The MCU’s Biggest Issue (That No One Is Talking About)

[@Thetb93]

another problem is that every new film or series has apocalyptic level threats. but no one else cares. everyone seems to fight the apocalypse and is too busy to team up.

[@somecallmejeremy]

Part of the reason why I like Spider-Man 2 is because it puts the character work front and center. Yes, the Avengers level threat near the end were also present in that movie, but god, it was also filled with moments that closes each of the character's arcs which makes it more endearing to watch (e.g, Peter talking to his mentor, Octavius' sacrifice and MJ finding out that Peter is Spider-Man followed by their talk in the web and Peter watching MJ be rescued by JJJ's son because they can't be together because of his superhero identity).

[@osmo2384]

I always find apocalypse level threats to be so boring if the world building isn't in place to get me to actually care about the world that's being threatened,, also if it happens all the time it also feels meaningless because there's only so many times you can almost destroy the world but not quite before the novelty of it wears off, if you get what I mean

[@RickReasonnz]

That's a problem I've had with the MCU since almost the start. There's many a fine story to tell about characters without having them to save the world/universe every freaking time.

[@silver2therescue1]

@@RickReasonnz if everyone is special, no one is

[@pastoryoda2789]

and Rhodes has been a Skrull since Civil War lmao

[@elfsong713]

So far Wong seems to be the only one tieing everything together. He has appeared in Dr. Strange, Spiderman, Shang Chi, and She Hulk. But seriously, who are the Avengers at this point? It seems really weird that we had an entire phase and we don't even know who they are.

[@WanderTheNomad]

I feel like the Young Avengers are more cohesive than the actual avengers team now, and they haven't even met each other yet!

[@jamescallanan2443]

The Avengers are currently disbanded

[@Altaira17]

@@jamescallanan2443Yes. What we now have is an MCU with no Avengers. Who would have seen that coming? What’s more, I can’t even imagine who would form the core of a new team. Unless….Oh, no. Are the Marvels supposed to be our new core trio? Ack. I don’t think people are really invested in these characters. And anyway, what do they have to do with Kang or the Multiverse? This universe just doesn’t hang together and make sense, and I kinda don’t care anymore.

[@jamescallanan2443]

@@Altaira17 i dont think they're trying to make the Marvels the mains since we still have Thor, Bucky, Dr. Strange, Sam as the new Captain America and setup for a bunch of Young Avengers. Plus characters like Shuri, Shang-Chi, Moon Knight etc.

[@chrissimpson3554]

Because mcu has not figure out who they want to make up the nets team of avengers every nine-day put out as a plan to put in the nets team of avenger their movie flops so they don't know who to put in or whether to even do another avenger movie yet. They can't even figure out who they want the enemies to be in the nets avenger movies and yet they're still talking about the one they need to probably just suspend any talk about any more avenger movies for about 10 or 15 years because it's going to take about 10 years to really raised up any characters to a level that would be good in any avenger movies so until then they need to pause on pushing this multiversal war because they don't have the right characters popular enough to pull it off.

[@Remix-pr4xd]

Phases 1-3 felt like a connected universe which helped the audience get invested in almost every characters story. In Phase 4 it just feels like things are just happening for no reason.

[@suzygirl1843]

Nah, Wakanda needs to be separate from the MCU. It works well on its own as an real life conversation about Africa. Not a coincidence that BRICS forming post-Black Panther

[@Chhjmmkg]

There's a clear reason, money from people who buy disney+

[@Kirasfox]

Phase 1-2 had the same complaints as phase is getting but alright...guess everyone's going to act as if phase 1 was flawless and beloved

[@Remix-pr4xd]

@@Kirasfox They weren’t flawless but at least they felt like they were building up to something

[@Chhjmmkg]

@@Kirasfox even if phase 1 wasn't that great, people weren't bombarded by 20 superhero introductions in one year. Marvel actually became popular and good by the time civil war came out, I'd say. Before that, even if there were misses, people who watched were actually excited to see it. Now you've got hardcore fans skipping even movies, let alone shows. Only the little zoomers have the patience and time to keep up with the bs they're putting out now. Like, no adult has the time to spend on 10 hours of she hulk, when everyone who watched it says it's trash. The only Marvel movie I've stepped into theatres was no way home. Choosing the little zoomer children, especially the ones on Twitter has partly led to MCU's decline. When I saw NWH, I heard little kids laughing at basically everything that was said, even if it wasn't funny.. When you start catering to that audience, the decline is inevitable.

[@tabsterg]

Shang chi's lack of AT LEAST A CAMEO is criminal. Every other character gets to pop up here and there but him. I miss him.

[@vanheath5382]

Shang Chi should have had a cameo in Doctor Strange M.O.M. If not a small role. He could have even had a cameo in Spider-Man No Way Home. Wong came and got Shang at the end of the movie. There should have been a spin off show or some more appearances of Shang along side Wong in the other movies.

[@spinosaurusstriker]

He is busy being the first asian character in an american movie every next week

[@theomnitorium7476]

It hit hard when Matt said "he hasn't even been mentioned." Shang Chi was one of the best Phase 4 movies, almost everyone agrees on that, and they didn't even mention him since? What's the plan here? There is not even talk of a sequel yet, instead Daniel Cretton gets to develop a Wonder Man show for the MCU? Who's asking for that? Let him do a Shang Chi sequel!

[@nalday2534]

What's criminal is hiring that boring as shit actor

[@sawanna508]

@@vanheath5382 There is a cameo in No Wa Home. One of the people shipping snow in the Sanctuary, for the other one is definitly the charakter Awkwafina plays.

[@jacobkirk1846]

Secret Invasion should have been an Avengers movie. Where just like phase 1, Nick Fury must once again assemble a new team of Avengers to fight the Skrull invasion, but this time he doesn’t know which members he can trust. It would basically bring the MCU back to basics, while still offering a new fun twist.

[@qwirkt]

I think they wanted to do that but just couldn’t think of an interesting plot

[@jacobhouck1182]

This would have been so cool! Bring everyone back for a lower stakes adventure figuring out who is a skrull

[@dankerbell]

that would've been so cool

[@bucketboysx3129]

I mean yes plus it’s literally a avengers level event. So it could have been the 5th movie with Kang dynasty being the 6th movie. So secret invasion could have been a phase 5 and dynasty phase 6. Then they could have done a mutant sage with the fantastic 4 leading into secret wars and doom being the main villian with maybe a version of Kang surviving where they work together. But hey I guess that’s too hard for them to come up with. Big Sadge

[@wwaxwork]

@@qwirkt They couldn't pull of an interesting plot and use it to sell the next bunch of movies. There was a time each movie was it's own stand alone thing that fitted into an overarching story sure, but it had a beginning a middle and an end, now they're just advertisements for another movie that promotes the next movie and none of them have a complete story.

[@80lemon80]

What i will never understand is how the producers behind the MCU don’t understand what they did right the first time around. The reason these films garnered so much hype was the interconnectivity of it all. It all connected. One movie always impacted another. Almost NONE of Phase 4 has done that.

[@queenofnevers6990]

first and foremost they were just good movies. Interconnectivity just added extra bonus.

[@Warm_Winter_Nights]

also the fact that aside from the interconnectedness of it all, they were still able to work as standalone films. the interconnectivity of it was a nice part of it, but they were also good enough to work as their own movies where you wouldnt need to watch something to understand what was going on in the movie

[@Not_a_Lizard_]

@@Warm_Winter_Nights Now we get the worst of both worlds. You need to have watched the last ten movies and three TV shows to understand what the hell is going on, yet somehow it still feels disconnected from everything else.

[@MarvinPowell1]

That's because "they" didn't do anything right. In reality, most of the MCU's success was Jon Favreau, James Gunn (the one who planned out the entire Infinity Saga) and the Russo Brothers. Kevin Feige and the rest didn't do shit, and once Gunn and everyone else left, that was it for the MCU's quality.

[@DavidMartinez-ce3lp]

@@MarvinPowell1 Feige was just another business man

[@aarronobsidian5597]

Honestly, when phase 4 started they should have been more comfortable killing off heroes and letting the villains live. Completely, Game of Thrones style where anybody can catch it.

[@jeromealday614]

Fr, they should've killed off Ant Man and Thor tbh + kill off Rocket + kill off every Eternal + kill off She- Hulk too

[@nighty___]

​​@@jeromealday614They also could've and should've killed Tobey's Spidey

[@brianduong8836]

Basically a mcu version of ultimatum 🤣

[@Remix-pr4xd]

@@nighty___Let’s not go that far. Mf’s would’ve burned down the theater if that happened.

[@Flyboyflame937]

Davy’s let the villian win and show it from there perspective show me them they day to day let the hero’s be the co stars some times

[@user-op6kt8pg9y]

A lot of the reason why loki and wanda vision did so well was because everyone wanted to see what happened to them post endgame

[@sandal_thong8631]

I wanted to see Captain America's adventures after Endgame. Thor 4 could have been him returning the Stone and the Hammer and fighting Dark Elves and Thanos in that divergent timeline, while still having Mighty Thor. Maybe if Captain America went back to 1970 to return the Stone and warned them of the Hydra computer ordering deaths of people, he might have saved Reed Richards, and we'd have the Fantastic Four in that divergent timeline and they'd have beaten Thanos.

[@Akinwalesegun]

​@sandal_thong8631 how does this fit into our diversity scheme? It doesnt so shelf this wonderful idea and instead replace it with a female superior captain [insert any country]

[@trevormoffat4054]

Another reason Loki and Wandavision did well was because people expected they would be good. Now that we’ve had a few years of Disney+ shows, we can see that each show is just a wafer thin story of no consequence, with hours of padding.

[@veronicamaine3813]

I’d disagree - I watched because they were interesting stories trying to do something new (esp wandavision). I honestly never got into the MCU and missed the whole endgame hoopla. But I had Disney + and turned on Loki and wandavision and loved them. Maybe I’m weird, but as a very casual MCU viewer I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m far more common then you’d think.

[@izkariot]

@@veronicamaine3813 Thanks for this review; I was never into the MCU as the movies seemed too predictable and inconsequential in terms of plot and risk, but Loki and Wandavision may be quirky and unpredictable enough for me to enjoy.

[@shariqhasan6220]

Since Phase 4 and Phase 5 are said to be part of the Multi-verse saga, Dr. Strange should have been the Iron Man of these phases as protecting Earth from Multi-versal threats is literally HIS job.

[@and__lam1152]

Unfortunately for Disney...... Dr Strange isn't a strong female (girl boss) lead. Although they tried their best to replace him in the multiverse movie with one

[@meeyo7762]

​@@and__lam1152This is such a hilariously made up problem that only exists in your head, please be serious. Show me one instance where they tried to replace Benedict Cumberbatch with a female actor

[@DagothsCollection]

​@@meeyo7762nah the girl power stuff is seriously an issue in marvel movies and even infinity war and endgame each had an entire scene dedicated to it, no clue what he means about MOM but don't act like it's not a thing

[@Jack-hd6vh]

@@meeyo7762 dawg the main character in DOCTOR STRANGE Multiverse of Madness was a girl. IN DOCTOR STRANGE'S MOVIE?

[@Prototype-357]

@@meeyo7762 Does WandaVision count? Strange was supposed to appear in that show because he was the one trying to wake Wanda up from her delusion but the showrunners thought him appearing would "take away from Wanda" or something like that. Those commercials that were hinting something was wrong were supposed to be from HIM because dealing with threats against time and space is literally what he does, it absolutely makes sense why Strange would want to help Wanda. I have no idea what Feige was thinking when he decided to take him out of the show, it couldn't be because of empowerment cause a woman running away from responsability and denying all accountability for her actions is NOT empowering, it's psychotic.

[@jashuarai3415]

Personally, yes the original MCU had an amazing interconnected story, but the films like Guardians of the Galaxy, or The Winter Soldier were always my favorites because they were overall good movies. They represented different facets of the superhero medium through the comedy and spy film lens, and modern MCU has yet to do that besides for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Moral of the story. MAKE GOOD MOVIES, PEOPLE WILL SEE THEM. EVEN IF IT ISN’T INTERCONNECTED, IF IT IS GOOD, PEOPLE WILL SEE THEM

[@arishemthejudge6780]

The Winter Soldier is such a rewatchable movie ong

[@markeastlack4180]

No. These movies are just as good as first decade of MCU on their own. The thing is unless the plan is to have the new Avengers fail utterly and completely in Kang Dynasty bc nobody ever thought to get them together before the next Crisis level Event, it's hard to see what they are trying to do. Ignoring the absolute crap that was IM 2 and 3 Thor 1 and 2 Avengers 2 Not to mention killing off some really good villains

[@markeastlack4180]

The fact is this is how comics work, the MCU still doesn't have a 3rd of the content actual comic books have. None of us buy all the comic books especially now that we have KZbin creators who thoroughly breakdown anything I don't feel like spending my money on or reading. We catch up on everyone but our favorites when the others crossover with our favorites. This why most of us hate Events, we are forced to buy books we normally don't care about Why shouldn't a cinematic comic universe work like the comics themselves, meant to have elements for EVERYONE? Expecting them to make all MCU stuff just for you and your type is absurdly entitled

[@spiralroad2327]

It really helps that RDJ/Tony was like the protagonist of the Infinty Saga, and his fear of Thanos was important connective tissue between movies. From his panic attacks in Iron Man 3, to creating Ultron soon after, or tapping Spider-Man as his potential successor should something ever happen to him. All his actions were motivated by this looming threat, even before he could attach a name to it. That direction was essential.

[@nalday2534]

Still an awful character

[@Chhjmmkg]

And now there's no one like that. They Thor and Hulk into jokers. The new captain America is a sidekick who isn't even a super soldier.

[@nalday2534]

@@Chhjmmkg tony stark wasn't a joker? what films have you been watching?

[@Chhjmmkg]

@@nalday2534 There's a difference between being completely pathetic clowns and being sarcastic. I see you're a moron from your first comment, so not even going to expect you to understand the difference, child.

[@collinpetry1161]

I feel like as Kang is more interwoven, we will start to see more of a new connective tissue through fear. Loki, Ant-Man, and Wasp all know first hand how terrifying he is, and they're decently connected with a good chunk of the characters we have been getting movies about (or at least connected to people who know the others)

[@SteveLouisArnoldHR]

The other issue is that Marvel/Disney are not making stars for these new characters. They are hiring very famous actors to take on lead roles, it must be a scheduling nightmare now to get them back regularly, and also expensive to get them in for just cameo's or support roles.

[@v.a.l.i.a]

The problem is that they cast famous actors just for their audiences, and don't care about the plot that much. The eternals had huge actors and the story could have worked if they didn't present them all in the first movie. Chris H., Chris E., RDJr and the rest of them weren't known back then

[@strawberrypuddin8919]

True! Even the guy that plays vision ( I can't remember his name unfortunately ) was about to quit acting because it wasn't working out for him until he landed the Jarvis voice gig

[@marocat4749]

@@strawberrypuddin8919 Bethany, it eve more is bad as he is really good,he is great in a knightds tale for example.

[@NelsonStJames]

This ! I keep having debates with "fans" who feel that turning down a role in the MCU is career suicide; and I'm like, hey the MCU hasn't made anybody a star, because the majority of these people were names before the MCU, and they are well aware that you guys aren't going to buy tickets to see them when they aren't in MCU related projects. They are actors first and foremost, and an MCU role is just a job to them.

[@phantomprobz9823]

​@@v.a.l.i.aEverybody knew Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. That's when Fantastic Four and Tropic Thunder came out

[@existentialselkath1264]

Remember, it's not superhero fatigue, it's superhero greed

[@elpaladindeltrolling6037]

It's superhero fatigue; the greed of the studios It's what create it

[@existentialselkath1264]

@@elpaladindeltrolling6037 people are tired of bad movies. Not superhero movies. If that still fits your definition then we simply have different definitions.

[@agenerichuman]

Those aren't mutually exclusive

[@agenerichuman]

Also I'll flat out reject that superhero fatigue isn't real. The fact people are skipping all the average superhero movies they used to line up in theaters to see shows fatigue is real. I think people lose sight of this because there's still popular superhero movies. But the thing people miss is good movies of any genre still do well, even those in genres with lots of fatigue.

[@agenerichuman]

​@@existentialselkath1264people used to see bad superhero movies in droves alongside the good ones. I actually address this in my other comment. Saying fatigue isn't real because people still see good movies doesn't really make a lot of sense when you talk about broader trends.

[@samelthecamel2]

What feels weird is that The Avengers just don't seem to exist anymore? Everyone has gone their separate ways and are fighting their own battles. You would think that new heroes would get recruited at the end of their introduction, such as Moon Knight, She-Hulk or even the Eternals. We need a new Nick Fury type of character that pulls everyone together

[@Melissa-sx9vh]

The closest they got with that idea is Valentina Allegra De Fontaine recruiting the Thunderbolts but that's it and she wasn't really brought up in the last few projects.

[@Rar830]

I would like to see a Narvels+ She Hulk movie that would be interesting

[@martynstembridge7714]

Yup. It feels like the concept of the Avengers was scrapped after Endgame ... As if "They have fought their greatest battle, now they can rest" ... There should have been a new movie with Doc Strange reluctantly leading a new group of Avengers, helped by Hawkeye and maybe Thor ... if he was on Earth at the time.

[@OneMasterChief]

Professor X is coming.

[@owena7236]

To be completely fair, Doctor Strange did appear in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021 before his sequel, with Infinity War and No Way Home being pretty significant for him. That's why he could, and probably should, be the next 'linchpin' of the MCU, but it's very obvious they're not putting that sort of effort in with anyone else right now.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

True. On top of that, 2 or 3 years between relases is not that big of a gap

[@dunstonlion1342]

I do think a big part of the problem with Quantumania is that it very clearly wanted to be an Avengers movie, but they weren't allowed to do that and so had to fill a bunch of time and space faffing about. Cause it sure as heck wasn't an Ant Man movie.

[@sandal_thong8631]

Yeah, that was so messed up and on many levels that there's no tweaking what we saw. It seemed like Shang-Chi's rings were related, getting some kind of signal, but he (and Wong) didn't cross over with Ant-Man.

[@tjhooker824]

Yay I’m glad someone else using the word faffing

[@markchapman6800]

What it should have been was a Fantastic Four movie. Kang was one of their classic villains, and the Quantum Realm was just the place for one of their adventures. The timing was impossible for that, of course. Ant Man was possibly the worst hero to use.

[@dannypalin9583]

@@markchapman6800 They essentially gave the Fantastic Four villains to the Guardians (Ronan the Accuser, Ego and the High Evolutionary) and Captain Marvel (the Skrulls).

[@theomnitorium7476]

It's known that Peyton Reed wanted to do a Fantastic Four movie for a long time. And he wanted to do a Star Wars space adventure. Nobody let him do either of these, so he just did it with Ant-Man, which worked as well as Ketchup on vanilla ie cream.

[@J1283-s1k]

Can't agree more. There's no interwoven stories, no cohesion in conjoining the characters towards the bigger narrative. Yet another failing of this almost entirely awful new set of phases post Endgame.

[@Ocelot835]

Honestly with first announcements and TV shows I thought there was some buildup - we are slowly introduced to new young heroes while simultaneously get to know darker counterparts of original Avengers (U.S.Agent, White Vision, Belova's Black Widow and etc.). Logically it should have ended with both groups facing each other in some version of Dark Reign storyline, where new defenders of Earth properly establish themselves as successors of Avengers in after-Blip world before facing new bigger threat in the next phase. But someone in high ranks decided it was too low-stake after Endgame and what MCU needed is to introduce Multiverse that made everything messy.

[@agenerichuman]

I think people miss this was kind of the point. It was a risk and it didn't pay off, but the goal was to have more disparate stories and giving lesser known heroes times to shine. The expanded the universe (and even the multiverse) without really adding much plot or cohesion. I get the impression they were trying to make the movies more like the comics where not everything is a big event. But I'm not really sure a broader, less connected universe works in the medium of film.

[@king_rage1]

They just throw in cameos and think that's all it takes

[@chiffmonkey]

And yet that's exactly what makes Moon Knight work. I'm so glad it's disconnected from the larger MCU.

[@Dave102693]

But there’s annoying cameos that drag down solo projects though

[@7heMidni9htOwl781]

I still think one of the larger problems is that there is seemingly no plan, in the way that there was a buildup between pre endgame films so that even individually these films make a small picture but combined make something very satisfying to watch as a larger combined image. I started this opinion after the Eternals by thinking " Where is everyone" at the end sequence since i figured if theres a celestial about to make earth go pop or Arishem appearing in orbit then at least a few avengers would pop up or some other characters monitoring earth for safety. The MCU in its current state, politics and poor quality directors aside, feels like shots in the dark trying to make a new infinity war scale storyline with no plan or silverlining being followed. This is without addressing the concept of the multiverse and the misuse of that as a way to retcon there own films by other directors. Small disclaimer : I dont expect all films to lead to a thanos type threat but acknowledging that the characters share the same world(Earth-199999 is mcu for those that dont know.) would be nice.

[@benskywalker7]

I think studio tampering is a big part of the problem. Disney is greedy, and are sticking their hands into more of the decisions than before.

[@uchihabomber1296]

I’m personally fine with no plan since to me it I’d rather they just make movies set in the universe rather than having to forcibly connect everything to something bigger. If your interested in the character than go watch the movie and if not you shouldn’t NEED to watch it either basically just like comic books

[@Merione]

To be fair, the earlier MCU didn't have a plan either. They didn't even know if Iron Man was going to be a hit or not, let alone planning things 10 years in advance. And even all the way throughout Phases 1-3 there are still tons of plotlines that they introduced and then dropped or delayed indefinitely. Adam Warlock is an example: he was teased in GotG2, as if he was going to be important for the Guardians soon after, but we literally just got him, in Phase FIVE. I mean, the lady in that post-credit scene seemed pretty pissed off, I can't see how or why she waited so long to get her revenge lol! Another example is Thor Ragnarok: the funny and lighthearted tone of that movie was clearly a response to the poor reception of Dark World by the audience, it wasn't set in stone from the start. All this to say that "lack of plan" is not an excuse. You can absolutely not have a plan, or if you have one, change it on the fly based on the audience's reaction to previous projects. But if you choose to go this way, then you must be able to adapt things on the fly and still keep it focused and coherent as one big story. They were able to do this much better before Endgame, and my guess is that they would have been able to do it for Phases 4 and 5 as well, if Covid didn't mess up their schedules productions and releases, forcing them to cut plotlines left and right and rewrite entire chunks of the story just to go around production restrictions, actor schedules and now even strikes (which, don't get me wrong, I FULLY support!). They definitely need more overall supervision and more skilled writers going forward, but it's not entirely all their fault.

[@sandal_thong8631]

They could have had multiple tracks to crossover stories like they did in the 1980s. It looks like they wanted to lead towards Kang Dynasty, Young Avengers and Secret Invasion. But they already botched Secret Invasion from what I heard. Also their world and universe has already been put through the ringer, it might have been time to move on to another MCU, where X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four all coexist.

[@marocat4749]

They could and should have slowed down.@@Merione

[@render4270]

Dude straight up forgot Captain Marvel appeared in Shang Chi's post credit scenes lol and I honestly can't blame him for it😂

[@goodputin4324]

Who's that 😂😂😂

[@Rayo_fhop-e]

She came for less than a minute 😂

[@korovamilkbar8527]

What’s a Shang Chi?

[@monkeymode5652]

My problem is that every series or story or movie ends with a kinda cliffhanger. Wanda flees, white vision is gone. Falcon is now Captain America Loki shattered the timeline Kang? What happened to third personality moonknight? What's up with the celestials? What's up with the ethernals? What's up with Chang chi's rings? What is the Noor and how does that tie in with miss marvel? What's gonna happen with Gorr's daughter? What is even going on with Fury?

[@VisionaryForge_]

I only have an answer to the Moon Knight question. Revealing the third alter (not personality), Jake Lockley, wasn’t a cliffhanger, but a reveal that Khonshu _still_ has control over the life of the Moon Knight system. This was done in a way that leaves the audience eager to see how Marc and Steven will react to this when they find out, but we aren’t at the edge of our seats because Marc and Steven have no reason to suspect this because Khonshu “released” them of their servitude. So it’s not really a cliffhanger.

[@JonathanMandrake]

I think one problem is why these superheroes keep existing. whenever a new movie appears, one or two threats appear that are then dealt with. The MCU never had its heroes be heroic in the smaller ways except for spiderman, only these massive threats that somehow only really ramped up starting with Captain America. Normal heroics basically never happen, it is always these world spanning threats, and regularly the heroes create their own problems. At that point, why do they even exist?

[@FlameG102]

At a certain point they just become a military force. That only exist to fight galactic threats and end of the world scenarios. Where's the cats in trees or old ladies getting robbed? Some of the most memorable superhero scenes pre MCU were usually routine busts of criminals. *that* is what makes them relatable. dealing with everyday stuff that could happen to anyone. Having Superman stop a car that is about to run over a kid, is much more impactful than punching a giant CGI man

[@JonathanMandrake]

@@FlameG102 yeah, if we ignore the MCU we always know and see how the heroes are pretty much always needed and always active to save lives and such, at least when it's good. The Incredibles at the start is a great example of how things should be. One personal disaster flows into the next almost faster than the hero can react

[@tutorialslave]

Just imagine the MCU taking a 2-3 year break after Endgame. If they absoluted had to, they could've released WandaVision, Loki, TFATWS and What if? on D+ to round out the universe we've been peeking into since 2008. Then reboot and focus entirely on street level stakes: build up Kingpin as the overarching big bad who gradually reinforces his iron grip on New York by bankrolling the Sinister Six, Serpent Society and Wrecking Crew, with Taskmaster and Bullseye as his personal bodyguards. Spidey, DD, Heroes for Hire, Elektra and Punisher are treated to trilogies while She-Hulk, Jessica Jones, Hawkeye and Moon Knight are fleshed out on D+ (everybody with the possibly exceptions of Tom Holland, Charlie Cox and Jeremy Renner would be recast, obviously). No universe or even multiverse ending events on the horizon, just one significant city that can be populated not only by the main heroes' sidekicks and friends but regular people they cross paths with here and there. Something like that could've easily entertained us for another 8-10 years.

[@JonathanMandrake]

@@tutorialslave yes exactly

[@Zenn_Chan]

has somebody been watching OSP? :) Nah, Red is right tho, it's genuinely a problem

[@LT21Titans27]

I always thought it felt like Black Panther was going to take over for Iron Man. We would have our new Cap, continue with Thor and continue to weave in more liked characters like Ant-man, Spider-Man, Wanda, Strange and Captain Marvel. Boseman's unfortunate passing undoubtedly threw certain plans out the window but it's unfortunate that they can't seem to have any of these newly introduced characters rise as a leader of the new generation of Avengers.

[@Natta44]

It's weird that we are in phase 5, effectively phase 2 of last saga where we have established team ups already.. but no nothing.

[@tmac731]

Black Panther was most definitely going to take over that iron man role. He’s the only one who can do it. This is why they shoudnt have killed him off in Wakanda Forever. Recasted actor for Tchalla and Wilson as the leaders of the Avengers with Spider-Man Shang Chi, Captain Marvel, Yelena and Thor(who should be rune king Thor by now)

[@jeromealday614]

Nah nah nah. BP doesn't have that moral ambiguity that Iron Man has. Strange is def the Tony replacement

[@Snuzzled]

He probably was supposed to, before Chadwick died. It certainly felt like he was being set up to be. After that, you can almost feel them scrambling as their entire plan was ruined and they had to redo everything, fast.

[@kindabatooni9314]

Black Panther was supposed to take Captain America’s place not Tony. Strange is the only Character good enough to take over Tony’s place but the only problem here is Marvel playing heavy politics in its movies in a very badly written way which affected the characters taking their rightful place because now they trying to spread the plot among so many other underdeveloped and side characters so they can be more politically correct.

[@kirstyholmes9318]

I think that you nailed it. Since Endgame, I don’t feel like there is a team of truly interconnected heroes I’m rooting for. The only one I’m currently excited about is Deadpool 3 mainly because it’s going to be awesome to see Wolverine again! In yellow!!

[@sandal_thong8631]

They could have built a West Coast Avengers around Ant-Man and the Wasp, adding Shang-Chi and She-Hulk, but they didn't.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

I wish they ended in Logan but let's see what happens in DP3!

[@kirstyholmes9318]

@@arturocastroverde3349 I think only Ryan Reynolds could tempt Hugh Jackman back to the role, and at least it will be different than all the other Wolverine movies & Logan. I thought Logan was the pinnacle of the character’s development and a fitting end… till I saw that teaser announcement and set photos!

[@arturocastroverde3349]

@@kirstyholmes9318 i disagree. In terms of fanservice sure it will be a fun ride, but in terms of script and acting there is no way they can top Logan. Logan will always be the pinacle of Marvel. Deadpool 3 is just a fun fanfiction like NWH.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

@@kirstyholmes9318 sure bud No Way Home is better than Spiderman 2

[@actualnotanewbie]

The appareances of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and the people she's been recruiting behind the scenes has been the best thing post-Endgame... until they stopped happening as soon as the Thunderbolts movie was announced.

[@asc3nded397]

Totally agree, Moon Knight and Shang Chi are my favorite recent additions to the MCU and I really want to see more of them but looking at the upcoming slate it seems like it still won’t be for a while.

[@skylaralley2465]

Definitely. I miss Moon Knight so much but I don’t think he’ll show up again for another two years…

[@quickfrog57]

I fully agree with this take, and I fear this problem is only going to be exacerbated with the introduction of the Xmen. That's going to be so many new characters that I fear more cohesion will be lost.

[@theomnitorium7476]

Sadly, you'll be most definitely right.

[@Kirasfox]

This could've been solved if fox wasn't greedy early on...if they had connected Steve & Logan together, even could've brought Logan in the fatws show 🤷🏾‍♀️

[@agilebeast9405]

I think X-Men will only be introduced after the Secret Wars reboot

[@martynstembridge7714]

​@@agilebeast9405 You're probably right. I think I read somewhere that the X-men can't be recast until after 2026 or something like that? Due to the contracts the old actors in the FOX movies were given. Or something like that. But even if that's incorrect ... I just get the feeling Marvel don't have much appetite to introduce the mutants.

[@erubin100]

Even before all this decline happened, I KNEW the quality after Endgame was going to go down hill purely for the reasons you state: because the thing they were building up to was done and now they were gonna have to do something new out of thin air, which is a near herculean task. It's like that Key and Peele sketch about the guy who speaks after the famous MLK speech: you just can't top that!

[@voidking9597]

didn't need to be new they just needed to have a plan that extended beyond endgame so payoffs would already have been setup

[@erubin100]

@@voidking9597 INCORRECT. They DO have to do something new, because their audience expects consistently better quality. If they just did Infinity War again, it would feel too similar and people would get bored. Escalation is unavoidable, unfortunately.

[@bluesbest1]

I've been saying this practically since Endgame came out. The story ended. The Spiderman films felt like an epilogue, but I haven't seen anything else after Endgame because, well, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." I'd rather let my enjoyment of the MCU end and preserve my memory of what it was than watch as it burns to the ground.

[@Hosenbisla]

They had the perfect katalyst for that. The post Snap Problems, But they brushed over them in the captain america show. Would have been a huge opotunity to spread lower level Problems to introduce the new characters. They realy fumbled the Ball on this huge Oportunit/Problem in the MCU world.

[@mon_nobi]

​@@Hosenbisla bingo. Everyone says MCU sucked after endgame but honestly endgame wasn't even that great except for the final battle, however the Russos did perfectly setup the stage for the next saga using the time travel heist and Feige and team were smart to focus on Kang and multiverse as the new big bad and the new thing that has not yet been done in the MCU post endgame, especially as they got the rights back to certain properties. However, they fumbled hard because they were too risk averse, and honestly because the writers weren't very creative in filling the "prompt" of the scripts. It was good using phase 4-5 to set up young avengers and dark avengers characters. It's bad doing so with no real teases for how they will crossover. Good setting up Kang and multiverse collapse, bad telling all their stories in a way that basically totally skips over the 5yr gap. They did one flashback scene in Wandavision and one in Hawkeye and then just got lazy by telling us rather than showing us that "things changed during that time, but they moved on already ". If they were more creative and took more from the comics than real life then they wouldn't have had to do as many reshoots either (vaccine plot in F&TWS). Also reshoots should make story better not worse (removing Dr. Strange cameo from Wandavision, Kang losing at the end of Quantumania, etc). They took a risk in telling more disconnected stories, but were way too lazy and risk averse in how they executed it, and those choices are now killing any and all hype for this cinematic universe.

[@Heresor]

It feels like Disney thinks the genre isn't here to stay, so they pump out as much as they can in the shortest amount of time, exhausting the franchise to leave it to die.

[@Dave102693]

That’s their plan

[@hkr0065]

Eh. Disney is just being greedy. I don't think it has anything to do with the genre itself. They're just trying to capitalize off of it. After Endgame, Disney+ launched, and they began demanding tons of shows from Marvel. It's because they were trying to fill their app with content.

[@luciusblackwood2640]

I used to go the comic book stand every week. There was a whole rack full - every week. I didn't think it diluted anything.

[@Heresor]

In my experience there are multiple factors in play: 1. The audience is different. From my brother I know that he is bothered by the time commitment it takes to keep up with the franchise. As a reader of Marvel comics I don't mind missing tie-ins and crossovers, because there is no way I'm buying 30 comic series ion release, just for the off-chance that the story happens to intersect with the X-Men oder Spider-Man run I'm reading rn. I think more people are like my brother in that regard. And frankly, reading 5 concurrent comic series takes less time than watching 5 concurrent TV-Shows. 2. Distributers operate differently than publishers. It is rather recent that Marvel started their digital comic releases, distributed by themselves. Before that they had to make good products so the distributer, be it a local comic shop, bookstore or supermarket, would bother to stock their comics. Sure they had some backroom deals, but for the most part that was the case. Distributers want to mostly stock for a broad audience, less focused than what a single publisher releases. I get your point, because for myself it's not the sheer volume of content that bothers me that much. It's the lack of care Disney shows. Superhero stories aren't necessarily a genre in my eyes, but a setting, or a sub-genre. You can tell any kind of story in a Superhero setting, be it detective noir (X-Factor), Samurai/Western (basically any Wolverine comic), Space opera (Star Wars is technically a magic/superhero setting), a character study about mental illness (Moon Knight, Legion, Gwenpool). The Netflix Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were great examples for that. But for the most part Disney resorts to big-CGI battles, even when the source material would call for a more nuanced approach. I enjoyed Shang-Chi almost the entire runtime, until they hit the "big brown CGI battle" ending. The ironic thing is that Joker proved that the "smaller scale" stories work really well at the box office on a smaller budget.@@luciusblackwood2640

[@luciusblackwood2640]

@@Heresor I would like Disney+ to fit the series episode count to the story they are telling. I like them all but there is a lot of padding in some of them. If the story can be told in one episode then just make it one episode.

[@cleppermarketing4155]

Honestly probably the best way to describe the MCU's problem. I had subconsciously thought about it but this summarizes everything. It's a combination of writing/storytelling issues and also trying to be to broad but this put together everything.

[@Hiushisan]

This is such a balanced take on the problem. I really do think the franchise can recover if it puts in effort to do so.

[@SWTobito0702]

Looking back it was definitely a mistake to wait with another Avengers movie until Kang Dynasty. A "The New Avengers" movie that introduced a new core team was definitely needed. Then Quantumania as the Civil War surrogate as you said so that the newly established core team is aware of the coming threat.

[@RickReasonnz]

I think you're right. Looking back, the first Avengers movie wasn't that great, narratively, but what it did was to layout the roster of heroes the MCU could expect to use. They truly should have done some thing similar, with a threat that is big enough for multiple heroes, but not so big that future big event would be rendered meaningless. Actually, a good comparison would be the introduction of the New Mutants in Xmen - after it's initial run, Chris Claremont took over, and instead of regurgitating all the previous heroes, he did a reset, introducing a score of new heroes, who had an initial first "Big" mission to establish themselves.

[@evandickinson6393]

The real problem is...they shoulda just ended after End Game. After End Game they say "we've got some fun 1-off things for ya, but were starting from scratch and in a few years you'll see a whole new run of movies with new characters and actors"

[@silverhawk24]

Damn, that last statement aged like a rotting potato because that sure as fuck ain't happened yet. You'll see a whole new brand of heroes with new actors my ass 😂

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

Honestly, they should have went and utilized the multiverse idea to start a new MCU universe with new heroes and new threats. Imagine a new universe where mutants are the main characters or one that focuses on the Fantastic Four forming a group against Dr. Doom. And then you take these multiple universes and fling them together in one huge battle?😊

[@Tyrisalthan]

Yes, they should have ended after endgame. They should have put everything on hold for a year or two, to let everything really feel the impact. It would have given the makers time to plan the next phases. And when the first movie drops after the break, people would have been so jazzed about it. Sort of like a completely different approach that they went for now.

[@Kirasfox]

This statement will.never make sense for a comic book based universe...but alright

[@leonlaiaun]

i would never understand that, if they end after endgame, other characters from the comic books that have never been introduced would just stay in comic book forever which would be a waste for them, i mean, shang-chi, werewolf by night, moon knight are GREAT

[@manaskulkarni1461]

Bro really called Ultron "ChatGPT with legs" 💀💀💀

[@MrJACKS0N2010]

😂😂😂😂

[@mr.moviemafia]

Wong’s character and Shang Chi’s post-credits scene are some of the only things that really seemed to be setting up something that ties into other things. After we see Wong fighting Blonsky (tying into She-Hulk), he recruits Shang and Katy to help aid The Avengers (although we only see that Banner & Captain Marvel are confirmed members) with what seems to be a Quantum Realm issue (tying into Quantumania and Loki, and setting up a vague threat). That being said, despite pretty much holding Phase 4 together, every Wong appearance has felt drastically separated because he never brings up what he did in his other scenes. There’s no sense that things are happening at the same time.

[@Zenn_Chan]

Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel and Shang Chi would've been a SOLID new main trio. Personally I would drop Carol from that and put in Shuri, but as has been mentioned, the Black Panther situation was all a bit precarious, so it's understandable they couldn't predict for that

[@suzygirl1843]

Nah, Wakanda needs to be separate from the MCU. It works well on its own as a real life conversation about Africa. Not a coincidence that BRICS is forming post-Black Panther. It has no place inside the Globalized World, part of its appeal is the breaking way of Africa from the Western powers

[@nalday2534]

Shang chi is trash

[@Comicbroe405]

It's not just oversaturation but also a plain quality issue imo. Lots of ppl were excited for Secret Invasion with it's more serious tone & while that was there in the series it still had lots of other obvious issues whereas Loki with a more goofy tone still managed to be great. Despite being a big fan I've been only really loved 4 MCU projects since Endgame.

[@TheDeathmail]

It's not just pure quality, but satisfaction. Thor L&T had Gor but he felt wasted... MoM had the concept of the multiverse, but there was another movie the same year that did it better.... Antman had Kang be an enemy yet he lost to f***ing Antman... Even if the movies were good... what they were missing just felt noticeable... It was the same issue Raimi's Spider-Man 3 had. It wasn't actually a bad movie... but the waste of Venom hurt the movie soo bad.... It's the problem with dealing with IPs that people already know... and the 1st 3 phases proved that Marvel had the ability to do the concepts justice... We had standards for Marvel we never had for Super Hero movies before... and they just didn't keep it...

[@Rhetoricalquestion-m6c]

@@TheDeathmailI think you’re right the old MCU had post credit scenes that actually hyped up the next project. Now they’re just trying to hype up the next endgame super early on and I think THATS where the problem lies. And don’t even get me started on Secret invasion where they completely retained powerful moments throughout the timeline. They’ve leaving us completely in the dark about their projects unless you go to a comic-con, and presenting projects at conventions is fine but I should be able to have a taste of what the next film is gonna look like without having to rely on YT or comic-con, which is why I personally feel like the modern MCU feels disconnected from both the past movies and even itself.

[@mon_nobi]

@@TheDeathmail you're hitting the nail on the head, but the lack of satisfaction is a reaction/byproduct to the poor quality. Of those disappointments you listed, stories feeling cheap, plot lines feeling thin, characters feeling wasted, so many missed opportunities are because they have decent setups with very lackluster payoffs. Better, higher quality writing wouldn't have made these stories amazing or perfect but they could've stopped them from being so massively disappointing that they feel like narrative missteps (like how many fans are more than just disappointed in Love & Thunder or Secret Invasion but rather wish they never even used those characters/stories at all as it wasted the potential of their namesakes.)

[@NelsonStJames]

Everything leading up to endgame was really just a loose adaptation of already proven stories from the comics truncated and simplified because we're talking decades of material made to fit into a little over 51 hours. The problem now is because of the way they chose to adapt those stories, a lot of stuff even with all the rewriting in the world is not going to work well ( i.e. Secret Invasion and I'm going to call it right now and say Secret Wars will have the same problem ). The writers of the films are simply not as imaginative, nor as good as the writers of the source material they are cribbing from. The stories they are seeking to adapt are being adapted more terribly, in addition to the lackluster stuff they've just made up. The MCU is no longer really making films for the fans of these comic characters.

[@Chhjmmkg]

Yes, no way home was great fan service. I don't think anything else was quality though, even Loki.

[@MrHGravity]

One of the other things I think is worth noting. The way the original phases started on a much, MUCH smaller scale. Settings: Iron Man 1 - Symbolic Afghanistan during the War on Terror Captain America - WW 2 Thor - Small town in south-western America Iron Man 2 - The future is now Expo etc. Hell, even the first Avengers included the NYPD and military in their response to the villians. From that very small start that grew and grew into an intergalactic time traveling conflict. Hell Thanos didn't even get real screen time until 6 years after he was mentioned. Now THAT's patience. But the best example of what has seriously bugged me since going into phase 4 is Dr. Strange's multiverse of madness's opening fight against the big eyeball tentacle monster. It's just like, a tuesday for everybody, and there's not even a real good connection from it into the story. Everybody in the plot, and the plot itself, is just so apathetic about the whole thing. The multiverse is a big concept, you need to give it time to cook. But nobody wants to spend that time, it's all about pushing the next videos out the door, more content, more CONTENT NOW!!

[@techpriest2854]

it doesnt help that the world hasn't been allowed to learn from these threats and the tech that is present (looking at you iron man with world changing Nano machines which can revolutionize everything from manufacturing to medicine ). the world is stagnant without the ability to respond to anything at this point.

[@Secondruon]

I mean, to be fair, dealing with giant eyeball monsters is literally what Steven’s day job is

[@theyuritheorist]

I think the most we've seen of in Phase 4 was maybe Wong with him bridging a few movies and shows so for the moment feels like he'd be playing a large role in the next Avengers movie if his multiple appearances mean something

[@carolinelee5496]

OMG!!! FINALLY SOMEONE MAKES A VIDEO ABOUT THIS!!! for one of my college classes, i wrote an essay about how the MCU survived and thrived on being an emotional investment. you got emotionally invested in a character, and you were able to closely track that character’s development of the course of a few years. now, as you said in this video, this landscape has largely changed. i was actually one of the few mcu fans to really love eternals, and ever since i’ve been dying for a sequel announcement. it’s also mind blowing to me that they’ll introduce random characters and don’t do anything to follow up w their introductions. remember when they introduced harry styles as starfox at the end credit scene of eternals? or when they introduced brett goldstein as hercules at the end of love and thunder? remember when they dropped that hulk had a sun in she hulk? no, i bet you don’t (however you might remember hulk’s son’s insane hairline). and this is on top of all of the insane amount of main character intros, like she hulk, moon knight, and shang chi. you’re not going to get much out of investment if A) you only see them once in a blue moon as opposed to once or twice a year and B) if their introductions aren’t going to do enough to make you want to invest in the first place. it’s really unfortunate too, especially now that new appearances by these characters are going to be further delayed because studios won’t pay their actors and writers fairly. don’t get me wrong, i’m still a marvel fan and i don’t think that’s gonna go away anytime soon. but when ppl say theyre gonna stop watching, i don’t blame them whatsoever

[@qwirkt]

Eternals is one of my favorites too but we are very few, there will NEVER be a sequel lol

[@williamheller1362]

Guardians suffered from this so much. It felt like 3 was supposed to take place right after 2, but in Universe it had been like 8 years?

[@arturocastroverde3349]

Nah the Guardians are fine. For years they where the "outsiders" the "space avengers" so is easier for people to remember that theye exists as the space heroes. Plus between GOTG 2 and 3 they have appereances in Infinity War and Endgame and Thor 4 and even WHAT IF???. Plus his Holiday Special.

[@gustavosauro1882]

They did appear in 2 avengers movies,and the events of these movies were important to Volume 3(especially Gamora)

[@williamheller1362]

@@gustavosauro1882 but she felt soooo out of place in guardians 3. Gunn definitely didn't plan on her being dead and just kinda had to figure out out after

[@gustavosauro1882]

@@williamheller1362 I honestly would've preferred if she stayed dead really

[@williamheller1362]

@@gustavosauro1882 yup

[@zengamer21]

The past few years have seen a lot of unexpected world events, too. The death of Chadwick Boseman, James Gunn getting fired, returning, and leaving forever. Covid set everything back and damaged the first few series of D+ shows. The Russia/Ukraine war and now writers/actors strikes. Now the actor playing the new big bad might be some kind of woman beater. Then you've got almost all of the guys behind the camera leaving the MCU. Favreau, Whedon, the Russos, the two writers who wrote the backbone of the first three phases Markus and McFeely. Feige is too busy now to oversee things. Doesn't make the current state of the MCU better knowing all of that but it's not that surprising.

[@mon_nobi]

These events of course are not their fault, maybe except for losing Gunn to DC, but even so, they still could’ve adjusted and told better stories had they had better storytellers. I do agree that a lot of the narrative capital was lost after the dream team of the Infinity saga left (Favreau and Whedon I guess but more so specifically the Russo’s, Markus & McFeely, and Gunn). Knowing that they were going to do multiverse stories, I was actually excited at first to see all these Rick & Morty writers join the MCU, but it seems that being in the writers room for R&M really messed up how they perceive the MCU should operate (both Loveness and Waldron wanted to “surprise” audiences by making Wanda the bad guy early on despite Wandavision’s ending or by not having Scott and Hope lose to Kang and get trapped in the QR despite that he’s supposed to be the next big bad. Their desire to “surprise” audiences on these plot points really made for less effective connected storytelling in my opinion.

[@zengamer21]

@mon_nobi Apparently, Waldron never saw the scripts for WandaVision, so he couldn't build on what the show did. That's another big problem, actually. With so many shows and movies, the writers aren't allowed to see each others work so they can't create that connected feeling we were used to.

[@eon001]

Yea, this is a fair video. The Scheduling has been awful. The gaps in between projects is killing the interest in projects. Can't believe there is no word in Shang Chi 2.

[@Snuzzled]

Disney clearly has no faith in the new characters. They bought Marvel because of the ogs Iron Man, Cap, Thor, etc. Those characters stories have been told, though. Disney doesnt see the appeal of Shang Chi. He's no Iron Man. They won't let him be because he already isn't.

[@melindawolfUS]

A show focused on ONE new hero becoming part of the team and going out to find the other new heroes could have tied it all together. But the TV shows are so individualistic, centered around the creation of one new hero without enough connections to the old. This phase was VERY disconnected, I agree.

[@rafinha7081]

Exactly. They didn't really stop to think how you gonna bring these much new characters and also the old ones? How do you connect all this without getting too dense??? It's just very messy and rush

[@jmace2424]

“Kang the Conqueror is just around the corner.” How fast things can change

[@AyyItsMidnite]

I'd just like to opine that the Guardians Holiday Special and Vol. 3 - as well as Werewolf by Night - are great and deserve to be lovingly placed in a comfy little velvet box a good distance away from the rest of Phase 4/5 and most of the critiques to be levied there. Just throwing that out.

[@kretgwiazdonos7397]

i dont get the praise GotG3 gets. for me its just as much as an incoherent mess as other films in phases 4/5 -- adam warlock feels like thee writer suddenly remembered that he was set up in the previous movie (which is a shame, since its easily the most interesting character besides the og quad); main villain is cartoon adolf hitler, and as much as i agree that evil-to-the-bone villain is desperately needed in modern cinema i just couldn't hate him, he felt unreal with all his emotions being ein reich ein volk so my feelings towards him were no different than towards bill cipher (or worse since bill cipher was treated will self-conciousness); it doesn't feel like an end for anything, god only knows how surprised i was when i learned that this was the last GotG movie with the og squad; most of the characters are irritating and have way too much screentime for how little they had done or been developed in the movie (yeah astro-dog, i am talking about you). actually, hot take, i loved dr strange: mom way better that i did gotg 3

[@torinju]

@@kretgwiazdonos7397 I hear what you are saying, but I absolutely loved GotG3. I adored Cosmo. I thought the main villain was suitably horrible (though I don't think the villains are the point in GotG3 movies, they are just there as an impetus for the characters and too much focus of them would actually detract from the movie). Adam Warlock was amusing and I am kind of OK with him not being much more, since there are already a lot of characters in the movie. None of which is to say you are wrong. If you didn't like it you didn't like it. Just pointing out what you see as flaws I see as strengths.

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

I just want What If…?, the Marvel Zombies series, And the Groot series to be in their own universes, that has nothing to do with the MCU… AT ALL!

[@kitothekito915]

Ayyitsmidnite nwh, Shang chi, wakanda forever, Loki and moon knight were pretty good

[@mon_nobi]

​@@kretgwiazdonos7397 Yo I've been mad quiet when it comes to GotG3 because the internet seemed to praise it but I thought it sucked as much as anything else in phase 4-5. nearly every bit of it felt like a glorified Disney channel movie targeted towards preteens. The dialogue was childish, including the context of the first F-bomb. Villain was too cartoonish, despite being a refreshingly purer evil. They were too afraid to kill off any of the OG guardians, even putting in multiple fake out deaths which got annoying after a while, and honestly the sentimentality towards rockets backstory felt forced and almost cloying, certainly so when compared to the way those kinds of heavier emotions are handled in Wakanda Forever. GotG3 just felt like a 6/10 for me.

[@scoople6]

Damn I haven't thought about it in this way before. It's such a shame that this new wave of heroes lacks the connective tissue between solo movies to let the characters breathe and feel grounded in a shared setting. Like I didn't like thor 1 or 2 but because he had moments to shine in other films it helped soften me to him until he got some good work in Ragnarok and the Infinity War and Endgame. Like I would love some short scenes in other films where Shang Chi shows up to be charming and goofy with some other characters. I'd like to see them interact and form interesting relationship dynamics like Tony and Banner.

[@WolfMediaImaging]

Or they really don’t have writers that can connect everything together so instead of a plan, they throw everything at us and try to connect further down the line

[@db153yt]

Strange would fit perfectly in quantumania. Or you could have Wong because he's the Sorcerer Supreme. That would make sense because kang is a huge threat.

[@freebrandyornot]

I really feel like Wanda is the only character so far who got a similar treatment to the main heroes in the first three phases. She was the first character to return after Endgame, then appeared in Multiverse of Madness and while she supposedly died there, most are sure she didn't. And even if she did die, there are rumours of her being mentioned in The Marvels and obviously Coven of Chaos and if the Deadpool 3 rumours are true (POTENTIAL SPOILERS!) we are going to see 838 Wanda there. That means we at least always know she's somewhere out there and while characters like Yelena Bolova have mad more than one appearance in Phase 4, she's still to new to feel completely the same to others. We have had Wanda for nearly 10 years now and that's why her more frequent appearances are often so popular even though the writers of Multiverse of Madness fully messed up on her ongoing arc because they failed to do their research

[@drsaltbox]

Well the writers/actors strike is definitely going to slow the stream down. I wonder how that affects both their plan but also this issue

[@willcooper8028]

You are so right. Yes, the quality of phases 4 and 5 are generally lower than that of the previous phases, but a more consistent schedule of appearances and crossovers involving all these new characters would do a LOT to tie everything together and keep me coming back.

[@NelsonStJames]

Why would the cross over of two characters whose movies I didn't particularly care about as individual films make me excited, or want to watch the two of them together? I didn't really like the She Hulk series, and even though Daredevil a character I did like showed up in it, as well as characters from Dr. Strange and the Hulk ( as well as The Hulk) the series still didn't impress me. Interconnection between characters isn't the issue. The stories are not engaging and they don't satisfy.

[@Kirasfox]

Phase 1 was the exact parallel of phase 4 tbh but alright

[@HandofOmega]

This problem is especially odd as they have a constant stream of TV shows that could easily keep us up to speed with info in the background, without guest stars, just have mag covers or news reports mentioning the new Cap, for ex. I'm still confused As to the current status of SHIELD and how it relates to SWORD, if it does it all...

[@mon_nobi]

Exactly, it's wild that with so much content and runtime across phase 4-5 MCU projects, there is no throughline references to the wider universe that actually show growth in world building. They plants the seeds (global repatriation committee, SWORD, Dept. of Damage Control) but they only ever give us the shallowest of information and force us/the CBM KZbinrs to fill in the gaps of where they maybe are going or what might have happened during the 5yr gap rather than them just doing the world building themselves and showing us that they have a direction in mind for the central earthbound and multiversal conflicts & team ups of this saga. Basically the ratio of set up to payoff is all off. They've been writing stories as if they are relying on the KZbinrs to fill in the gaps for people based on comic book knowledge and keeping up with behind the scenes CBM news. They need to actually use the runtime and post credits scenes to tell connected stories again.

[@22antricha]

They’ve had that some. Ant man’s book and the one eternal who’s been acting for generations were both in ms marvel. The giant thing in the water from eternals is mentioned in she hulk. The cop from ant man shows up in Wanda vision. Ms marvel is a captain marvel super fan, and she shows up in the post credit scene . Monica and ms marvel will now be in captain marvel. Thor was with the guardians at the beginning of his movie. The woman who recruited US Agent was in Black Widow and recruited her sister who was then in Hawkeye. Covid really messed them up on being able to more. Everything got moved around.

[@mon_nobi]

@@22antricha some is not enough. you only listed minor cameos or extremely minor references (some which haven’t happened yet and also again rely on outside knowledge) and still were not treated with a reverence to suggest that they matter to the saga’s plot. Yes Covid obviously screwed things up for them as it did for everyone but they need to adjust like everyone else. And that doesn’t change the fact that the overall story progression has been terrible considering how much content they’ve given us to watch.

[@22antricha]

@@mon_nobi nobody else has had to adjust this much. Think of how many actors/films/tv shows there are. And now there’s a strike happening. If they have to go from 4 movies and 5 shows a year to 2-3 movies and 3 shows, plus change the order of those movies and shows it’s a lot more adjusting than anyone else in the movie business has maybe ever had to do.

[@mon_nobi]

@@22antricha Still doesn’t change the fact that the overall story progression has been terrible considering how much content they’ve given us to watch in phases 4&5. Much more content than the past 3 phases, pandemic is no longer a viable excuse, and the strike just started so did not impact all the subpar MCU content we got in phases 4-5 up to this point.

[@r.rsmith]

“Bad art is a reflection of a bad society and vice versa…” Remember that…

[@nalday2534]

You watch 10 tentpole craps a year. Stop acting like you know jack about art.

[@BSProductions1]

For me personally Moonknight and Werewolf by night are the only new characters I love from Phase 4/5. I think you brought up a problem that I had because Moonknight left off on a cliff hanger of sorts. Therefore, we want to see more of this character, but there hasn’t been any announcement. The only project he was said to be in was Kang Dynasty, so like are we gonna have to wait until 2026 until we see Moonknight again? Is he mentally stable to even join a team? Is Mark and Steven still bonded to Konchu? I mean there are so many questions and no answers on the horizon. And I LOVEEEEDDD Moonknight and I thought it was different and it dealt with mental health and the idea of accepting every part of yourself and learning to forgive. I think werewolf by night is just different and I want to see Jack more! Him and man thing just seem like badass, cool, and different characters. I would love a midnight suns Disney+ tv show or movie instead of echo or Agatha’s show which seem unnecessary. I guess for me it just seems like a lot of the good characters are on the back burner 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@VisionaryForge_]

I also love Moon Knight! My best friends are a system and we are so happy about to empathetic presentation of DID, mental illness, and mental health. I’m going to be honest, as awesome as it would be for the Moon Knight system to join the larger MCU story, I honestly don’t want them to. I think Moon Knight needs another season with no outside MCU forces to flesh out the system’s relationship with Jake Lockley and Khonshu. Also there’s so much potential in continuing Marc and Steven’s growth in sharing a life together, but now focusing on boundaries instead of accepting one another (this is something my system friends are struggling with rn). Additionally, I don’t trust the writers or directors that aren’t the ones who worked on the Moon Knight show. Moon Knight relies heavily on well written characterization and relationships. Without it Moon Knight would be at best a failure. This reliance on character work is far heavier than it does on the larger conflict, which differs from the rest of the MCU. And in the MCU lately, the characterization has been habitually disappointing to say the least. This lack of quality writing in Moon Knight would be devastating. On top of that, I am apprehensive about how other writers will portray DID, mental illness, and mental health. All three of these should be done with compassion and care. But because DID being so stigmatized I am fearful how a lacking presentation could harm systems. Disney is a powerful cooperation with a lot of eyes upon it. As much positivity Disney brought through an empathetic and somewhat Hollywood-ized but more faithful depiction of DID, I am very aware of the damage that could be wrought from a poor one. People with DID and systems are alienated much in society for their systemhood. They deserve respect like any other person and should be treated with empathy. To fight the alienation is to accept systems, foster awareness, and disempower the stigma. Media, like Disney, is very relevant to this fight due to its expansive audience. In conclusion, it would be best if Moon Knight joined the MCU only until… 1) season 2 develops and fleshes out Jake and his relationship with Marc and Steven, along with Khonshu’s impact on Jake and how that affects the rest of the system. Of course further exploring life with DID but that’s expected . 2) the MCU writers and directors improve their characterization 3) the main writing team and director Mohamed Diab play a major role for Moon Knight in whatever project they’re in next

[@tommarsdon5644]

It's weird how it still feels like just a year ago that everyone was complaining that everything was a sequel.

[@Chhjmmkg]

That was not about MCU. That was about soulless cashgrabs like matrix reloaded

[@tommarsdon5644]

@@Chhjmmkg I mean, kinda both. During phase 2 & 3 more than half were sequels.

[@Chhjmmkg]

@@tommarsdon5644 What? Everyone was excited for the marvel sequels then. Civil war was basically cap 3. You must've been under a rock or you must be in an alternate universe and got into ours.

[@adhdegrees]

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the writer for both Quantumania and She-Hulk had writers that only had one previous credit and it was 1-3 episodes of Rick and Morty

[@sandal_thong8631]

That was a big deal, and why the multiverse was nearly a bust. Also, not hiring writers with experience with courtroom drama for She-Hulk is inexcusable.

[@SloMoMonday]

Part of me hopes that they shadow drop an MCU version of Gwenpool. She could even be a regular superfan who's so fed up with the state of the canon that she actually manifests herself into the films. Then she sets up all the meetings and cameos and epic events to have the stories make sense to watch.

[@Dave102693]

Gwenpool Vs Spider-Gwen

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

@@Dave102693If Hailee Steinfield’s ok to play Spider-Gwen. But they could do what Star Wars’ doing by hiring different actors to play the cartoon characters.

[@coreymckee4844]

Great so more gender swapped heroes? No thanks. Thats happening way too much now in the MSheU.

[@Rexer083]

I need this now

[@Truman5555]

I also think we have to take into Consideration how much COVID has messed up alot of Phase 4 as well.

[@goodputin4324]

Not an excuse

[@slaapt]

If anything covid would have given thema few years to get the plot worked out. Just because filming was restricted doesn't mean writing was.

[@dannypalin9583]

The trouble with Endgame was the new status quo it created. Earth and the rest of the universe were now intertwined: Asgardians live in Norway. Earth knows about the Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel. The whole of space probably knows about the Avengers. People were expecting the Guardians to show up in an Earth based story, or an Iron Man memorial on a planet in a space movie. Anyone could turn up: that's what Endgame implied. Aside from a documentary about the Infinity Gauntlet in Far From Home, AvengerCon in Ms. Marvel, people cosplaying as Captain America, Black Widow and Ant-Man in The Holiday Special and Rocket being mentioned in Quantumania, there's not been much to write home about. Endgame has created expectations that they've not lived up to yet.

[@MCLegoboy]

They announced a Blade movie in 2019. They still don't have a script for it. At the end of Eternals, it's at least speculated that Blade is the one who asked if Dain was sure he wanted to pick up that sword. Blade should have been somewhere in Werewolf By Night and Moon Knight (that is if the Moon Knight show was actually a Moon Knight show dealing with crime in a city and dealing with some supernatural threats and not Egyptian gods devouring souls, not that that is out of the question, but certainly not for the first outing of the character as we see it) and then we'd at least be hyped to see Blade make another appearance. I like your idea of having a number of people go along with Ant-Man into the Quantum Realm, but I'm not so sure that would work. Although maybe since Shang-Chi and Ant-Man are based in the San Fransisco area, they could at least cross paths. Before things got switched up, there was an idea to have America Chavez be in No Way Home, so either the pandemic really screwed with people's plans, or the opportunities to use these characters are just not being taken advantage of. I don't know, maybe everyone just has contracts to appear in their own solo movies and not have to make appearances everywhere else. It's certainly hurting the cohesiveness of the world. Even just small characters like Jimmy Wu aren't looking into strange things happening, like, maybe the FBI has a new department that he heads (or rather he's their best agent) and he becomes the new Phil Coulson and we can have him corral all these new heroes together to form the New Avengers. Instead of the Department of Damage Control (they really are just acting like a SWAT team instead of cleanup crew, and that's really weird), have Jimmy Wu and Darcey team up and go from adventure to adventure checking out all the weird goings on of the MCU. Even just as post credit scenes interviewing heroes and bystanders and mentioning some weird scientific anomaly is occurring somewhere else and that's their next destination, like, lean more into the interconnectedness of this world. I'm not fatigued with Marvel (although some of their latest releases have not been spectacular), but something does need to change.

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

The answer is kinda everything? - Disney hyper capitalism with extreme greed for not properly paying so many workers especially for cg - lack of cohesion, purpose, or momentum between big storylines - drop in quality for big hitters, with even big names being just fine at best - shows are cool but also fluctuating quality and relevance - rona compromised some production - bloat in different worlds and storylines - Black Panther and Kang actor complications - studio meddling with spider-man - comics not being the most fun runs rn There are some real gems I did enjoy but wow that is ROUGH.

[@StephenLeGresley]

This may be your best video. You did something here that I have been ragging on people for not doing for a while. Not only did you identify a problem, but you also explained how to do it better. So many youtubers on here complain about film related issues and offer nothing in the way of a solution ot the problem, and so it ends up feeling like a lot of backseat driving. Good job on this video! I would love on on how you would've done the Chibnal years of Doctor Who.

[@zunaidparker]

I'll add one more thing: they really need a central figure and organization to bring them together. In the old days it was SHIELD/Fury. The lack of the same cohesive entity in phase 4/5 makes it feel that much less connected.

[@t3tsuyaguy1]

I think you're spot on. I also think the problem is made worse by the relative shallowness and lack of direction of most of these projects. Even when the individual story is engaging, it rarely tells us more about how the broader arc is connected. We've had more content in three years than the previous ten, and what do we know? Kang bad. That's it. I have no idea why any of these characters should be brought together. I don't understand how their stories relate. If I didn't already know they were in a shared universe, I wouldn't have much reason to think so, based on the projects themselves.

[@mon_nobi]

They’re writing stories now as if they are expecting the CBM KZbinrs to fill in the narrative gaps and provide a clear direction that they are too risk averse to do themselves, only ever making shallow allusions to comic ideas (young Avengers & Dark Avengers), but never actually showing us that they have a direction in mind for how all these characters they are introducing are going to crossover in the future. All this set up with such lazy and uninspired payoffs and follow through are really killing the hype. It’s like their idea of setup & payoff now is just “this person from the comics exists!” rather than “this person from the comics exists and is important to the story and future of MCU because of X”.

[@TarangShah7]

This is such a fresh and honest take! Absolutely agree! Pre phase 4, it was so clear who the important heroes were and I knew who I really cared for, especially because the small number of superheroes alllowed some depth. Now, it’s so many heroes, and everyone is spread too thin. When everyone is “important” nobody is important, the problem is now I just don’t care anymore. They try to connect everything with the multiverse but they forget to spend time on making us care about the heroes. A clear trinity of heroes would be so so helpful here - at least that would make it clear who’s the lead and who’s supporting, will help the audience to love the characters better and help scriptwriters write cohesive narratives that aren’t confusing and going everywhere.

[@techpriest2854]

it doesnt help that every time the multiverse appears its handled completely different and never allows the villains to make an impact. if we saw the side effects of the villain's actions play out then maybe there would be some worldbuilding and change that we could see. but with how it is now no one can even be aware of what is happening outside of the 'heroes'

[@adammanneh4692]

IMO WandaVision is probably one of the best projects in the Multiverse Saga so far.

[@erubin100]

that's a pretty low bar.

[@tomrusson6126]

Talk about daming with faint praise.

[@tutorialslave]

And that's despite character assassinating Wanda for the first time (before MoM), which speaks volumes.

[@illansuu9572]

... sure. The first 4 episodes were great. But lets not act like the end half wasnt kinda bad

[@RickReasonnz]

@@illansuu9572The first half I was on the edge of my seat... where is this going? What is going on? What the what?!?! And then... ugh... the series concluded. And worse, MOM made the entire show feel all the worse.

[@TheLeonardProduction]

Valid points, tho... it's also a quality problem... like, watch Thor L&T and Quantunmania back to back, then watch Civil War. There were so many mediocre to bad movies coming out back to back that, when I did decide to go back and watch Civil War, I was stunned by how good it was, I literally thought to myself "Oh, this is why I like cinema, I forgot how it felt"

[@sandal_thong8631]

Thor may have been fixed if they had another half hour to feature the supporting cast: The God-Butcher, Jane Foster, Valkyrie, Sif, and The Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm told they filmed another 2 hours, but is this stuff in it? _Thor: Ragnarok_ worked because it was successful in telling two stories: Planet Hulk and Ragnarok. But _Thor: Love and Thunder_ wasn't able to tell the stories of the God-Butcher and Mighty Thor in one.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

​@@sandal_thong8631thor ragnarok didn't told us planet hulk, just 5 seconds of it, and it was cringe.

[@user-ef7kt5sf6o]

I so hope after Cap 4 we start having them regular appearances again, we have time to sort out this feeling and also with rumours that wanda might get a special presentation before or after agatha shows that they maybe are trying to do this again

[@TheZanzibarMan]

I'm having some trouble thinking about who I would choose for a new Trio to focus on, none of the newer characters really seem to either be important or interesting enough to take up that mantle.

[@ThunderbackOG]

I would like to see Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, and the New Captain America as the Trinity of Marvel, with Kang as the new Big Baddy. I love Hulk and Spiderman, but I know there are legal issues that prevent them to be the leading ones. B. Larson is just so unlikable outside and in the Movies. Shang Shi is very cool as well. Star lords arc is already kinda through. But I love him anyway.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

Eh...i think Strange should lead. Ant Man is good but he is too street level to be leader Falcon is boring

[@LavaHawk4]

I've never seen video that hit the nail on the head this well. This is what people mean when they say the mcu isn't connected!

[@suzygirl1843]

Nah, Wakanda needs to be separate from the MCU. It works well on its own as a real life conversation about Africa. Not a coincidence that BRICS is forming post-Black Panther

[@isaacrichter3269]

Something else to keep in mind is that a lot of the MCU content was delayed at least a year because of the pandemic... we were supposed to get all the projects that were released in 2021 and 2022 earlier, but there was no MCU content in 2020 due to the pandemic, which is something that no one working at Marvel could have anticipated (given that you talk so much about timing, I think this is worth pointing out)...

[@dabeerdsgamer7763]

Furthermore, when phase 4 began it was not in the order that Marvel originally wanted. Wandavision was NOT supposed to be first. The original slate was: 1. Black widow 2. Falcon & Winter Soldier (which btw had a whole plague story line removed) 3. Eternals 4. Shang Chi 5. WandaVision (that was supposed to have a Dr Strange cameo), Probably throw in Spider man Far from Home into this mix somewhere where All of the above were epilogue to the Infinity Saga, then we start into the Multiverse Saga 6. Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness 7. then Loki and What If (to explore the Multiverse that Dr Strange 2 touches on) 8. Hawkeye & Thor L&T (to start the transition to the "next generation" And probably Spider-Man No Way Home This would have been a MUCH better flow.

[@eshaandwivedi4921]

​@@dabeerdsgamer7763 Bro far from home would've been before all these projects. It was the end of phase 3.

[@Tokubrother]

@@eshaandwivedi4921they planned for it to be the beginning of phase four

[@alexodom358]

Phases 1-3 felt like a coherent whole as you would expect from a movie franchise. phase 4 feels like walking into a comic store and trying to create one story out of the random comics you grab while blindfolded.

[@lasercraft32]

Its clear that there is NO plan. There is no end goal. None of these movies feel connected (except when they suddenly are, like Wanda in Multiverse of Madness), so you never know what is required watching or just filler, or when one movie will suddenly drop a spoiler for something that happened in a 3 hour spin-off on Disney+. None of these characters even interact or know each other. The closest we've gotten is with The Marvels, where Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and I don't even remember the name of the third one, all team up. Only ONE of those three characters even appeared in an actual movie prior to it. Ms. Marvel had a Disney+ TV show, and the third one randomly got powers in WandaVision for some reason. They'd never met each other before this movie, and there is no real explanation as to how their powers are connected. They just "canonically are" for story purposes.

[@xtaylor4123]

All the MCU’s current problems are the result of trying to rush from Endgame to Secret Wars without any proper Avengers type event in between. The Infinity Saga worked because there were progressions within progressions with each phase building up to an Avengers movie, then those Avengers movies building up in Infinity War and Endgame. But the Multiverse Saga has no time for this careful timeline, and instead haphazardly forces exposition dumps into regular releases like Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania that really should focus on their individual characters.

[@DimeUhDozen]

15:58 Captain Marvel was actually in the post-credits of Shang-Chi but I honestly do not blame you for forgetting because it was just that inconsequential.

[@JaimeD.]

It was random to a T.

[@neb2504]

I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while, you could tell me half the new MCU heroes from Phase 4 would never show up again and I’d believe you

[@jasond.2147]

This is exactly it! We feel completely overwhelmed my the sheer amount of content being pumped of as well as feeling a lack of love and connection to the characters because we see them once every 4-5 years now. On top of that, due to the rushing of pumping out content the one appearance by a beloved character we've gotten have been lack luster and poorly written. Looking back at phases 1-3 I'm surprised that there was not as much content as the latter phases 4-5 because we spent so much time with each character throughout the whole phase instead of just one lack luster performance.

[@1TightMinute]

The problem with comic book movies is they are played out. What can you do to top what endgame did? Every genre was extremely popular and then not. The 40s had private eye stories. The 50s and 60s had war movies and westerns. The 70s were all about disaster movies. The 80s action movies with some cop or military guy. The 90s had rom coms and the pulp fiction knock offs. 2000s had the stoner movies. The past 15 years have been all about comics but like everything else it gets boring after awhile. It’s been awhile, a long while.

[@tgreen9825]

I like and to some extent agree with your argument, but I’d say the bigger issue is one you touched on which is that it’s very tough to see how this new batch of heroes will intertwine going forward. The Marvels will have a big hurdle to overcome with that one

[@connorberry6377]

THIS is what I’ve been talking about - this is a huge problem

[@helianthusphoton1178]

brilliant take. i seriously appreciate an argument thats so much more than the "the mcu is dead" take we see basically every day thats essentially hold no meaning now. great video, well worded.

[@Ben-zr4ho]

Deadpool doesnt count because he breaks the fourth wall. He knows the existence of the MCU without even being in it. He knew Cable and Thanos had the same actor...

[@infiniteimagination3527]

Well part of the problem to this timing as well is of course the pandemic and the strike. Not to say we have a lot of control over any of this, but the pandemic caused a halt in our regular scheduled programming for Doctor Strange 2, Black Widow, and the initial order for the tv shows. This leads to a rush of getting as much content out in hopes that audiences would catch on but reshoots weren’t done correctly and everything overall seemed to be rushed. And of course the strike now has stopped production and caused another “time lapse” so to speak where we’re waiting longer for content, but hopefully the content isn’t spurred out in a major heap and can actually be sorted out and organized in a manner that makes enough sense to the audience. Doesn’t justify the timing issues but helps to explain why there managed to be a disconnect in certain characters such as mentioned before Captain Marvel and others. But ironically, only time will tell how Marvel plans to handle their content and how careful they are with the way things have been recently. Soo I guess we’ll have to wait and find out, but I’m somewhat hopeful either way.

[@santanu-fr]

Dr Strange was my anchor to Marvel post Endgame. I would accept even a bad movie as long as Benedict was cool & kicked as. But the moment they didn't refer to him as Sorcerer supreme my eyebrows raised. The movie ended I brushed my hands and said goodbye. Haven't watched a single second of MCU content after that.

[@theomnitorium7476]

It was indeed a very strange decision to make him not be Sorcerer Supreme anymore, especially since all the movies and shows still very much act like he is. Wong doesn't do s**t.

[@santanu-fr]

​@@theomnitorium7476 Even though people started to see the cracks in Marvel I didnt buy it. I was so hyped after watching Spd NWH on Christmas eve night. I barely knew Dr Strange from d 90s SpiderMan Cartoon. But when Benedict was casted I said take my money. He went from fighting Thanos to getting clapped & gassed & playing baby sitter throughout his own movie. Marvel made it clear we don't care about your heroes so I closed the book. Thank you for the good times.

[@alvaromaureira9366]

I was actually thinking the same thing. On the one hand, we can understand giving the actors more time between spaces for other projects, but on the other hand, let's be realistic, what attracted the most and was undoubtedly key to the success of the MCU was the evolution and cohesion of a great story. These days it seems like they're so throwing any idea on the table and hoping they'll work making the entire MCU lose steam even the main story they're trying to tell feels so disconnected. In the same way, there is no denying that they had to face a pandemic and make a chronological readjustment, but they had already announced a large number of projects before that and they continued to do them during the panderia. In the end it's the lack of a true focus on characters and themes that is plaguing the MCU and that's where all the other complaints come from.

[@TheArtSmith23]

With this way of looking at who is the MCU's main character, I think you can make a strong case that Wong is the closest thing to the MCU's new Iron Man, Cap, or Thor. He's shown up in several projects.

[@sandal_thong8631]

Or he's support, like Nick Fury was.

[@Rascool69]

You nailed it. Too much going on with no blueprint for who will be in the new avengers lineup, no cohesion about the grouping of the thunderbolts &no direction about how the eternals, shang chi & moon Knight will be integrated or if they will be. Plus the skrulls & the Kang stuff should be separated somehow imo. Idk what's the answer but they're losing me now

[@gonesnake2337]

Your 'new trinity' is a great idea! That really would've held my interest.

[@anthonyfreire7251]

I agree with everything you're saying. It feels like Marvel is throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks. They should have gone with Captain Marvel (space stories), Doctor Strange (mystic/ multiverse), Captain America (Avengers/ global threats), Spider-Man (street level), and Moon Knight (some bleed with street level but with the new characterization occult/ monsters). All these new districts of the MCU could easily weave together into some crazy stories.

[@SuperCeleste007]

Also, Hawkeye was supposed to be in infinity war, but his seen ultimately got moved to be the opening of endgame the reason into why that scene was changed and was removed from infinity war, and added to endgame, was because of the fact that he had not shown up prior in infinity war, and it would be out of nowhere and weird for him to show up in the scene so ultimately the scene got moved to endgame so ultimately every scene that he was supposed to be in got cut, and he got completely removed for that film for his returning role to happen in the next avengers movie

[@arturocastroverde3349]

I think that elevate the presence of Hawkeye in Endgame. He was absent in IW so he doesn't know wtf is going on, which traslades to the audience who already know what is happening.

[@MartyFox]

I think this is related to another issue with time - while we are experiencing the years passing, the MCU has already had the years pass during the time skip in Endgame. The MCU has to stall, without moving the timeline forward, until we catch up, and the way it is doing that is by going wide. Even then, I think GotG Vol. 3 and Quantumania are canonically in 2026?

[@mon_nobi]

They should’ve gone deep rather than wide. It was smart to introduce young avengers and dark avengers characters but so not smart to tell stories in ways that totally skip over the 5yr gap. Smart to introduce new characters after the old guard has died or retired, but not smart to introduce them all in ways that seem as if the Snap & Blip didn’t personally affect them.

[@EatSleepEmpire]

The fall of people to say we haven’t seen characters in 2 years after 15 years of straight content. Growing up we had to wait THREE years for the next installment of something like Star Wars. And then after only THREE films and no live action tv shows, that was it forever and ever for all we knew. The lack of gratitude from modern audiences is atrocious.

[@illumination_0109]

i feel like each phase shouldve been focused on Dr Strange, Scarlet Witch and anything to deal with the mystic arts while having the effects of those films affect phase 6 introducing the multiverse slowly

[@qwirkt]

IMO they should have used the multiverse to bring in the X-Men and then never again lol. It’s an annoying bullshit plot device in the comics and unlikely to really fly with normal audiences.

[@austincorreia53]

I fully agree with this video, the sequels are getting stretched too far apart!

[@sandal_thong8631]

I've been saying that if Doctor Strange was owned by Sony we'd have had our third movie already, just as we've had our third Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. They essentially cut out the second movie of him fighting evil Mordo (I'm told he was killed by Scarlet Witch in the opening of the movie, but it was deleted). Maybe he will help Clea in the Dark Dimension, or maybe they will skip that too. In the comics he teamed up with Scarlet Witch, Blade and others to defeat Dracula and all vampires for good, but forget about that!

[@tommarsdon5644]

This is why I'm so boggled when people say the problem of phase 4 is that they are too busy trying to connect everything. That's just... False...

[@snow-wj1mv]

Problem is, earlier they first led us to Avengers 1, and the post credits,well they were answered in the subsequent 1 or 2 film USUALLY. Then the movies led to age of Ultron,and the movies which did not like Dark World of Guardians, introduced us to Infinity stones. After that, they were building to civil war,while some movies introduced us to more infinity stones (except guardians 2). After civil war, yes some movies like homecoming did not have any foreshadowing to infinity war but still it was Spiderman. Now the post credit scenes are left unanswered. Fiege wants to just take us to the next crossover without letting us care about the new team. I'd cut off the extra slack and have more movies about less character rather then giving every character good or bad a series or movie. Obviously the writing is an issue in itself.

[@mon_nobi]

Agreed. They need to tighten up and focus on planning again. I’m sure they have some minor plans for why they chose Echo and Agatha and Ironheart and etc and whatever way they intend to incorporate them into the larger narratives, but with so many characters already introduced in Phases 4 & 5, they REALLY need to have a plan for how those shows connect to the larger story of the saga and to make sure that they aren’t just giving us more crappy MCU homework.

[@arturocastroverde3349]

Even GOTG 2 develop his characters and made plot points for Infinity War: -Gamora's sacrifice for Nebula -Quill is not inmortal now -Rocket cares alot about his new family Things that where even more fleshed out in Endgame with Nebula being alive and redeming his 2014 sister. Rocket suporting the Avengers the same way the Guardians did for him.

[@snow-wj1mv]

@@arturocastroverde3349 never though about it like that, but yes you are correct, these things which we do not notice even after watching the movies are fed in our subconscious mind, making the ending of a character arc feel much more fulfilling.

[@idonthaveagoddamnname2623]

As a pretty big Marvel fan (comics and movies primarily), I’m used to keeping track of multiple characters and story arcs etc but until you mentioned it, I had COMPLETELY forgotten about White Vision, and don’t really remember the character traits of some others. I don’t think the MCU can really recover from this especially with ‘the mouse’ pulling the strings, pumping out as much content as possible. Hopefully they just slow down a little, plan things out, make it coherent. It’s that key balance of making the movies work as standalone films while adding a bit of that consistency and interconnectivity. They just need to make it not suck. That’s the solution.

[@EatSleepEmpire]

In relation to not seeing characters consistently, there’s multiple things to consider. If they stayed at their current rate and focused on a few of the same superheroes most years, you’d never get the time to see a live action version of your favourite character. Also I think they are putting out a lot of different characters to see what sticks. See how audiences react. They aren’t going to bank on captain marvel being the backbone of the new team if everyone starts reacting badly to Brie Larson. We’ve also had huuuge disruptions in production ability and the delays over the last 4 years and counting so comparing it to other periods isn’t very fair. I also think it’s good to consider that they are putting stuff out there while they bide their time working on the next big part of the story with the fantastic 4 and Mutants and Kang. Why can’t we just enjoy some above average live action super hero content while we wait for the big story to come together? No continuous franchise has lasted this long while being this active. Why do we expect them to have it all figured out?

[@deltalord6969]

Its a catch twenty two. Too many introductions to too many heroes so you need to loosely connect them in some way and create more projects. However if you create more projects and release them it becomes a situation of quantity over quality and even now that effect is being felt and the general performance has been going down so imagine if they upped that to try and develop everyone at the same time. So in the end no one gets developed and the quality still goes down cause theres so many people introduced.