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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.