The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the biggest juggernaut in pop culture, running over everything in its way to becoming the biggest entertainment franchise in the land. One of the ways it did this was the homogenization of the product, using familiar plot elements and broad character archetypes to tell easily digestible stories full of Easter eggs that rarely challenge audiences but always leave them happy.
The entire MCU is built on cliches, but there are some times it’s more apparent than others. Some of the characters are blatant cliches, their entire personalities built around one or two dimensions that fans have seen a million times before.
8 All Three Iron Man Villains Are The Exact Same Archetype With The Same Motivation
One could give Obadiah Stane, Justin Hammer, and Aldrich Killian an entry each but they are all the same cliched character- the evil businessman villain with a grudge against the main character. Stane is slightly different than Hammer and Killian, as he just wants what he feels he worked for, but Hammer and Killian are basically the exact same character with the same motivations.
The writers of the Iron Man movies found a villain cliche and stuck with it, shifting things around only slightly. Stane and Killian both went after Iron Man personally after gaining ways of attacking him physically while Hammer had others do the work for him, something Killian also did. It’s honestly bizarre that no one even noticed the movies all used the same cliched archetype but in hindsight, it’s the most MCU thing ever.
7 Ant-Man Is The Everyman Ex-Con With A Heart Of Gold
The Ant-Man movies made some changes to the Ant-Man mythos but some things stayed the same, including the walking cliche that is Scott Lang. Scott is a familiar kind of character in fiction, superhero or otherwise. He’s a former criminal with a heart of gold, a man who only took up crime to look out for his family and looks for a way to make up for his former life of crime and the time he spent away from his loved ones.
On top of that cliche, he’s also just a cliche Paul Rudd character, a charming everyman who is funnier than he has any right to be. The two cliches actually work well together, as it defangs the character’s criminal past in a way that wouldn’t work as well if he was a more hard-edged, less charming character.
6 Scarlet Witch Plays Into The Hysterical Woman Cliche That’s Been Overused In The Comics
The MCU is full of characters who have gone too far, with Scarlet Witch being the premiere hero to do so. The death of Vision in Avengers: Infinity War was the icing on the cake, but it started in her first appearance in Avengers: Age Of Ultron with the death of her twin brother Quicksilver. The cliche her character plays into is simple and extremely insulting to women when it comes right down to it- the hysterical woman cliche.
This cliche sees a woman unable to deal with her emotions and the traumas she’s been through, getting crazier and crazier. These types of stories defined Scarlet Witch in the comics and it’s distressing that the MCU has chosen to take this tack with her. One would imagine this anti-feminist messaging would be gone in what some deride as the “woke” MCU, but Marvel Studios plays into harmful cliches more often than its detractors- and fans- realize.
5 Ultron Was Ruined By Being Made Into A Cliche MCU Villain
The MCU has created some rather frightening villains, but that doesn’t mean they’ve done a good job with their antagonists overall. Oftentimes, the villains are terrifying because of their actions more than who they are and that’s what happened to Ultron in a nutshell. In the comics, Ultron is a powerful inhuman killing machine and as scary as they come. In the MCU, he’s a slightly charming and quippy silky-voiced android.
One of the problems with MCU villains is how many of them fall into this same cliche- the charming, funny villain who does terrible things. Ultron played into this fully, to the point where the villain was only threatening at all because he wanted to destroy humanity and was fighting the heroes. Otherwise, he would have fit in on the Avengers as well as any member of the team.
4 Pepper Potts Was The Long-Suffering, Responsible Love Interest Of The Bad Boy Main Character
Pepper Potts was the MCU’s first love interest and one of its opening cliches. She was Tony’s long suffering assistant, cleaning up his messes along with Obadiah Stane, except the difference was she was in love with Tony and had no interest in anything other than his heart and keeping him going. This was basically her character for her entire time in the MCU, the love interest who labored tirelessly in the background to keep her man afloat.
It’s such an obvious cliche and it’s one of the reasons that Pepper never really seemed like a character at all, no matter how many times she appeared. Even her few stints in her armor played into the cliche, as she only suited up to save the day for Tony.
3 Iron Man’s Know It All Bad Boy Redemption Arc Only Slightly Deviated from The Cliche
Iron Man in the movies and the comics are two very different characters. MCU Tony Stark is a caricature of his comic self, a tech billionaire bad boy whose all about the women, the drinking, and the science. The Tony Stark of Iron Man is very different from the one who dies in Avengers: Endgame, but his character growth is all part of the know-it-all bad boy redemption arc, something that is pretty prevalent in many types of stories.
The PTSD subplot that informed Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, and Captain America: Civil War was an interesting deviation from this cliched story arc. Most fans didn’t really notice just how much of a cliche Iron Man was, but that’s more up to Robert Downey Jr.’s expert performance than it is the writing.
2 Peter Quill Is The Kind Of Screw-Up Schlub With A Heart Of Gold That Chris Pratt Made A Career Of Playing
Chris Pratt is definitely an actor who gets typecast. Since Parks And Recreation, he’s basically played the same character in every movie he’s been in, a funny screw-up schlub who always tries to do the right thing and often fails at it. That’s Peter Quill in a nutshell, a character who never met a situation he couldn’t make worse in some way.
All of the cliched hallmarks of a Chris Pratt character are there in Peter Quill. He’s funny, a bit of a braggart, and he definitely screws up a lot but he’s also a give-the-shirt-off-his-back kind of guy as well. It all adds up to an entertaining but cliche character.
1 Steve Rogers Is The Ultimate Competent Patriot Cliche
The MCU Steve Rogers is usually pretty comic accurate, which means that he’s definitely a cliche. However, it’s basically a cliche that the comic version of the character helped codify in fiction, so most people don’t have any problem with it. Steve is the hyper-competent patriot, the best that the United States has to offer.
He’s never anything less than the perfect hero and when he isn’t, no one can really tell. He stands up for the little guy and never stops fighting, a potent threat to anyone on the battlefield. He’s a massive cliche, but that cliche is what everyone loves about him.
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