For the first decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was always an open question how well it would handle the growing pains of scaling up. Every few years the scale and cast of characters got bumped up for progressively larger outings. From the moment Nick Fury showed up at the end of Iron Man, Marvel had indicated where this was all going: The Avengers Initiative. Could a movie at that scale work? Could Marvel successfully assemble Iron Man, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, and Hawkeye into one movie? Could one movie take the quippy tone of the Iron Man flicks and the star-spangled earnestness of Captain America and get them to convincingly coexist? And how would a movie with six heroes manage to keep all those plates spinning?
