An analysis of the events before the Avengers film

I chose to analyze the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. The timeline was released by Marvel themselves for the book Avengers: The Art of Marvels THE AVENGERS. It was created for the purpose of putting all the events of Marvels superhero film franchises in one chronologically organized place. Marvel is a company mainly associated with comic books, but has recently gotten into making movies about their superhero characters. This timeline is useful for people familiar and unfamiliar with the films. For anyone wanting to watch the Avengers, they can use Marvels timeline to learn all the important information they need. For those who have seen all the movies, they are now able to view all the events from the different films into a unified timeline.

Formal Analysis
The main black time bar of the Avengers Timeline serves as the reference point for all events. The time bar itself is actually broken up into individual identical rectangles representing a specific amount of time or a specific date. One might notice that the individual rectangles act like panels in a comic book. They signify titles for a specific amount of time with in the Avengers timeline. There are some individual rectangles with red font instead of white. These rectangles are specific reference points for the other rectangles. Each event is then linked to an individual rectangle via a simple line. The lines are consistent all the way through: sharp and at strictly vertical or horizontal. Combined with the black and white color combination, this makes for a very straight-forward timeline.

Marvels timeline is centered around two reference points. The first is Point of Origin I am Iron Man. The dates centered around this reference point are labeled BIM and AIM. This is strikingly similar to the units BC and AD we use today. The second reference point Begin Furys Big Week marks the beginning of Nick Furys (leader of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D.) assembly of the Avengers. The week is broken into thirteen parts, a day and a night for each date except for the sixth which only has a day. The reason the week is broken down so much is because the events of four films happen in this one week. Thankfully Marvel used a set of icons to help thereader more quickly understand the organization of their timeline.

The icons next to each event description are a key element of the Marvels timeline. They serve as a simple way to show which event corresponds to each Marvel character. They are a simplified illustration of an easily recognizable part of their appearance (Iron Man) or backstory (The Hulk). Since the symbols are icons, they all have a place in McClouds Pictorial Vocabulary Triangle. The bottom left corner has realistic icons, the bottom right corner has simplified icons, and the top has plain shapes. Iron Mans icon is the only one that resembles a face so it is easiest to put on the triangle. Imagine Iron Mans helmet along the bottom of the triangle with a picture of the helmet in the movie in the left corner and a simple minimalist version in the bottom right, similar to what it is already there. The icon in Marvels timeline is not a realistic illustration with shade and shadow so it has to move to the right of the realistic corner. The middle face is more of a comic book style illustration, and the Iron Man icon is not even quite that detailed. It is more like the fourth face. It is a simplified illustration that has the main characteristics but that is it. The icon for S.H.I.E.L.D. is trickier to place because it is a symbol and not a face. Symbols are another way to communicate, and language is used to communicate. By definition it would have to go by the bottom right labeled corner language. It has complex shapes that keep it from going far up towards the top picture plane. Therefore even though it is not a face it goes very near where the Iron Man icon is because it communicates the same way. In fact all the icons go in a similar place because they are illustrated in the same style. They only thing different about them is that some are actual objects (Iron Mans helmet, Thors hammer, Captain Americas shield) and some are symbols (Hulks radiation, S.H.I.E.L.D.s emblem).

There are a few icons that are only used once. Marvel uses these as substitutes to the normal icon associated with the film to signify an important event within the film. An example would be in Iron Man 2, Tony Stark discovers a new element that he uses to save his life and power his new Iron Man armor. In the timeline Marvel uses the new element (pictured to the right) Stark discovered and synthesized. This is used to represent the gravity of its importance. Substituted icons instantly let the reader know that this is an important event in the timeline.

In Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art by Scott McCloud, the reader learns that closure between panels is a major formal element of comics themselves. With this timeline based on comic book characters, it is easy to decipher what kind of closure happens between each event. In each case on the timeline, the gap between each event is a scene-to-scene transition. That means there is a significant amount of time that passes between events. It could range anywhere from a day to years; we see both in this timeline. What is interesting though, is that within some events, like the second Iron Man event in the image above, we see multiple things happen. Because it is in the same scene, there is subject to subject closure. Marvel lets the reader fill in how it happened with his or her imagination. It is not action-toaction closure however, because no specific actions were shown or described. Marvel chooses not to worry about the action itself, but instead focuses on the subjects and scenes.

Purpose
The purpose of this timeline was to make a clear cannon timeline of the actual events of the five different films before the Avengers film. The films were released over the course of three years so viewers may have had a difficult time putting the events in each film in order with the other films. There are references to the other films in each film but not the specific dates. The timeline informs the reader but also entertains them at the same time. It appeals to both the diehard fans and the casual viewer. Die-hard fans have more information about one of their big interests and the casual viewer is informed in case they forgot some of the events in the cinematic universe. The timeline itself isnt exactly ground breaking in any way. It doesnt introduce any new formal elements or have any extraordinary graphics. It appears to be inspired by a world history timeline, with its films taking on the roles of nations.

Notice the World War II timeline above. It isnt just a timeline for one country. Its a timeline for many nations that sums up the events for the world. Marvel appears to have taken this format and one-upped it. They added icons next to their event information. They added the large Avengers A to signify what the timeline is building up to. And they added a more broken down timeline. The icon by each event makes for strong word-picture relationship that involves the reader significantly more. It is much easier to remember events with a picture connected to it.

Evaluation
As a whole the timeline is put together well. The icons intrigue any reader who is any bit familiar with the Marvel films or comics. The content is clear and to the point. Most importantly all the events are put together in order because it is unclear of how they line up together by just watching the films themselves. However, there are things that could be done to make this timeline better. The two things I would have done are making the panels in the timeline more proportionate to the amount of time passed, and the icons and fonts for that reflect the magnitude of each event. In conclusion, the timeline did what it was made to do. That big Avengers A grabbed my attention and pulled me in. I then found out the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they happened in real time. The timeline did exactly what it was supposed to, but it could be a tweaked a little bit more to make it a model for all future timelines.

Works Cited
"About | Marvel.com." About | Marvel.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2013. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. [Northampton, MA]: Kitchen Sink, 1993. Print. "Marvel Releases THE AVENGERS Movie Timeline." Collider. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2013. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2013 <http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zvVXcx2ULjw/TUknhRPeRiI/AAAAAAAAAZI/Z6K8eA2 WWb4/s1600/ ww2%2Btimeline.jpg>. Philbin, Brian G. "A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE." A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MARVE L UNIVERSE. N.p., 2008. Web. 20 May 2013. "Writing With Images Introduction Imagetext, Multiples, and Other Mixed Modes." Introduction: Imagetext, Multiples, and Other Mixed Modes. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2013. <http://courses.washington.edu/hypertxt/cgi-bin/book/wordsimages/wordsimages.html>.

Nathan Miller May 22, 2013 English 357 Timeline Analysis