It's clear now more than ever that Marvel desires not to address their god awful writing crutches and cringey humor aesthetics, but if VOL. 2 taught me anything it's that the company might actually - and I never thought I'd say this after the atrocious "Phase 2" of their cinematic universe - intend to interject real human emotion into their films.

Despite the flaws, setbacks, obvious joke setups, eye-rolling dialogue and overall lame story aesthetic, VOL. 2 recognizes a deep pathway into an emotional narrative and actually attempts to mine at it, instead of ignoring it for "pew pew explosions." There's plenty of that, too, but those colorful effects act as an addendum to the emotion instead of a distraction from it,