The most important scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t when Tony Stark tells a crowd, “I am Iron Man.” It isn’t when Black Panther first exclaims, “Wakanda Forever!” It isn’t when Thanos snaps his fingers. It’s when the Avengers slump down after the Battle of New York and enjoy some much deserved shawarma. The heroes don’t do anything spectacular. They have their costumes undone and they slouch instead of stand. They don’t even speak with one another.
At that moment, the MCU crystalized into a franchise less about superheroes using their fantastic powers to save the world, and more about a group of eccentric friends whom audiences like to see hanging out together. Such low-key moments with high-concept heroes certainly have precedence in the comics (think about the many X-Men baseball and basketball games). But the real forerunner of the MCU’s buddy buddy approach is the 2004 Pixar adventure, The Incredibles. And it’s the story of an ordinary family with extraordinary powers.
Super Domesticity
The jungle attack sequence that kicks off the third act of The Incredibles has some fantastic moments, especially for young Dash. Throughout the film, Dash’s parents Bob and Helen have reprimanded him for using his super-speed. But when he and his sister Violet arrive on a jungle island filled with henchmen and robotic threats working for the villain Syndrome, Dash finally gets to explode.
Dash zips around baddies and ducks from blasts. But he’s most delighted at the moment when he realizes that he can run fast enough to skim across water. Looking down at the liquid below him, Dash lets loose a gleeful chuckle.
Those types of well-observed character moments within superhero action make The Incredibles so special. Part ’60s spy caper, part Fantastic Four homage, with just a bit of Watchmen thrown in, The Incredibles remains one of the best superhero movies ever made. Writer/director Brad Bird‘s keen animator instincts understands how to use the family’s powers for not just visually breathtaking set=pieces but also to explore the depth of his characters. The former Mr. Incredible looks constricted in his cubicle and tie; the one-time Elastigirl, now only Helen, stretches herself to clean the house and cook dinner and take care of the kids; Violet pops into nothingness when she feels too shy; and Dash can barely sit still without exploding into bursts of super-speed.
The best example comes during one of the movie’s most mundane moments. Bob comes home late at night to find a furious Helen waiting for him. It’s the stuff of hundreds of sitcoms and melodramas, only slightly improved by the superhero sheen. Bob downing a giant slice of cake and Helen acting the slighted wife almost becomes disastrously rote. But then Helen uses her stretchy arms to gently pull Bob back to her. When she charges Bob with missing life with their family in pursuit of reliving the glory days, he waves his arms and charges through the living room with the might of Mr. Incredible. Rather than fall back, Helen responds with her own display of power.
“It’s not about you!” she charges, growing taller to punctuate each syllable. Nothing in The Incredibles matches that scene because the powers work to reveal the internal state of the characters. They’re less about superhero excitement than they are the relationships illuminated by these powers.
Family Affiliations
The jungle escape sequence climaxes with a big bad guy monologue from Syndrome. Once a brilliant but overeager kid called Buddy, Syndrome plans to sell his inventions to the world. Sure, he wants to get rich, but he has a deeper motivation. “When everyone’s super, nobody is,” he sneers. Together with Bob’s complaints about feeling unexceptional, Syndrome’s scheme has seemed to endorse a Ayn Rand style philosophy in Bird’s work, arguing that inherently excellent people deserve to step over the rules set for ordinary folks.
Twenty years later, it’s hard to ignore a hierarchy of some sort in Bird’s movies, whether it be the Parrs, Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, or Frank Walker in Tomorrowland. But Buddy’s story has another, equally important motivation. Buddy first meets Bob as a child after he’s given himself the name Incrediboy. Donned in a costume in the style of Mr. Incredible, Buddy hopes for welcome as a sidekick. But again and again, Mr. Incredible rejects him, grouching, “You’re not affiliated with me!”
Buddy assumes that he gets rejected by Mr. Incredible because he lacks powers, but Bob never says that. Instead Bob insists, “I work alone,” an ethos he continues when lying to his family about his nightly activities. In fact, Bob’s arc in The Incredibles is less about figuring out what to do with his exceptional status and more about learning how to be with his family and stop working alone.
Learning to work with others is the ur-narrative of the MCU. No one considers themselves as exceptional as Tony Stark, but time and again he requires help from others: Pepper helps him fire the arc reactor to defeat Iron Monger in the first Iron Man, Rhodey stands by him in Iron Man 2, and all of Iron Man 3 is actually a therapy session with Bruce Banner.
Nick Fury uses Colson’s death to spur the Avengers into believing in something bigger than themselves. The Guardians of the Galaxy go from individual actors all turning on each other to a squabbling family. Captain Marvel spends all of The Marvels insisting that she’s not doing a team-up with Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, until they suddenly are. All of these movies feature big set pieces that function as showcases for the spectacle of a hero working with others. To this day, The Avengers has a bravado oner that ends with the team all standing together with the camera swirling around them. The best part of The Marvels is the trio practicing their space swapping while jumping rope.
In these movies, the awe and spectacle comes from the desire of belonging; a desire that is only met within various forms of family.
First Family Followers
But before the big oners in The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, there was the climax of the jungle sequence in The Incredibles. After watching each member of the Parr family take down Syndrome’s baddies alone, we see them all stand together in a hero pose.
The family dynamics in The Incredibles is directly influenced by Marvel Comics’ First Family, the Fantastic Four. Since those characters’ inception in comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Reed Richards and his wife Sue, her brother Johnny, and Reed’s best friend Ben, squabble like any family, but they come together to support one another. Often that support looks like a superhero fight: Reed stretches into slingshot that Ben pulls back while Sue makes a forcefield filled with Johnny’s flame. It’s cool because they’re superheroes, and superheroes do cool things. But it’s meaningful because they complement one another, because they’re family.
Despite three cinematic outings (four if you count the never-released Roger Corman flick), the Hollywood Fantastic Four we’ve so far gotten have never felt like a family. But the Parrs do. Hopefully that changes, though, with a highly-anticipated MCU movie on its way in less than a year.
So far, it sounds like director Matt Shakman is making all the right moves, complete with a great cast and a compelling threat in Galactus. But if they really want to get the FF right, if they really want to capture the team that launched the Marvel Age of Heroes, Shakman and Kevin Feige need to follow in the footsteps of the Incredibles.
The Incredibles is available to stream on Disney+
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