Review by C.J. Bunce
It’s hard to believe it’s already a decade since we first watched the Avengers pursue Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. No other movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to that point had reproduced the kind of pile-on crossover event that 21st century Marvel comic events were known for–superheroes fighting… each other. In what felt like the next Avengers team-up or crossover, directors Joe and Anthony Russo were attempting to mix The French Connection and Brian De Palma into the MCU. The result was some of the most controversial of the MCU entries–who are we supposed to cheer for? Writer Marie Javins has assembled The Art of Marvel Studios’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, now available here at Amazon, to help you find your way.
What made Captain America: The Winter Soldier seem so much like the next crossover, instead of just another installment of Cap’s story? In their foreword the Russo brothers give some insight into their process and thoughts. Their focus was making an action movie, which may seem obvious. But they were aiming for something different from what the MCU had done before.
If you’re not a fan of concept artwork–which other volumes in the MCU library are filled with–this may be the edition for you to try. This volume is filled more with photographs from the film than sketches and painted art, while featuring some extended looks at action scenes via storyboards. Readers will learn from production crew members that while many of the costumes were repurposed from the prior films, key hero costumes were tweaked and enhanced by artists and created by costume designer Judianna Makovsky to meet the desired look and feel of the directors and head of visual development Ryan Meinerding. Costumes for characters like Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury were given a more militant look, the Triskelion building was this cold update to the Pentagon, and Helicarriers were the big piece of new tech moviegoers hadn’t seen before.
Telegraphing his important future in the MCU, the Falcon was introduced in this movie, and this book provides several images of the development for his flying armor, a significant update and upgrade from the historical comic book version of the character. Fans of cyborgs will appreciate the detailed photographs of Bucky’s borg arm, designed for this movie.
According to Ryan Meinerding, his work on the large murals of Cap & Co. for the Smithsonian Institution sequences are some of his most rewarding work he’s created for the MCU. The book features a pull-out of the extended images for these murals.
With this eighth of 24 volumes in the re-sized, re-issued MCU library coming from Titan Books, we’re now a third of the way through our look back behind the scenes of each film in the Infinity Saga (check out our review of Captain America: The First Avenger–The Art of the Movie, earlier here at borg, our review of The Art of Marvel Studios’ The Avengers here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 here, and our review of The Art of Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World here). A great feature of the series is how each book doesn’t just re-hash the same information for each film, instead digging into what makes the movie unique in the Marvel catalogue and this book does that through its addition of prop photographs, costume development photographs, screencaps from the film, and storyboarded action sequences.
Fans who count the film among the best of the MCU and the Infinity Saga will not want to miss The Art of Marvel Studios’ Captain America: The Winter Solder, available now here at Amazon.
