Marvel Studios: The Infinity Saga – The Art of The Avengers is the fifth release in the 24-book Marvel Studios: The Infinity Saga series, which is republishing previously released art books as a resized matching set. The first five films in the franchise (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger) led to the heroes uniting against Loki and the alien Chitauri to close out Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In his review, Steve Geise states The Avengers is “a true popcorn film, an unapologetic comic book movie that never forgets its origins.”
Buy The Art of The Avengers bookIn the Introduction, Ryan Meinerding and Charlie Wen suggest “if you look back through all the Art of titles from the Marvel films, you will find a remarkable continuity in the artists creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” That’s because Marvel Studios producer “Kevin Feige has always been interested in creating a unity across the universe, and one of the ways he did that during the years following Iron Man was by making sure the same concept artists were responsible for these iconic characters.” So in addition to Meinerding and Wen handling Captain America and Thor, respectively, Phil Saunders and Adi Granov handled Iron Man.
The Prologue details the origins for The Avengers, which “first surfaced during the production of Iron Man,” according to Avengers Executive Producer Jeremy Latcham. After the reaction to Nick Fury appearing in an end-credit scene and Tony Stark doing the same in Incredible Hulk, producers realized “audiences were interested in [The Avengers].” Connections and Easter eggs are mentioned as author Jason Surrell explains how the other Phase One movies led to The Avengers.
After a MCU timeline detailing key events and a three-page poster fans will want to tear out to display, the first chapter is “Incident in the Desert.” S.H.I.E.L.D. gets a big focus with looks at character designs for Nick Fury and Hawkeye, props, sets, and even organizational logos. They were examining the Tesseract, which is what Loki is hunting for, so even he appears under this heading, since his costume “evolved from I to a much grittier and more lived in look.”
“Avengers Assemble!” is a massive chapter, over a third of the book. The returning characters get updates to their looks. Captain America’s costume is infused with S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. Thor goes sleeveless. The most notable change is Hulk with Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and Ruffalo tasked with playing the Hulk through motion-capture technology. The chapter also looks at different locations, such as Stark Tower, and equipment, such as the Avengers Quinjet. There are also storyboards of the battle in the woods between Thor and Iron Man.
“A Common Threat” begins with Iron Man’s new armor and a look at how Tony suited up while falling from the sky. The book moves onto the Chitauri and their weapons, including the massive Leviathans, an armored creature that transported soldiers. The script and storyboards of the final battle appear over two pages. Like the previous The Art of titles in this series, the book concludes with a look at the movie’s marketing.
What makes The Art of The Avengers so interesting is that while Phase One of the MCU was concluding, the artists had to deal with the evolution of characters, which some already experienced on Iron Man 2. It was one thing to move the characters into a new medium, but they had already found success with the look of the characters and with this movie had to duplicate that while also making subtle changes that made sense. For those curious about the magic of the movies, getting to read what went into the work is illuminating.
