As of writing this article, it’s been a little over nine months since Tony Stark sacrificed his life in the final battle of Avengers: Endgame. A lot has happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline since then. And a lot has happened in our little timeline too. It’s been five years since we watched Endgame. The MCU has since entered the Multiverse Saga and progressed to phase five (Endgame was phase three, FYI). Scores of new characters have been introduced and some 12 movies and 10 TV series have come about since then.
But the MCU is suffering. Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige’s ambitious layout for phases four and five is, well, in shambles. And that was not just because of a pandemic slowing production down. Neither was it because of superhero fatigue – an anticipated phenomenon where people would grow tired of the superhero genre after Avengers: Endgame. If anything, the first season of Amazon’s The Boys, which premiered three months after Endgame did so well that it was considered one of the most successful Amazon shows of all time.
You see, Feige is a producer, and his grand plans came from the eyes of a man in 2019 sitting on the largest cinematic cash cow in the world. As a producer, he saw the numbers. And as any producer seeing good numbers, he decided to churn out content more frequently to bring in more money. Except that in increasing the quantity, Feige ended up sacrificing the quality of the shows.
In the 2019 Comic-Con, Feige announced as many as seven movies and TV shows for 2021, as opposed to a maximum of 3 movies that were released per year in phases one, two and three. Furthermore, to understand what was happening in the movies, you had to see all the shows on Disney+, which many were reluctant to subscribe to. With tight deadlines and small teams, the CGI that had come to define MCU movies began to crumble. Unable to keep up with the complexities that a concept like the Multiverse brought with it, the writing started to give away. The Marvel hype was still strong, but the era of Marvel’s dominance at the box office was dead.
What the studios forgot was that their movies were a product of careful consideration. The twenty-something films that had led up to it were made with a clear vision of what was to come ahead. Thanos was the villain only in the last two films of the Infinity Saga, but he had cameos as early as the first Avengers movie. The films never followed the comics religiously, but they took their time to flesh out each set of heroes and then move on to the next. The result was a clear hierarchy of characters, memorable dialogue and clear plot lines that were both easy to root for and keep track of.
But then Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame happened. The latter became the highest-grossing film ever, but it also unknowingly created an exit point for many fans. After all, the face of the movie till now – Iron Man and Captain America – had either died or retired.
New characters had to be introduced and old ones had to be moved up the hierarchy. A new trio had to take up the place of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. And right when people were excited about who the new trio will be, Marvel lost one of the most beloved candidates for the role. On 28th August 2020, Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically succumbed to cancer.
Marvel has introduced many new characters and plotlines since then, but we never got anyone as the face of the franchise till now. There are many different pockets of superheroes, but not a clear division of A-list and B-list heroes like the OG Avengers that came out of the 2012 Avengers movie and the ones that were left after Avengers: Age of Ultron. The current batch team up with others as needed, but are essentially their own entity. The multiverse links them together as the infinity stones did, but with no overarching villain like Thanos creating the anticipation of what is to come in the end, the multiverse link is wobbly at best.
An Avengers movie bringing all the superhero groups together could salvage this, but that’s not happening till the last two movies of phase six, which is slated for 2026 and 2027. So we now have a big bunch of superheroes that have been established, but nothing is uniting them to a common goal for a long time.
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This is where the announcement of Robert Downey Jr’s return as Dr. Doom comes in. I have no doubt in RDJ’s ability to pull off the role of the Fantastic Four villain. If anything, his stint as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has me convinced that he will be able to play the role with conviction. Besides, the comics also has an issue called Infamous Iron Man where the masked scientist forges an Iron Man suit for himself and carries on the legacy of Tony Stark after his death. I don’t know if the plot is going towards that direction or not, but if that happens, we could get Iron Man on screen again.
But Marvel has a history of rushing things and falling flat on its face because of it. And now the penultimate film of the Multiverse Saga, where all the madness that is phases four to six is supposed to come together and make sense, has been swiftly changed from Avengers: Kang Dynasty to Avengers: Doomsday in a matter of four months.
For now, though, the Marvel hype is back. Deadpool and Wolverine is doing well in theatres. The Russo brothers are returning to the studios. RDJ will probably be the face of the MCU again. But this is not enough. If there’s anything we have learnt in the last six years, it’s that for every Deadpool and Wolverine, there is a Thor: Love and Thunder. For every good film that the Russos have made, there is a Cherry starring Tom Holland that leaves you disappointed. For every superhero movie with great CGI, there’s a She-Hulk that leaves you wondering if this really is a Marvel show that you are watching.
The child in me who grew up with the Marvel movies is excited for what is to come for the MCU. But I am no longer a child, and the adult me can only hope for the best.
