The Art of Ryan Meinerding

Ryan Meinerding doesn’t spend a lot of time looking back. The Marvel Studios head of visual development’s days are consumed by the question of “what’s next?” as he helps create the biggest film franchise in history. But in a rare moment of reflection, Meinerding took stock in his journey with the new book Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding.

The 300-plus page tome from Abrams traces Meinerding’s journey from art-obsessed kid growing up in Ohio, to working with Jon Favreau on a John Carter movie that never happened, to following the filmmaker to Iron Man, the film that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From there, Meinerding helped chart the company through the Infinity Saga, into its TV streaming era — and now, into the multiverse.

The book features 500 Meinerding illustrations, many of which became the basis for some of the MCU’s most iconic shots (like Thor slamming Mjölnir down on Captain America’s shield in The Avengers, or Tony Stark wearing the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame).

There are also moments that didn’t make it into the movies. Remember Smart Hulk rescuing a bunch of people by carrying them in a satellite dish at the start of Avengers: Endgame? Or Vision taking out a massive Ultron bot in Avengers: Age of Ultron? No, because those scenes didn’t happen in the movies. But Meinerding spent time developing those big ideas and slapped them into the book. He estimates for every four movies he works on, there’s maybe one or two big concepts like that he develops, but which fall by the wayside.

“I get to do a piece of art that I can still be excited about, whether it’s in the movie or not,” he says, adding that he appreciates Marvel allowed him to show off what could have been.

The book took years to come together, with Meinerding suggesting the idea to Marvel boss Kevin Feige as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were heading toward theaters. Meinerding worked closely with authors Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, the journalists who previously wrote the book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Meinerding grew up enjoying the works of Norman Rockwell, and drew inspiration from the great American painter for Captain America, a hero with a costume that people outside of Marvel doubted could be adapted faithfully for the screen. Meinerding took that as a challenge, and in the end got to work on multiple suits for Cap, starting with Captain America: The First Avengers (2011) through Endgame (2019) (plus Sam Wilson’s suit in THe Falcon and the Winter Soldier)..

“It’s a very, very unique opportunity that I’ve had at this place. I don’t know of another place where that could have ever happened,” he says of spending years with the same characters.

After almost twenty years at Marvel, Meinerding still has plenty of gas left in the tank, and he’s aware that it’s unusual for an artist to get a book retrospective in the middle of their career. Famed Star Wars storyboard artist Ralph McQuarrie has had plenty of his books, but many of them were posthumous, he points out.

As he’s risen through the ranks, Meinerding moved into a more supervisory role, so the book doesn’t feature much from Marvel’s streaming era, because he wasn’t personally illustrating as much. But, he notes, there’s still work he would’ve loved to showcase that wasn’t ready by the book’s deadline.

Says the artist: “I would’ve loved to get Wolverine in there.”