I haven't met many people that liked Captain America: the First Avenger. It was incredibly bland and was clearly just a punt to set up the character. The second one was fantastic though.
Cap 2 was so good that it made me appreciate Cap 1 after the fact. That they used what was established already in such a clever way, through some flashbacks, callbacks, the computer room scene, thought it was pretty brilliant. I even borrowed Cap 1 from my uncle to give it a second chance, just haven't gotten to it yet. If it does still suck, it was worth it to set up Cap 2, 3, Avengers 1/2 and the entire storyline/big picture.
Hey when you punt the ball you lean on future outcomes and Marvel made it work. Cap wasn't all that imaginative and was fairly disappointing, but you KNEW what was coming so how much fun could you have? Now they've implemented just enough surprise to keep us interested without deviating too far or having to kill characters. It's fantastic.
I think Cap 1 only sucked because of the standard set by the other avengers movies. I think it holds up to the other non fantastic Marvel movies like all the X-Men movies before First Class.
