SPOILERS regarding Iron Man 3 will follow, so if you haven’t see the movie (and judging by the box office numbers, you have), beware!

Aren: Marvel Studios is on a roll. Last year the big gamble of The Avengers paid off with a $207 million opening box office and a final total over $600 million. In retrospect it seems preposterous that the film was even considered a gamble, but I guess anything that’s new is considered risky. This past weekend Iron Man 3 debuted to a huge $174 million, second only to its predecessor The Avengers. Clearly the studio is doing something right with audiences.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s main trick is replicating the feel of comic books on the big screen. By pumping out a linked movie universe that acts very much like a long-form TV show, I think they’ve tapped into the part of the audience that relies heavily on comfort. The audience gets to know these characters over the long haul and is safe in the knowledge that these characters will act in the ways they want them to act, and that each individual film will bring a slight variation to the formula (perhaps a generic bent), while still ultimately offering up the same. “Same but different,” is a key concept in showbiz. Marvel Studios has aced this concept.

But all this audience pandering is beside the point. The real question is whether Iron Man 3 lives up the heights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—namely Captain America and the first Iron Man—or whether it’s just another big corporate beast with most of its spark coming from Shane Black’s zippy dialogue?

In short, is Iron Man 3 any good?

Anton: What bothers me is how little I care about answering that question. Is Iron Man 3 good? It was pretty good. But at this point, it almost doesn’t matter. Marvel has me hooked. It’s like asking if the lastest episode of Mad Men was any good (not that any of the Marvel movies are nearly as good as Mad Men). Whatever the case, I’m not quitting the series. In that sense, your comment about the influence of long-form television is spot on, but you also can’t overlook the influence of the original superhero medium. What Marvel Studios has done is introduce the never-ending serial nature of comic books to franchise filmmaking. As long as the Marvel films keep making money there is literally no end in sight. So if we’re talking about television, the best comparison is a show like The Simpsons. Disney also seems intent on converting their latest valuable acquisition—Star Wars—to a similar never-ending serial format.

To be fair, if someone reading this is smarter about their money than me, and he or she is wondering if Iron Man 3 is worth paying to see, I would say I enjoyed it. It’s funny, witty, and entertaining. But it’s also incredibly flippant and wholly superficial. It’s pure fast food—fleeting pleasure.

Anders:Iron Man 3 is definitely a fleeting pleasure. Twenty-four hours later, I’m not compelled to think about it much or filled with a desire to see it again soon. Anton mentions the film’s entertainment value, and, yes, this might be the funniest Marvel film thanks to Drew Pearce and Shane Black’s screenplay. But conversely, one of the biggest problems with these films is that I end up feeling exhausted by the end of them, despite their ostensible function as light entertainment. Every single film has to raise the stakes, make it more personal, or deconstruct the hero so that he questions whether he wants to even be a hero. In short, they are all operating at extremes. I think there are places to do that, but not every single superhero film has to be The Dark Knight or even The Avengers in terms of being an event or tackling serious subject matter.

Which is to say that while I agree that Marvel clearly wants to replicate the ongoing nature of the comic books and that the long-form serial television comparison is fair, on the other hand, to borrow Anton’s Mad Men comparison, not every episode needs to be world shattering. Mad Men allows itself numerous episodes that merely develop character (or, as in the case of this season’s 3-4 episode stretch, to set a pervasive mood or tone), between the episodes that propel the overall plot forward and shake up the status quo. Where are the episodes of Iron Man where we just get to see Tony Stark be a superhero? Or just be a cool “mechanic”? What is his day-to-day superhero life like, or is he just known for the few events we see in the Iron Man films and the “New York Incident”?

Perhaps Marvel is afraid that if they don’t make each film an “event,” that people will grow tired of them. But I think the opposite is true and viewers will suffer burn-out. If we’re going to have two or three individual hero films each year and an Avengers film every 2-3 years, I would love to see a more modest-in-scope Marvel film.