Fifteen years ago, the superpower we know as Marvel Studios was capital-B broke. Marvel had already pawned some of its most profitable, popular heroes — like Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four — to other studios back in the ‘90s. In the ‘00s, Marvel was pawning its furniture. In a last-ditch gambit, the company took out further loans, staking its entire library as collateral to finance its first solo film. Marvel had one chance to get out of the hole, and it all rested on the shoulders of a C-list hero.
