Iron Man 3 to see it even though she didn’t want to - she was vehemently against it. But it just worked. After that, she was into Marvel, hook, line, and sinker.
On May 1st 2015 I’d see Avengers Age of Ultron at the Showcase Cinema DeLuxe in Revere, Massachusetts… eventually. It was totally sold out when we tried to go, so we settled and saw Pitch Perfect 2. I wasn’t that mad. Pitch Perfect 2 felt like a Police Academy sequel starring Anna Kendrick. May 3rd though, that Sunday, I’d see Avengers Age of Ultron, with our friends Justin and Kasey. Justin would kick my ass at Magic the Gathering later that night.
Two months later on July 17, 2015, I’d go with my dad to see Ant-Man at the recently rebranded Hoyts Cinema in Bangor, Maine. (now it’s just the Bangor Mall Cinemas 10, much prettier). He had no idea who the fuck Ant-Man was. I had no idea how the fuck an Ant-Man movie got made.
Three months later, I’d move to where Ant-Man was filmed, and begin my love/hate relationship with San Francisco.
On May 5th 2016, my best friends from Ad School and I got last minute tickets to see Captain America: Civil War at the recently closed AMC Van Ness in San Francisco. I was underwhelmed by it at the time. I was wrong to be.
Later that year, on the weekend of November 4th, 2016 On again/Off Again/Now Just On moved out to San Francisco after taking the California BAR exam (she passed because of course she did). We drove down to Daly City to see Doctor Strange, and we grabbed Five Guys right before, so thank god we had incredibly comfy chairs that reclined otherwise I don’t think we would’ve made it. I’m still shocked that a Doctor Strange movie was made. My dad would come out to visit for Christmas that year, and my brother lived in the city at the time. I think that was the first Marvel movie he’d ever seen in theaters. But the AMC Metreon on Mission St. downtown also had comfy chairs, otherwise I don’t think he would’ve made it either.
My brother became a dad, and I became a swaddle master.
My dad would come out to the Bay again in May of 2017 because my brother became a dad, and my dad became a grandfather. But Pops, On Again/Off Again/Now Just On, and I would sneak out a few blocks south towards AMC Van Ness, grab a few beers, and see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Another maligned Marvel movie, it’s one of my favorites. It was a story about fathers and I got to see it with mine. I bought the tickets, so my dad bought the beers afterwards at Lush Lounge on Polk Street. We talked about fathers and sons, and I only cried a little.
Later that summer, just before my birthday, On/Off/On and my now podcasting partner Sarah and I would go see Spider-Man Homecoming for a matinee the weekend of July 7th. Michael Keaton was in this? Donald Glover was in this? The third Spider-Man in my lifetime? I still love it. It has one of my all-time favorite Marvel movie moments, and arguably the best car ride scene since Pulp Fiction. And if that’s not true, it’s gotta be at least top 10.
After being transfixed by the amazing trailer with a killer synth-heavy track courtesy of a band called In the Face of Evil, we didn’t just finally get our first good Hulk movie, we got a fucking banger of a movie, an all-time genre-action classic. That movie fucks. Y’know how I know that? The brother I mentioned earlier who couldn’t give fewer shits about Marvel movies? Even he likes it. The first weekend of November in 2017 we saw Thor: Ragnarok. And then we’d see it again, three more times.
Our Ragnarok crew at Bay to Breakers a few months earlier
February 16th of 2018 On/Off/On, Sarah, and few other friends would come with me to the Kabuki Theater on Post Street in San Francisco’s Japan Town district to see Black Panther, and that movie was a sea change. It still is. On/Off/On and I throw it on probably once a month still.
We’d also see it at Kabuki again on April 25th of 2018. We had to. Because my friends and I just finished a Marvel movie marathon, rewatching everything that had come out to date.
Because the next day we’d see an early screening of Avengers Infinity War. It’s one of two times I’ve ever skipped Pub Trivia since I moved here. I’d see it in theaters five times. I couldn’t believe they did what they did. Part of me still can’t. I almost couldn’t enjoy the movie, I bought a ticket for a friend and he just fell off the earth, we didn’t hear from him until later that night, where at the bar we had one of the funniest exchanges I’ve ever been part of in real life.
That July I’d see Ant-Man and the Wasp. To this day, I’ve still only seen it once. I liked it, it felt like a Doctor Who Episode. All I could think was “man, that car chase wouldn’t work in that part of town”. It was one of the last movies I’d ever see at the AMC Van Ness (the last movie being Aquaman, but that’s a different blog post).
That baby my brother had? It was around this time she stopped looking like a baby and started looking like a very small person. Oh, and she started growing hair, that was cool.
It’s also the last Marvel movie I’d see before I started having anxiety/panic attacks, so, damn, I wish I appreciated that movie more than I did at the time.
On March 8th I’d go back to the Kabuki theater to see Captain Marvel with On/Off/On. We’d go back to see it there two additional times, in a five day period. I wish the soundtrack were better, but holy hell, what a goddamn movie regardless.
A little over a month ago on April 26th, I saw Avengers Endgame with On/Off/On, with Sarah, with my Pub Trivia partner, Aaron, and my Pub Trivia host, Marty.
I still find it hard to believe that racing to Bangor after a high school tennis match 11 years ago started something that only just ended last month. I’ve lived in six different cities, in four different states, on two different continents. I’ve had three major partners and two major heartbreaks. I’ve battled anxiety, depression, body issues, and homesickness. I’ve been a student at three different institutions and graduated from them. I’ve done work for a website I’ve loved since before the MCU ever existed, as well as work for the video game publisher that made me love video games. I’ve seen my brother married, then later my sister, and become an uncle (almost twice over). I’ve driven across the country four times, had two existential crises, started smoking, stopped smoking, and started again (but currently stopped). I’ve made best friends I no longer talk to and I talk to best friends I realistically may never see again.
I’ve spent my entire adult life with these characters, with this one singular story that’s tied 22 films together over eleven fucking years. And for the first time in over a decade, these characters got an ending. Of course I’m excited for the next Marvel movie, for the next phase, but I don’t need it the way I needed these last 22 films. It’s taken 11 years, to give us 45 hours and 54 minutes of story and finally we as an audience have gotten closure.
But more importantly, the characters themselves have gotten closure. The story’s not over yet, thank goodness for that, but it’s over for now, and I couldn’t be happier with how it did so.
I’m absolutely terrible with goodbyes. I hate endings in general, to be honest. I think that’s where my anxiety started, following my first real existential crisis. I think that’s why I love comics so much. Because they don’t end, they just change. I always get sad when Luke burns Vader. I always get bummed when Harry and Ginny take their kid to the Hogwarts Express. Watching Endgame, there was a catharsis, and instead of being sad about it ending, I just sat there astonished that it happened. That it was executed at all. That it didn’t die somewhere along the road. That they committed to something they had no idea would work, could work, or even should work.
There was a movie where a talking raccoon was sad that a sentient, walking tree died. There was a movie where a non-powered, human spy was able to hold her own with atomic monsters and gods of thunder. There was a movie where someone could shrink down to the size of ants and talk to them. There was a movie where walking acid trip with a living cape saved our universe from a dimension made of cancer and malice.
And people loved them.
There was a movie where heroes died. Where villains won. Where you felt bad for the bad guy. Where you secretly sympathized with them. Where you were shocked by them. Where you wanted nothing more than to see them fail.
And people loved them too.
For a little under one third of my life I’ve watched these movies. I’ve celebrated with these characters, and mourned with them. And it was all leading to this. To an ending I wasn’t ready for, but one I will happily accept.
I’ll always remember when the world was ready to believe in Heroes and let itself be saved.
