Superhero Movie Milestones: Iconic Moments That Made Us Cheer
By Published Apr 25, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT
Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.
He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.
To learn more, visit his website at .
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Superhero movies have an almost communal feel, especially with the biggest releases. The best of these have iconic moments where people openly start cheering, screaming, and clapping during the scenes. In the best cases, the movies teased big moments, and when they happened, the theater audiences exploded in cheers. This happened at different times, from the big moments in solo movies and the payoff from following long-running franchises to the surprise appearance of a beloved hero.
This has been a huge part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the movies introduced iconic heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor to the world. This means that they have cemented their place in the hearts of the audience, so when they do something big, it means more. Marvel understands this, as the music rises at the exact moment the audience explodes. The filmmakers know the moment is coming and have the Avengers' theme playing at the same time. It creates the perfect synergy of pomp and nostalgia, delivering a special moment for the entire audience.
While the DC movies have not built up as much credit with their audience, the heroes are iconic enough that they can also elicit cheers when something big happens with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Finally, there are moments that happen in superhero movies that were surprising and a long time coming. This happens when older stars make shocking returns at the perfect time in a movie, paying off years of anticipation, with the audience on their feet cheering.
"Avengers Assemble": Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Avengers: Endgame had some huge moments as it wrapped up the entire Avengers story that started with the first Avengers movie seven years earlier. Thanos was behind the Battle of New York, and this battle is the Battle of Earth, where a variant of Thanos from the multiverse arrives to destroy everything. The "Avengers Assemble" quote occurs when the heroes are failing and have almost no chance left against overwhelming forces.
This leads to the moment when Captain America and Iron Man see reinforcements arrive. Everyone who had been wiped out in the Blip in the last movie returns, and with the odds back on their side, Cap looks at Thanos and then says the iconic line, which comes straight from Marvel Comics, and the battle starts afresh. This brings together every hero the MCU introduced over 22 films and pays off a decade of storytelling that is unheard of in Hollywood history.
Thor Arrives In Wakanda: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
In Avengers: Infinity War, the superheroes of Earth are split up into different factions to fight Thanos. Some of the heroes end up in space, including Iron Man, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, and more. Everyone else heads to Wakanda to fight Thanos's forces there. This includes Captain America, Black Panther, War Machine, and Bruce Banner in Hulkbuster armor. However, they end up hopelessly outnumbered.
Just when it seems like they have no chance left and the heroes are falling to the overwhelming forces, lightning crashes into the Earth. The lightning then spreads through the ranks of the villains and evens up the odds. The audience cheered loudly as Captain America looks over and sees Thor arrive with Rocket and Groot. When Thor yells, "Bring me Thanos" and blasts the ground one more time, the theaters erupted. This was paid off in the next movie when Cap saved Thor, a reversal of this big moment.
Tobey And Andrew Appear: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2026)
Spider-Man grew into one of Hollywood's most beloved superhero properties ever since Sam Raimi brought Tobey Maguire to the big screen in 2002 as Peter Parker. After three movies, Sony rebooted the franchise with Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man in 2012, and then the MCU reached a deal after only two movies to take over the property. That is when Tom Holland arrived, and he has been Spider-Man ever since. However, the MCU delivered fan-service in 2026 with Spider-Man: No Way Home.
After messing up a Doctor Strange spell to erase his identity from the world's minds, Spider-Man watches in horror as villains from both the Maguire and Garfield movies show up in his world. However, the one moment that had the audience cheering loudest was when MJ and Ned use magic to find Peter Parker and instead find Garfield and Maguire's versions of the character. The surprise return was a crowd-pleasing moment, and when the three Spider-Man heroes teamed up, it paid off 19 years of storytelling.
Wonder Woman Crosses No Man's Land: Wonder Woman (2017)
Big crowd-pleasing moments don't always have to deal with nostalgia. Sometimes, it is just a scene that shows why a character is special. This was masterfully done in the 2017 DCEU movie Wonder Woman. Yes, audiences knew who Wonder Woman was, but this movie wasn't built on calling back any other superhero movie, or even to give a wink to the comics on which the story was based. The No Man's Land scene was there to show that Wonder Woman is a hero like no other.
In this scene, Steve Trevor tells her they can't save the people displaced by the Central Powers forces. Wonder Woman refuses to accept this, and she starts across No Man's Land, deflecting bullets and bombs and helping lead the troops to victory, leading people back to their homes. The music rises as Wonder Woman takes her first steps in her journey to show why she was the most genuinely heroic superhero in the DC Universe. The crowds in the theater started cheering the moment she stepped onto the battleground.
Cap Summons Mjölnir: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
The "Avengers Assemble" moment had audiences cheering the loudest, but there was one moment before that where the fans were just as loud. In Avengers: Endgame, over a decade of movies and storytelling came together, and that allowed this film to pay off a lot of storylines from throughout the years. One of these featured heavily in a scene with Captain America and Mjölnir. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers are relaxing, and they decide it might be fun to see if any of them are worthy of picking up Mjölnir. Iron Man didn't have a chance. However, Captain America seemed to make it budge, but he couldn't lift it either.
In Avengers: Endgame, Thanos has Thor down and is about to cut into his chest with Stormbreaker. The camera then shows Mjölnir on the ground starting to shake. It looks like Thor was summoning it, but that isn't what happened. Mjölnir slams into Thanos and saves Thor and then flies into Captain America's hand. The audiences during the theatrical screenings went wild, and when Thor said, "I knew it," it added to the excitement.
Superman Catches Lois Lane: Superman (1978)
The tag line from the first Superman movie promises that people will believe a man can fly. Christopher Reeve remains known as one of the best depictions of Superman in movies, and director Richard Donner delivered a film that was both exciting and emotionally satisfying. Superman had yet to make a public appearance. Lois Lane had already been introduced, and viewers knew they would eventually share chemistry on the screen.
However, the scene where it happened exceeded anyone's expectations. Lois Lane falls from a helicopter, which is dangling from the Daily Planet, and then Clark Kent changes into Superman and flies into the sky to catch her. He smiles and says, "I've got you," to which she responds, "You've got me? Who's got you?" He then catches the helicopter and saves Lois Lane and everyone on the ground cheers for his heroic moment, which audiences in theaters also did when it happened.
The Quicksilver Kitchen Sequence: X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)
There were two scenes in the X-Men movies where Quicksilver showed that he was the fastest man in Marvel. While the second scene in X-Men: Apocalypse was great, the first scene was the one that had audiences cheering in theaters because it had never been done before and was an incredibly fun moment. In this scene, Pentagon guards attack the mutants and Quicksilver goes into action, which sees everyone frozen in time since he moves so fast.
He then rearranges guards' fists to aim them toward other guards' faces, moves bullets flying through the air to hit nothing but walls, and even takes the time to grab a sandwich and eat it while in action. At the same time, Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" plays. By the end, he stops and all the guards fall in defeat without the other mutants knowing what happened. Audiences laughed and cheered, and it was an impressive sequence. Years later, The Flash (2026) tried something similar and was savaged by critics, showing this isn't easy to pull off.
The First Time Batman And Superman Appeared On Screen Together: Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Zack Snyder's DCEU attempted to do what the MCU did, but in a much more compacted format. While Marvel introduced all its heroes one by one in solo movies and then added more slowly over the years, Snyder made his Superman movie, Man of Steel, and then immediately moved right into the first film where Superman and Batman shared a screen together. When DC Comics' two most iconic heroes shared the screen for the first time to fight, the audience began cheering.
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Superman has been in movies since the Golden Age, and he has been a huge part of the theatrical world since Superman in 1978. Batman has been the most successful DC movie hero on the big screen since his big-screen debut in his 1989 movie. It had been 38 years since Christopher Reeve's debut as Superman and 27 years since Michael Keaton debuted as Batman, and the two heroes finally meeting on the big screen paid off decades of anticipation.
The Avengers Circle Shot: The Avengers (2012)
The first major audience reaction to an MCU superhero movie came in The Avengers in 2012. Marvel had already introduced Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor in their own solo movies, and this was a chance to bring them all together as a team, albeit with a different actor playing Hulk. Add in Black Widow and Hawkeye, and the Avengers were born. Their main battle here was against Loki as he led an alien attack on New York City.
The team fought mostly separately as they attempted to save civilians and fight off the Chitauri. However, the moment came after building to an almost unbearably tense moment and the Avengers ended up together. This was a circle shot, with the camera rotating around each of them, the music rising, and the Hulk roaring at the end. It was masterful and created the template for every major MCU moment that followed.
The Avengers Initiative: Iron Man (2008)
The first MCU movie was Iron Man as the world got to know Tony Stark, and it set the stage for every movie that followed. What made the film work so well is that it just focused on Iron Man and didn't bother with world building, allowing that to come down the line. However, there was one moment that did have a massive audience reaction, and it came in the post-credits of the film.
The first-ever MCU post-credits scene saw Tony Stark going home and finding a man waiting for him in his penthouse. This man was Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson. That wasn't what caused the cheering, though. Instead, it was when Fury looked at Stark and asked if he had heard of the Avengers Initiative, which is what received loud cheers from anyone familiar with Marvel Comics, excited to finally see the property coming to the big screen.
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