2021 marked an interesting year of firsts for Marvel (Which, for the purpose of this post, is a blanket term for the Marvel Cinematic Universe). The first year to release four movies. The first year for simultaneous Disney+ shows, of which there were five, almost six. It was also the first year they released a movie to negative reception.
And they're not stopping. They're just not stopping. Also this year, they announced two new movies, a plan for another Spider-Man trilogy, and seven (!) new TV shows (And renewed two for a second season). And, unlike most of the previously announced television shows, these are mostly gratuitous. TV shows like Marvel Zombies, Spider-Man: Freshman Year, Echo, Agatha: House of Harkness, a Shang-Chi spin-off, and a Wakanda show, while niche, really don't do anything more than burden the consumer. They're superfluous.
Let's look at the MCU's track record for 2021 - we started on January 5th with WandaVision, which aired to intense fan scrutiny and finished with an objectively bad and admittedly rushed finale. It wasn't the fact that fan theories existed that made the WandaVision finale disappointing, it was the fact that such a creative and unique series ended with what you'd expect from a superhero property - a big finale with a CGI sky beam where the villain is "good guy but with different colors."
Then we got a two-week break and then The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which I personally really like, but I won't argue is perfect by any means. Once again, a butchered finale. The emotional attachment to new characters such as the main villain of the show (!) is nonexistent, and while the "People won't accept a black Captain America" theme hits harder than Marvel usually tries, you have the direct opposite effect when Captain America tells politicians to not call people who blow up buildings for political gain terrorists. And then Sharon Carter is the Powerbroker? Neat, I guess.
After that, we had a month and a half break and we got to Loki, which is by far and away my favorite MCU Disney+ show. Aside from some shaky pacing, Loki had major improvements from the previous two shows. A good soundtrack for one, and, more importantly, a finale that follows through. The Loki finale was the model finale - it kept with the style of the show. It was a lot of talking, a lot of calm explanations that satisfy the questions presented. While the mechanics of the TVA weren't perfect, Loki was very good.
But then we got to the first problem that I'm sure the MCU will have a lot of going forward - the TV shows and movies overlapping. Black Widow came out on July 9th, and the finale of Loki aired on July 14th. Instead of feeling like the movie was the big deal, it felt more like the movie was just happening in between episodes of Loki, which does not work. You can only have so much online chatter, and it was decidedly directed towards Loki.
Then you got to Black Widow, which, leaving my opinions out of it, was objectively trash. It was basically the type of movie the MCU normally does better than. In the scenario where Captain America: The Winter Soldier was better than Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Black Widow is Jack Ryan. And you never want to be Jack Ryan. A pale approximation of the spy genre but with lackluster action and poor visual effects (But oddly decent reviews?) coming out five years too late. Add on the lawsuit and the phrase "Any publicity is good publicity" doesn't seem as true anymore.
After Black Widow and the Loki finale, What If...? was next on the plate, approximately a month later. This was Marvel's first animated series, which was generally well-liked but definitely had its issues, namely the uneven quality of anthology episodes, animation, voice acting, and tonality. Here we have a series where there's a good chance some of these things will never be brought up again and seemed to pride itself in breaking established lore and neutering/overpowering major plot points. But it was easy to write off as "homework for the fans" because of the animation.
Once again a movie came out in the crosshairs - Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was early September while What If...? wrapped up in October. But the uneven quality of What If...? episodes made Shang-Chi, which found lots of acclaim and box office success, feel important. Add on the newest MCU appropriation (Asian culture and fight scenes) and you have a very solid movie and the only new film franchise the MCU will be adding for the next two years. A huge win here.
But that win was immediately followed by Eternals, the MCU's first film to earn truly mixed reviews and go full-on rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. It sold fewer tickets than The Incredible Hulk did in 2008, meaning that without inflation, it would be the lowest-grossing MCU film. That's... not good by any means, especially with a director hot off the heels from winning Best Picture and Best Director. Eternals was a disappointment, Marvel’s Good Dinosaur.
Eternals, which happened about a month after What If...? finished, was proceeded by a month and a half breather and then the start of Hawkeye, which, although liked, was thoroughly forgettable, once again with an “okay I guess” finale featuring an out of character Kingpin. It was more interested in setting up Kate Bishop than it was being a compelling story, something this phase has struggled heavily with. Nearly every single entry has been more concerned with set-up than payoff.
But, of course, you have Spider-Man: No Way Home (Wedged between two Hawkeye episodes but no one cares). One of the biggest movies of all-time domestic and worldwide, critically acclaimed, beloved by fans, surprisingly adept at handling fan service, and an all-around win. Aside from terrible posters and questionable plot logic, the movie was a slam dunk.
So, then, why? Why does Marvel need to be stopped if they've just released one of their biggest movies? Well, the MCU really needed to prove itself after Avengers: Endgame. At the time it was the highest-grossing film and the finale of ten years of careful worldbuilding. Marvel definitely has the fanbase to keep going, it's whether they're losing the casual audience that's important. People like my dad who just saw the overall plot and kept buying tickets to see it play out and, well, it did.
Gone are the days of staying after the credits to see Thanos in The Avengers and hearing five kids hype up "The big bad." Now an entire generation, about to be two, has grown up alongside these films. Online chatter can help determine whether a movie lives or dies. Things are different than they were in 2008 - and thus the question remains:
Should Marvel keep going?
The answer is yes. For a fan like myself, I just want to see a giant Secret Wars movie with the Fantastic Four and X-Men. Mr. Fantastic as a mentor to Peter Parker. Doctor Doom as a legitimate bad guy, a Cyclops who's interesting, and the cinematic treatment for Squirrel Girl. And I'll hang on to get us there. Anything for a good Fantastic Four movie and a shared universe with Marvel's most popular characters.
People seem to forget that, don't they? That Marvel's biggest characters are their first family, the X-Men, and Spider-Man. It's always been that way. You never saw an Avengers: The Animated Series in the 90s, what did you have? X-Men (Which, by the way, is getting a revival on Disney+).
Now, I'm 100% confident that the MCU has a few more No Way Home cards up its sleeves. Returning characters like Daredevil, the rumors about Ghost Rider, multiverse hijinks with previous Marvel franchises, (Hopefully) surefire wins such as Moon Knight or Blade, and the prospect of giant crossovers with some of Marvel's best characters facing off against their best villains all sound incredible.
It's the other half of their content - the agreeable "I guess" type projects we've gotten a lot of this year. Basically, because of the 200% increase in content, the bad apples are becoming a bit more noticeable and the okay apples blend together. When these things stop feeling like events and feel more like homework to see how some hero got their new costume, that's when we're in trouble.
And to be honest, a lot of the Disney+ shows already have that feel. Hawkeye's story wasn't enthralling, What If...? feels mostly superfluous, and most of them dropped the ball on the finale. Plus most of them (WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel) serve as costume upgrades and glorified prequels to more interesting movies (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Captain America 4, Young Avengers, The Marvels). How will projects such as Marvel Zombies, Spider-Man: Freshman Year, Echo, Agatha: House of Harkness, and Okoye be received when they're spin-offs for merely okay characters and the series can literally have zero impact on the MCU moving forward?
I feel like the MCU needs to either slow down their content, make less of it, or just... make sure all of it is good. Otherwise, audience burnout and more scenarios like Eternals will happen. In the words of Ron Swanson, "Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing."
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