I watched the movie The Avengers, which was released in 2012. Let’s think about what justice is through the movie.

Iron Man’s identity!

The first time the members of the ‘Avengers’ meet face to face. Captain America, who doesn’t like Tony Stark because he’s egotistical and arrogant, aggressively asks him, “What’s left of you when you take the suit off?” to which Tony Stark replies. “A genius, a billionaire, a playboy, a philanthropist!” Yes, there’s no scene (including the humor that oozes out of the question) that captures the essence of Iron Man as clearly as this one. There’s never been a more brash, brazen, and outspoken hero in the history of superheroes. From the moment the superhero who is supposed to hide his identity casually declares, “I am Iron Man,” I’ve been mesmerized by this brash and charming hero.

From heroes to humans: ‘convention and renewal’

Almost all entertainment genre films are a mix of ‘convention and renewal’, which explains how genre directors consciously manipulate the entertainment form for the purpose of social commentary and criticism.
For example, in modern urban hero films such as the Batman and Spider-Man franchises, the emergence of a science-based villain, the rise of a hero to counter him, their confrontation, and the triumph of good over evil are conventionally followed by a beautiful female protagonist and the adoption of romance with the hero as a sub-narrative.
However, in recent years, there has been a trend to try something different, and the protagonist of Kick-Ass is physically and mentally weak, and there is no clear dichotomy between absolute evil and absolute good, and there is no seductive heroine who falls into a sweet romance with the protagonist, so this aspect can be said to be the wind of creative renewal of the entertainment genre.
Iron Man is also a movie that combines both the ‘convention’ and ‘renewal’ of this genre. ‘Mandarin’ and ‘AIM’, which symbolize absolute evil, appear as enemies against the protagonist, Iron Man, and the pre-emptive attack of these enemies pushes Iron Man into a pinch, and he strikes back in desperation, which is a typical ‘convention’ of hero action movies.
Of course, there’s a beautiful heroine to form a romantic narrative with, not to mention a fully-fledged supporting cast of people of color to support the hero.
On the other hand, what sets the series apart and adds a new aspect is that it shows that the main character is just a weak human being after all. After the bloodbath with the aliens in New York City in “The Avengers,” Tony Stark is shown to be much more human and vulnerable than before, with panic attacks that keep him awake at night and forcing him to stop his car when he has a seizure while driving, a setting that echoes Bruce Wayne’s human struggles in “The Dark Knight Rises.
In two of the most controversial hero movies in recent years, it seems like a trend to show the protagonists losing their integrity and becoming humanly broken. I think it’s a glimpse into the efforts to ‘renew’ the genre by breaking away from the conventional hero movie mold.
Iron Man 3, which organically blends these ‘conventions and reforms’, maximizes the visual interest with a massive logistical offensive and 42 new iron suits, and is one of the most fun to watch in recent years.
In the middle of the movie, Tony Stark fights AIM with a bloodthirsty body after losing Stark Mansion and all of his suits to a Mandarin attack, which is reminiscent of John McClane in Die Hard or MacGyver, but this was a new aspect that caused the action quotient to drop a bit and the story to feel a bit stretched. However, it is an excellent aspect of the work that this weakness is not left for a long time. In addition, the cookie video that appears after the end credits is a gentle fun that everyone who has seen ‘The Avengers’ can’t help but burst out laughing, and it can be said that it is a movie with great showmanship in many ways.

What we define is what others define?

It may be due to the differentiated departure of existing superheroes, or in other words, their heterogeneous existence. For starters, Iron Man doesn’t suffer. Usually, superheroes struggle with identity. The constraint of hiding one’s identity is the very foundation of the character. But Iron Man starts by breaking down that foundation, so the question of what to build his internal conflict around is a natural one.
Second, Iron Man has no worthy opponent. I don’t mean that he’s overwhelmingly powerful. On the contrary, he’s not very powerful on balance in the flood of superheroes. In this case, power doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that they don’t have a counterpoint to their identity as superheroes.
As a genre, they nurture dreams and hope for children, allow adults to be childlike for a time, and continue to instill a sense of justice.
In Iron Man, Tony Stark, a perpetual kid, finally grows up (though his delightfully cranky fundamentals don’t change, as people don’t change easily), and the point is to go back to the beginning. For the first time, Tony Stark, the human, begins to grapple with his identity as the superhero Iron Man.
Special effects use advanced technology and equipment to produce images on the screen, but in reality, they only show, they do not exist. It involves imagination, which is difficult to do in reality, even with tens of thousands of years of technological advancement, and in the end, the concept of imagination is a means of pre-empting a future that has not arrived. In the end, can it be said that it is just a simple game that shows us what we think justice is?
However, in the final scene of The Dark Knight, Batman chooses a side that is not justice. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, even though it’s not right in the eyes of others. How ironic is that?
Like the Joker’s line in The Dark Knight: “You complete me!”, the hero’s relationship with the villain is not an enemy in a sense, but rather a complementary one, like light and shadow, complete with a single question. In other words, there are no superheroes without villains. In other words, you need villains to have superheroes.
In Michael Sandel’s What is Justice, there’s a line.

“With regard to social and economic equality, if we recognize these inequalities, the benefits should go to the most disadvantaged members of society.”

The movie opens in the Middle East, where Western powers have taken over the world with capitalism and the Middle East is in conflict. The US military is stationed in Iraq, and the protagonist travels there to test a newly developed weapon. However, in the film, he is captured by a group of people represented as terrorists and becomes skeptical of the weapons of war. Here, the United States casually presents its country as a good country and Iraq as a country of terrorists, where they are stationed, testing weapons and killing citizens.
The war between Iraq and the U.S. began in 2001 after the September 11 attacks in the U.S. The U.S. represented North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as an axis of evil and launched a missile attack on Baghdad in March 2003. Since then, U.S. troops have been stationed in Iraq in the name of maintaining world peace. In addition, after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist dictatorship, a civil war broke out between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Ba’athist remnants, anti-regime resistance groups, Iraqi government forces, and the U.S. military in Iraq, leading to further bloody clashes. 2Since then, Iraq’s security has been challenged by various insurgent groups, bombings, and guerrilla warfare. But the United States punched the calculator and eventually withdrew from Iraq. At first there was a cry for justice……. but eventually they pulled out.
I don’t think anyone can judge right or wrong about international conflicts or civil wars. This is especially true in the Afghan battlefield where this movie is set. The protagonist is captured by terrorists on his way to test a newly developed weapon in an American military zone in Afghanistan, and realizes that the weapons he developed are not only helping his country, but are also indiscriminately traded to terrorists. Therefore, he wants to stop developing weapons and do something socially beneficial, and this idea itself is that the United States is justice and the terrorists are not. This makes it feel like the U.S., or the powers that be, are all right, and the few conflicted nations have to listen to him.
In the end, the movie recognizes that overwhelming force is necessary to keep the peace, and that peace is truly in the future for humanity when that force is used by people of good will.
The United States as a superpower errs on the side of Michael Sandel’s definition of justice. It allows for inequality of wealth and power, but only if it brings benefits to everyone, especially the most vulnerable in society, that compensate for the inequality, and it invades weaker countries to become more powerful. It is questionable whether this is the right definition.