Audience Participation, Adaptation and the MCU
Introduction The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is a collection of media that expands across films, television, merchandise and theme parks based on the characters and universe of the Marvel comics. It functions as an example of transmedia with the ‘story unfolding across multiple media platforms… each new text making a valuable contribution to the whole.’ (Jenkins, 2007) The franchise has accumulated a large fanbase since its conception in 2008 with many fans taking part in what Henry Jenkins has coined ‘participatory culture,’ where they ‘assert their own right to form interpretations, offer evaluations and construct cultural canons.’ (Jenkins, 2013) Some of what this entails can be perceived as adaptation or even readaptation. As Johannes Fehrle and Werner Schäfke-Zell (2019) put forward, ‘a convergence environment… further destabilises received notions of authorship and reception’ and fan works can be viewed as part of an ‘interconnected text cluster’ (Fehrle + Werner, 20...