“I Am Inevitable”: Seriality, Nostalgia and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

This thesis examines the relationship between nostalgia and seriality by studying nostalgia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My primary research question asks whether the nostalgia depicted in Avengers: Endgame, for earlier MCU films, imagines a narrative future by critiquing and examining the franchise’s past. This thesis undertakes a critical textual and narrative analysis of the serialized films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by borrowing frameworks from television studies, film studies, cultural theory and Svetlana Boym’s concepts of restorative and reflective nostalgia. This thesis finds that by applying Boym’s concept of reflective nostalgia to the kind of nostalgia that Avengers: Endgame depicts for former versions of Marvel Studios’ Universe we can see how it allows for nostalgia to be a more critical and productive relationship with the past that makes room to imagine the cinematic universe’s future.