Low-Budget Avengers Assemble To Fight Thanos In A Video Every MCU Fan Must See
A tape measure might not be as powerful as a web shooter, but it sure is funnier to watch in combat. In 2023, content creator and VFX artist Brandon Baum — better known by his social media handle Brandon B — posted a series of short-form videos playing with the idea of a tape measure functioning like a low-budget version of Spider-Man's web shooters. While he explores his homebrew Spider-Verse several times, the most fun video Baum created includes a full roster of DIY Avengers.
The POV sequence depicts Tape Measure Spider-Man goofing around inside an unfinished house. Hard Hat Captain America shows up to fling her floppy shield, Fire Extinguisher Iron Man flies recklessly into a sheet of drywall, and even Tarpaulin Doctor Strange makes an appearance. The video comes to a dramatic end when Welding Hood Thanos steps into the frame and snaps everyone into dust. There's no plot, no throughline, only a string of heroes and villains attacking each other as an excuse for Baum's team to play with Home Depot-themed visual effects.
What makes this kind of project so endearing is that it blends digital and practical effects with an undiluted shot of silliness. On one hand, Tape Measure Spider-Man evaporates beautifully. On the other, a pair of feet are clearly visible beneath Tarpaulin Doctor Strange's cape as it distracts Paint Hulk. But Baum's creation is more than endearing. it's a breath of fresh air for Marvel Cinematic Universe fans because its visual effects match the medium ... something the real MCU seems to be struggling with these days.
Good visual effects usually require time, money, and passion
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multibillion-dollar business, so fans and critics alike are a little confused as to why the visual effects tend to be, well ... bad. But the conversation is more critical than that because, according to just about everyone, the CGI is actively getting worse as the MCU progresses. "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" and "Moon Knight" received cutting backlash for specific moments of questionable CGI but "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" and "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" were considered project-wide failures. Good visual effects usually require time, money, and passion, and the MCU should have all three, so what's going on here?
The simple and depressing answer is that Marvel Studios reportedly underfunds and overworks the visual effects studios that it hires. In 2022, former VFX artist Dhruv Govil tweeted (via CBR), "Working on Marvel shows is what pushed me to leave the VFX industry. They're a horrible client, and I've seen way too many colleagues break down after being overworked, while Marvel tightens the purse strings." Possibly in response to stories like Govil's, Marvel has slowed down its release schedule for the foreseeable future.
On a broader scale that affects the full breadth of Hollywood, moviegoers are exhausted by the overuse of CGI. Maybe that's why something practical and raw like Brandon Baum's Marvel parody video, which is admittedly a silly little thing, feels so important. It's not just CGI, it's charmingly real. But just how real is it?
Digital vs. practical effects: what's real and what isn't?
In Brandon B's DIY Avengers video, where do the practical effects stop and where do the digital ones begin? Again, it's pretty obvious that Tape Measure Spider-Man's disintegration is CGI, and there's little doubt that Tarpaulin Doctor Strange's magical sparks are fake, too, but what about the rest? For starters, tape measures don't launch like that — they just don't — and Hard Hat Captain America's shield toss is equally impossible. Also, that shattered drywall? Super fake ... well, probably. Brandon B posted a behind-the-scenes video for a similar shot in a different skit that shows what process his team likely followed to "launch" Fire Extinguisher Iron Man out of the building.
But almost everything else could be real. There are several moments in the video where a CGI superpower interacts with a physical object — the cup on the ladder, the hammer on the chair, the paint bucket on the shelf — and it's entirely possible that those items were practically affected by external forces hidden beneath a layer of CGI. It's also reasonable to assume that Hard Hat Captain America made her subtle costume change via spliced footage. As for Fire Extinguisher Iron Man's propellant, well, Brandon B is a YouTuber. There's no way he didn't strap functioning safety tools to that dude's back.
Then again, there are so many movie special effects you'd never guess aren't CGI, so maybe it's all fake. That's not a bad thing either. CGI is a valuable tool, it just needs to be wielded with great responsibility — kind of like a tape measure web-shooter.