The MCU is going through some rough patches right now. Between the oversaturation of Disney+ shows, the decline in interest from the general public, and the lack of cohesive direction alongside multiple changes in plans, the once king of the box office is now in a place of doubt. In my mind, there is one key element that has led to this point: the aforementioned lack of direction. In its first 3 phases, while not always consistent, the MCU felt driven by a simple outline of focus. The build-up to the Avengers, their fallout, and the heroes coming back together to deal with Thanos. The basic outline helped keep a consistent throughline with audiences even with more disconnected films. With Phase 4 onward, however, there doesn’t seem to be a concrete underlying narrative and that is all thanks to what the Marvel heads decided to shift focus to: the multiverse.
The idea of a multiverse as a story element is a compelling one. Focusing on different versions of multiple characters and infinite possibilities of crossovers and dynamics. Not to mention the factor of nostalgia since that has become huge as of late with big franchises. However, outside of a few projects, the multiverse has sort of felt like an afterthought. Rather than being an upfront element of the recent MCU, the multiverse and its role in the series is still unclear, mostly regarding the broader strokes of the ongoing big picture. While some projects have focused on it like Loki or Multiverse of Madness, there aren’t many direct events in said projects that fully impact the wider MCU at least compared to the Infinity Saga. There, each big event related to the infinity stones felt like they mattered. The tesseract resulted in the creation of the Avengers, the mind stone created Vision, and the power stone bringing the Guardians together and bringing Thanos into the picture.
This is also an issue with the main threat that was set up with the multiverse. While Kang is a compelling character, he doesn’t seem to have the chops to be the next big villain following Thanos. Even if the present set up has been weak, he just feels too disconnected from the heroes in concept to feel like a tangible threat. Thanos is directly involved with both the first Avengers film and the first Guardians films, not to mention that the infinity stones he looks for are a consistent throughline throughout multiple films even when he isn’t there at all. His shadow and inevitable threat looms over the first 3 phases. Kang on the other hand is more disconnected and less involved. He has no direct connection to any of the characters aside from Loki or even the larger multiverse story focus outside of the potential of his variants waging war. It doesn’t help that Johnathan Majors legal troubles and Quantumania bombing led to Marvel throwing their hands in the air and giving up on Kang in general.
The funny thing is that as Marvel has struggled with the multiverse, Phases 4 and 5 have elements that should have been prioritized as the major focuses of recent Marvel before the multiverse. Projects like Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Wakanda Forever deal with the passing of the torch and characters dealing with having to handle change without the heroes that led the previous phases. Thunderbolts and Brave New World have focused on developing new hero teams in the absence of the old Avengers. In my mind, the aspect of transition and new blood should have been the focus of the MCU post Endgame. Focusing on the secondary characters who have to take up new mantles and the young heroes who are coming into their own and having to deal with the new status quo of their world. Not to mention that the departure of heroes like Iron Man and Captain America could lead to a deeper local threat such as the Dark Avengers, Kingpin, or even Doom coming out of the shadows. A character like Doom could serve as a big threat that’s more ground level and directly involved with the shifts in the world post-Endgame. Someone like Norman Osborne could take the vacancy left by Tony Stark for his personal gain, would have been a more ever-present threat and more connected to the story and dynamics of the characters we follow. Kang is too broad of a threat and should have been replaced in early discussions by someone that is more directly connected to the changes in the lives and specific world of our heroes.
At some level, I feel that Feige and his cohorts went into Phase 4 without a real plan of attack. When starting, the first part of Marvel, they knew that the Avengers was the end goal and built the film lineup to lead to that. Then, they chose Thanos as the larger threat to build towards. While elements of the plan changed and elements came in and out, such as the addition of Spiderman and the removal of the Inhumans, the core focus was decided on and the MCU was sculpted around it. Now however, it feels like they chose the Multiverse as the focus on a whim. On paper, doing Kang and the Multiverse really should have just been the Avengers and Secret Wars films rather than having it be the entire main throughline. Even if it was given more focus, I guarantee that having multiple films and projects focused directly on the multiverse would make things even more convoluted. The current feeling is that the MCU feels directionless since there isn’t a clear larger point. Many status quos have changed, but those changes feel more isolated to specific characters rather than the larger universe. The fact that we haven’t even gotten a new Avengers team or film is a bad sign since those used to signify a major point in prior phases and indicated who the major players are supposed to be.
Who even are the leads of the MCU now after the departure of Cap and Tony? Spiderman could be, but No Way Home reset his status quo to be more disconnected from most other heroes. Sam Wilson was saddled with a troubled film that was more focused on disconnected loose ends rather than presenting him as the new Captain America. Doctor Strange has been a consistent character, but he has been more of a supporting hero rather than a lead. It doesn’t help that his movie felt less like a proper exploration of the multiverse and what that would mean for the MCU, and more of an unfocused isolated story. Black Panther and Wakanda were likely to be big elements of the MCU going forward given the cultural impact of his first movie, but Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing came out of nowhere and it’s unclear what the future of the Wakanda side of the MCU will be at the moment.
It feels that from so many angles, Marvel just didn’t think through what they wanted in terms of the future of their cash cow and believed that coasting on post-Endgame hype and interest would sustain the ship. Now that we have seen a couple of definitive flops out of the franchise, there’s a sense of panic, especially with how quickly the shift to Doom was thrown as a Hail-Mary for public interest. Even so, that feels like a temporary quick fix and the issues of Marvel are fundamentally deeper in terms of how they develop and conceive of their projects. It feels like the movies and shows they make are done quicker and with more micromanagement than ever. Even while the concept of the multiverse being the major focus was never really a good idea, the production model of rapid release didn’t do the concept any favors in terms of making it work. I doubt that Marvel will ever truly go away. So many of their characters are cultural forces and kids and fans will still give attention to some of their exploits. Even so, the fact that the two biggest hits of the recent Marvel phases were No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine, two movies explicitly focusing on nostalgia from the past as a selling point, shows that confidence and momentum for Marvel’s present is at an all-time low. In truth, the MCU needs a hard reset in terms of how it operates. The rush of streaming and putting out more films and shows did more harm than good both in terms of creative juice and audience engagement. Unfortunately, the MCU is also a major pillar of Disney’s business model and they won’t allow any proper downtime to let them figure things out.
I feel that the time in the cultural spotlight might be over for the MCU and that there needs to be a real re-evaluation in regards to how it operates. The push to put out more films and shows has created an unstable environment for the franchise, and it will be hard to maintain the level of success from the past due to multiple factors. At some level, I feel that audiences in general would eventually detach from the MCU. Whether it being due to the perceived decline in quality or general burnout from over a decade of films, the franchise was never going to sustain its position at the top of the mountain forever. The choices made as of late haven’t helped and likely exacerbated the potential decline. I have no idea what the future for Marvel holds and I feel that it won’t likely get back to its place as the king of Hollywood. Maybe that could be a good thing since a wider variety of films from multiple places finding success is beneficial for film in general. Even so, I do feel that the MCU has had a large impact, for better or worse, on film for the last decade or so and its influence will always be felt even as the franchise is on rocky ground. Could the MCU get back on its feet, I suppose. The concept of a cinematic universe in general was a bold risk, so anything could happen at this point.
