We are continuing this summer with our Marvel Multiverse of Reel Librarians. I’ve written a lot about library scenes in various Marvel movies on my site, so I am finally going back through all the Marvel movies, this time in phase order, and making sure I’ve watched, reviewed, and analyzed them all for any library, archives, and reel librarian scenes. So please join me as I wind my librarian way through the MCU! Click here for the Phase One round-up, and we continue now with the Phase Two movies.

*POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERTS*

Iron Man 3 (2013)

No library scene.

In this movie, Tony Stark battles with PTSD and faces a foe called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Again, I remembered shockingly little of this movie when rewatching it. And again, I’m sure I would have remembered more about it if there had been a library. 😉

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

In this movie, Thor reunites with Jane Foster and battles Malekith and the army of Dark Elves. The stand-alone Thor movies have been consistent thus far with showcasing library scenes! Bless. Also, this movie — often cited as among the worst MCU movies — was actually better than I remembered it being. It has two things going for it: (1) Chris Hemsworth’s eyebrows are not bleached blonde like they were in the first Thor movie, and (2) there’s a library scene in it. Let’s explore!

At 1 hour and 26 minutes into the movie, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) arrive at the Greenwich site of convergence for plot reasons. They walk hurriedly through an academic library, and you can see a book cart. The captions reveal that Jane’s shoes squeak… which is why they get shushed by a student! The location of the library is the Old Royal Naval College Library in London.

Click on any image in the gallery below to view in a larger window.

Thor and the main baddie Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) are fighting it out in the college courtyard, and at 1 hour and 30 minutes, the perspective switches back to students in the library checking out the fight from the library’s windows.

Jane: What are you all doing? You need to get out of here, now!

Student [holding a phone in his hand]: You’re joking, right? That’s Thor out there! He’s waving his hammer around and everything!

Click on any image in the gallery below to view in a larger window.

Fun fact: The actor who has this bit line is Royce Pierreson, who plays Istredd in Netflix’s The Witcher TV series!

The next thing we see, Thor’s hammer sends shock waves that blow out the windows in the library. Jane warned y’all.

Click on any image in the gallery below to view in a larger window.

The library scene lasts less than a minute total, but it is a very cinematically striking scene that helps demonstrate the real-world effects and damage due to Thor’s fighting. No librarians were easily discernible in this scene — again, it looked like a student shushed Jane and Erik earlier in the scene, not a librarian — so this movie falls into the Class V category.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

No library scene.

In this movie — one of my personal faves — Captain America is now working with S.H.I.E.L.D. and faces off against a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier.

As my husband pointed out, they could have easily substituted a library scene in this movie instead of the visit to the Mac store where Natasha hacks into a computer to read the thumb drive they got from Nick Fury — but, you know, product placement. Boo. 😦

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

No library scene.

In this movie, we get introduced to the motley crew known as the Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill, aka “Starlord” (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel).

This movie is fun! And the soundtrack is AWESOME. I danced along with Groot when rewatching this movie.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Nope, no library.

In this movie, the Avengers team up to defeat Ultron, plus we get introduced to Pietro and Wanda Maximoff and Vision. When rewatching this movie, I kept marveling at (1) how crucial this movie is within the MCU because of how many subsequently important plot points and characters it introduces, and (2) how boring and joyless this movie is. In my opinion, this is the worst MCU movie of them all.

Ant-Man (2015)

No library, sigh.

In this movie, we get introduced to Ant-Man and Dr. Hank Pym. Paul Rudd in the title role is adorable — like he just can’t believe he’s in a Marvel movie, golly gee whiz! — while Michael Douglas as Hank Pym is busy acting rings around everyone else.

Keeping score

Phase One:

• 6 movies
• 2/6 library or archives scenes (The Incredible Hulk – university library; Thor – public library)
• 0/6 reel librarian sightings

Phase Two:

• 6 movies
• 1/6 library or archives scenes (Thor: The Dark World – college library)
• 0/6 reel librarian sightings

Overall (thus far):

• 12 movies
• 3/12 library or archives scenes
• 0/12 reel librarian sightings

The Avengers will return…

… in our next regular post! 😀 We will continue our Marvel Multiverse of Reel Librarians for Phase Three. Stay tuned!

Sources used

• Ant-Man. Dir. Peyton Reed. Perf. Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña. Marvel Studios / Disney, 2015.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron. Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Bettany. Marvel Studios / Disney, 2015.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Dir. Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Perf. Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford. Marvel Studios / Disney, 2014.
• Guardians of the Galaxy. Dir. James Gunn. Perf. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace. Marvel Studios /Disney, 2014.
• Iron Man 3. Dir. Shane Black. Perf. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley. Paramount / Marvel Studios, 2013.
• “Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Two.” Wikipedia, 15 June 2022. Accessed 17 June 2022. CC BY SA 3.0 license.
• Thor: The Dark World. Dir. Alan Taylor. Perf. Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, Christopher Eccleston. Marvel Studios / Disney, 2013.