Out of the Phase 1 Marvel films, Captain America: The First Avenger has always been my favorite. I’m not saying it’s the best or the most important when it comes to accomplishments or plot, but to me, it hit somewhere the others couldn’t.
Maybe it’s because I was a history major, maybe it’s because I have always been able to connect with Steve Rogers on his views of right and wrong, I’m not sure exactly what it is, but Captain America was able to stick with me in a way other movies from Phase 1 couldn’t.
What makes this movie important to the MCU is the way it establishes Captain America, arguably the leader. Some people feel it’s Iron Man though I’m on the Captain America side. Either way, he’s very important to the establishment of the Avengers as a whole. You can’t introduce the first iteration of Avengers without Captain America.
Steve is the hard decision maker of the group, he’s the necessary voice of reason, not logic, reason. While others also need to make tough choices, Steve is the one who never waivers in his beliefs of justice despite what logic may point to. Without this movie, we wouldn’t have a true understanding of Captain America.
What makes this movie special is that Steve doesn’t start out the hero everyone knows him as. Not everyone reads comics, and it would have been easy to just throw him into the hero role and change his back story entirely (right, DC?), but instead, Marvel stuck closer to the source material and portrayed Steve as the relatable character that he is.
Unlike the rich Tony Stark, the genius Bruce Banner, or the trans-dimensional alien/God Thor, Steve is just a guy. A guy with a big heart and unparalleled determination. I’m not going to get too political, but I will say this: Chris Evans’s Captain America reminds us of what America is supposed to be and what it’s supposed to stand for. And seeing him work so hard throughout this film for that driving purpose is incredibly inspiring.
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