Ghost Rider (2007)

Composed by Christopher Young

In the pre-MCU days of superhero films, most Marvel adaptations to the big screen seemed to come from its “Knights” line-up. These were characters that normally wouldn’t be seen around the Avengers, and they were often urban crime-fighters. One of the more unique characters among this grouping is Ghost Rider, a man with a flaming skull who rides a motorcycle. In the movie Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) struck a deal with the Mephisto (aka the Devil  played by Peter Fonda) to save his father from a mortal illness (it goes about as well as you would except with such a deal). Years later it’s time for Blaze to fulfill his end of the bargain. As the Ghost Rider he has to stop Mephisto’s errant son Blackheart from acquiring a contract worth thousands of souls.

It’s not a great movie, but it is fun and looks better in light of the overly-derivative superhero fare we’ve been getting over the past few years. One of its surprising strong suits is Christopher Young’s score. But perhaps it should not be a surprise, as Young is an accomplished horror film composer working on a horror-laced superhero film. For the project Young sought to synthesize three genres into one. There would be gothic elements for the supernatural elements, industrial rock for the cool factor of a fiery skull-headed motorcyclist, and western for the geographical setting.

X2: X-Men United (2003)

Composed by John Ottman

The first X-Men movie was a solid success. It was the sequel, however, that garnered true praise from critics and fans. It was even considered a major leap forward for superhero cinema, though it would be eclipsed shortly by Spider-Man 2. X2 focuses less on mutants battling each other (though there are still moments). Instead all mutants are targeted by Colonel William Stryker. Using Xavier’s mind-enhancing Cerebro, he plans to wipe out all mutants at once. As it turns out Stryker also has a connection with Wolverine’s past. The movie is pretty good. Many of the characters still don’t have a lot to do, but the full two hour running time allows for a bit more focus on figures besides Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X. In particular there’s also a subplot about Jean Grey developing higher levels of power (portending her transition into Phoenix).

This time director Bryan Singer was able to bring his friend John Ottman onboard. Up to this point Ottman had done mostly horror and thriller scores (including Singer’s masterpiece Usual Suspects). This would be his first of several superhero movies. Many film score reviewers have actually criticized his efforts in this genre, finding his material lackluster and this primary themes underwhelming (more on the latter point in a bit). Personally there is some merit to these criticisms. Ottman is not just a composer, but an editor as well. Since Singer gave him both jobs on his movies, he was able to line up picture and score with incredible accuracy. On the plus side this allows the music to move smoothly with the action on screen. The downside is that Ottman sometimes seems so focused on this aspect that he fails to give his themes extended performances outside of the credits. Also, some of the material bridging the highlights isn’t particularly strong, focusing on basic underscore without much melody (“Magneto’s Old Tricks” in particular is awesome highs punctuated by dull lows).

X-Men (2000)

Composed by Michael Kamen

X-Men came out at an uncertain time of the superhero film genre. Up to that point most comic book movies had been critical and/or commercial flops. Marvel in particular was behind other comic book companies in getting its properties to the big screen, with only the widely panned Howard the Duck and the cult hit Blade to its name. Bryan Singer’s X-Men proved that Marvel could successfully transfer its popular characters to film, but preceded the true growth of the genre in cinema that was sparked by Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Batman Begins, and Iron Man. It’s a fine, even good film, but suffers from thin characterization for most of its cast. Some of the sequels would redeem some of the underdeveloped characters, particularly shape shifter Mystique.  It’s the first of a long-running film franchise that saw everything from legitimate masterpieces (Days of Future Past, Logan) to just plain good entries (X2: X-Men United) to decent entertainment (X-Men: Apocalypse) to absolute dreck (Origins: Wolverine, Dark Phoenix).

In the world of the X-Men mutants are emerging. Though they are the next step of human evolution, they are feared by society because of their wide array of super-powers. Led by telepath Professor X, the X-Men seek to help mutants control their powers and oppose both evil mutants and persecuting forces among normal humans. The plot kicks off when teenage girl Rogue, sporting energy and ability-sapping powers, almost kills her boyfriend during a make-out session. She runs away and finds herself with Logan/Wolverine (a star-making role for Hugh Jackman), a Canadian with partial amnesia who can grow claws out of his hands. They finds themselves sucked into a war between the X-Men (led by Patrick Stewart’s Professor X) and the militant Brotherhood (headed by Ian McKellen’s Magneto).

The Avengers (2012)

Composed by Alan Silvestri

2012 finally saw the long-awaited Avengers film, where six superheroes introduced in their solo outings or as secondary characters finally assembled into a superhero team. The team’s roster included Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye (a skilled archer and the butt of many jokes since he doesn’t seem as useful as everyone else). This movie was quite the phenomenon. Nothing like it had ever been done before (save perhaps for Universal Studios’ monster franchise or the Godzilla series, and even then they weren’t on this level). The plot sees Loki from Thor’s movie align with an alien force. With the use of one of their armies, he plans to seize the powerful Tesseract and set himself up as ruler of earth. Catching wind of his plot, SHIELD (headed by Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury) brings together all the heroes to stop him. They don’t exactly get along and it takes an obligatory villain victory to make them get their act together. By the end they form the Avengers. Directed by Joss Whedon, the movie doesn’t have the most complex plot, but is delightful because we get to see pre-established characters bounce off of each other. Alan Silvestri, who won praise for his Captain America march, came on to score this important film, with some frustrating results.

Many film music fans at the time acknowledged that Silvestri created a great theme for the team, but also failed to incorporate any of the heroes’ themes save his own for Captain America (and only as snippets). While he might bear some culpability, interviews reveal that the producers and Whedon were also wary of using all the various themes. They felt that it would be “clunky” and “intrusive.” This is curious, as a composer as established as Silvestri should have the know-how on how to incorporate various themes. More on this subject in a couple paragraphs. First onto the new material.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Composed by Alan Silvestri

Marvel needed to introduce one more superhero before the Avengers’ crossover extravaganza in 2012. It was none other than Captain America, considered the most idealistic and morally upstanding of Marvel’s heroes. The movie, directed by Joe Johnson is a delightful throwback to the 40s just like the director’s earlier film The Rocketeer. Frail Brooklyn kid Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wants to help in World War II but can’t pass any physicals to enter the army. He volunteers for a super-soldier experiment that turns him into a peak physical specimen (the scientist who made the formula gets assassinated so he can’t be replicated). He finds himself turned into a propaganda figure, but eventually proves his true worth as a superhero. The antagonists are not necessarily the Nazis, but HYDRA, a deep science division with its own agenda and led by Johan Schmidt, the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

The movie is pretty good for the first two-thirds, but the last third feels very rushed. It was the sequels that would make the Captain America films one of my favorite sub-series within the MCU. Alan Silvestri came in for the music and he would also compose The Avengers the following year. At this point Silvestri seemed to be doing just one film a year and his efforts were surprisingly generic action scores for fare such as G.I. Joe and A-Team. His work for Captain America is a step above, though much of the material outside the primary theme is not really all that interesting. Considering his thrilling work for The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing a decade earlier, this is somewhat a disappointment, but the music still outshines much of the Media Ventures style scoring that was endemic to the MCU at the time.

Thor (2011)

Composed by Patrick Doyle

Thor was the third hero to get a solo introduction to the MCU. Back in the 60s when Marvel Comics took first place in the comic book world, Thor was the closest thing to Superman, a god with incredible strength and endurance who could fly. As his name suggested, he was one of many Norse gods and his tales had a heavy mythological flavor as well as faux-Shakespearean speech. The plot of the movie sees Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the arrogant successor to the Asgardian throne, banished to earth by Odin (Anthony Hopkins) after nearly starting a war with the Asgardians’ long time enemies the Frost Giants. Meeting a cast of mortal characters including love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), he learns to become a responsible and humble man and thus prove himself worthy to wield Mjolnir, his enchanted hammer. Meanwhile his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is up to some dirty schemes.

It seemed strangely natural that Kenneth Branagh, director and star of many a Shakespeare adaptation, would direct Thor. The movie is good, but one suspects Branagh operated under a set of studio mandates as it’s more of a typical blockbuster flick than anything else he ever did. This extends to the music. Patrick Doyle, a long-time collaborator of Branagh, is known for his beautiful drama scores but had also created some stirring fantasy material for Harry Potter and Eragon. One expects that Thor would break the newly emerged action score conventions and be a heavily melodic and thematic score. The end result has some of that, but to the disappointment of many also indulges in the Media Ventures sound. The end result is a good but mixed up product.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Composed by John Debney

The follow-up to Iron Man, the simply titled Iron Man 2 sees Tony Stark wrestle with personal demons, such as his relationship with his deceased father and alcoholism, while his own suit and its arc reactor are killing him slowly. The US Government tries and fails to get him to produce a series of iron clad soldiers for their military. Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), an unscrupulous arms manufacturer, tries to emulate Stark’s success with the help of Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a vengeful Russian technical genius with his own grudge against the Stark family. It also sees the introduction of the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). The movie’s story is all over the place, with a lot of forced connections to upcoming films in the MCU. Scenes involving SHIELD and vague references to the “Avengers Initiative” take time away from characters that could have used more screen time (much of Mickey Rourke’s performance ended up on the cutting room floor). What saves it is the wonderful cast of actors and the characters they portray. Some fans hoped that, following Ramin Djawadi’s underwhelming performance for the first soundtrack, the musical score would take a step in the positive direction. It did, but not to the extent that one would wish.

Thanks to his success with the first film, Jon Favreau was allowed to bring on his friend John Debney to compose. Debney has produced some good work and had even infused rock with the orchestra in the Scorpion King. Indeed, he consulted several rock musicians for his work on Iron Man 2 and the relevant portions of the soundtrack indeed have more to them than Djawadi’s generic fare. The earliest example is “House Fight V1,” which has involving guitar rhythms and percussion. “Gun Show” and the two “Sledgehammer” cues really lean hard into this territory and some film music fans will find them unbearable or at the very least uninteresting. Some say that it’s too much like Djawadi’s material. I do think Debney’s work in this area is noticeably stronger. The tracks at least hold more blasting power. On a related note, Australian rock band AC/DC released their own album for the film. It’s a compilation which does include some songs referenced in the movie itself.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Composed by Craig Armstrong

In the same year that Iron Man became a surprise hit, Marvel also released the second installment of their hopeful cinematic superhero universe with the more widely known green giant the Hulk. The Incredible Hulk made money, but was considered an underperformer. This was despite attempts to distinguish it from Ang Lee’s odd Hulk film (released only five years prior). There’s a lot more straight up action and humor in this one as opposed to Lee’s attempts at an intellectualized superhero film. The reboot confines the origin story to bits of the opening credits and character reminiscences, so Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) has already been the Hulk for a while. Bruce Banner tries to hide from the military, but is inevitably drawn back to his old life where he discovers that the American government wants to refine the process that enables his transformation into the monstrous Hulk. This film is a bit of an oddity. Norton split from the MCU over creative differences and was replaced by the much different Mark Ruffalo. No proper sequel was provided and it took nearly a decade for any of the supporting characters to resurface. It’s a shame because it’s a good film. I will say that the abundance of deleted scenes on the DVD reveal that a lot of the film’s character depth was excised to make it more fun (a real shame). While the movie could have been much better, Craig Armstrong’s music is still pretty good.

Armstrong’s score was also considered a proper course correction to Ang Lee’s take on the Hulk. For that film Danny Elfman was pressured into creating a mismatched score that used Middle Eastern music for a comic book flick set in America. Those unaware of Ang Lee’s unique directions to Elfman as well as the composer’s rough time crunch were left scratching their heads over the final product. Armstrong’s score is much more conventional and features a wider array of noticeable themes and motifs. Louis Letterier, the director of the film was certainly impressed and pressured Marvel to actually release a two-disc complete score album (an honor usually reserved for later releases of scores after film music fan demand). Though a few of the tracks are shuffled chronologically, this still enables one to see how all of Armstrong’s ideas fit together. But is it worth a complete score?

Iron Man (2008)

Composed by Ramin Djawadi

It’s always interesting to go back to the origins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was an incredible risk to attempt to web various superhero series together into a narrative web. Phase one of the MCU proved a success because Marvel took their time introducing and developing their cast of superheroes. At the time many of the film rights for top draws such as Spider-Man and the X-Men were exclusively owned by various studios, so Marvel and Paramount (the latter later replaced, of course, by Disney) had to try to get audiences invested in characters that didn’t have the same hold on the popular consciousness. Among these was Iron Man, a billionaire tech genius who wears various suits of power armor. The film was surprisingly great and helped usher in the height of the superhero film craze.

Before going further into the armored avengers first outing, I should give a general overview of the MCU’s music. For a series that prided itself on interconnecting all its characters and films, it did a startling poor job at ensuring the characters’ themes carried over into each other’s films. Iron Man himself changed composers every film and each refused to use his predecessor’s material. Sometimes this resulted in a much better theme (Iron Man 3), but could also see wonderful identities thrown to the wayside (a great example is Brian Tyler’s refusal to use Patrick Doyle’s highly acclaimed themes from Thor in that character’s first sequel). The only identity to consistently crop up between composers was the Avengers theme. Overall, the musical landscape of the MCU is a startling failure, its greatest failure even during its golden years.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Composed by Michael Giacchino

Spider-Man: No Way Home is the only Hollywood blockbuster this year to have actually made a solid profit. There are many factors, ranging from a Christmas-time release to the noticeable lack of unnecessary and sanctimonious political and social statements in cast and crew interviews. The largest factor, however, is the premise in which a tear in the multiverse allows Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men, as well as many of their villains, to come in for a crossover extravaganza. This all comes about when Peter Parker (the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Tom Holland one), having been outed as Spider-Man by Mysterio, tries to convince Dr. Strange to cast a spell that will re-conceal his identity. This will help his friends and family, who are also struggling with the fallout of his identity reveal. Of course something goes wrong and various villains enter the universe. Now Spidey and pals need to gather the villains so they can be sent back to their proper universes. Things get even more complicated as events unfold. In the midst of a creatively floundering Marvel Cinematic Universe, this movie was a shining star. The film is full of logical head scratchers and some inconsistencies in how certain villains from the Garfield and Maguire movies are portrayed. But the end result corrects some of the issues with the latest Spider-Man iteration. No Way Home remembers that Spider-Man works best when Peter Parker’s non-superhero life suffers from his heroics.

The crossover nature of the film sparked much interest in Giacchino’s score. Many were hoping for references to Danny Elfman, James Horner, and perhaps Hans Zimmer’s contributions to the Spider-Man films. There are references to all three composers, but they are surprisingly sparse and several don’t make it onto album. Fortunately Giacchino is a master in his own right and brings several retuning and new themes to the table. This is perhaps the most consistent of the MCU scores in terms of linking to other films. First onto the old themes, which people were more excited to hear. “Shield of Pain” is the one that will generate the most nostalgia buzz. James Horner’s Spider-Man theme appears at the 1:12 mark while Danny Elfman’s Responsibility theme comes in right afterwards. Giacchino does not reference Elfman’s actual main Spider-Man theme, opting to use his Responsibility theme in the aforementioned moment and in one unreleased cue. It should be noted that many of Elfman’s mannerisms are carried over to Giacchino’s own Spider-Man theme. These include urban percussion and more gloriously the ascending choir that graced the final swinging scenes of the first two Sam Raimi films.