Back in 2008, when Iron Man first dropped, I was all about it.
They teased S.H.I.E.L.D., they gave us Nick Fury in the post-credit scene, and they mercilessly teased the idea of the Avengers. Not only was it a great movie, it was a setup to something bigger coming. And for once, it didn’t feel like Hollywood jerking itself off over nothing.
A couple months later, The Incredible Hulk came out and completely wiped the floor with that bloated Ang Lee version from 2003. And again, more teasing of the Avengers.
Then Iron Man 2 hits in 2010, brings in Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and now we’re cooking. At that point Marvel was like Hawkeye. They couldn’t miss the mark if they tried.
By the time Thor and Captain America landed in 2011, comic book movie fever had taken over everything. Even people who never picked up a comic in their life were suddenly locked in. Everyone, myself included, was hyped out of their mind waiting for the Avengers to make their big on-screen debut.
Then it finally dropped.
The Avengers in 2012 blew me the fuck away.
This was the first time anyone had pulled something like this off at that level and not screwed it up. Multiple standalone heroes, separate storylines, all coming together in one movie that actually delivered. Not just “pretty good” or “decent,” it was straight-up incredible. That movie earned every ounce of hype it got.
I’m saying it. That was the peak.
You can make a case for Endgame, and I won’t fight you too hard on it. Endgame was big, emotional, and it wrapped things up in a satisfying way. But for me, it just didn’t hit the same. By the time it came out, we’d already seen the formula beaten into the ground. A big team-up, giant CGI fights, emotional goodbyes, the usual. Sure, Endgame was done on a grander scale, but we already knew the playbook, so some of the magic was gone.
If 2012 me had seen Endgame, I probably would’ve flipped my shit. But in 2019, I watched it, said “that was pretty good,” then went about my day. That’s not a knock on Endgame so much as it is a sign of what the MCU had turned into.
By 2019, we got used to it.
Back when this whole thing started, it felt new. It was ambitious, something you hadn’t really seen before. Now it’s just another genre. Without that novelty, these movies have to stand on their own as actual stories.
Martin Scorsese got raked over the coals for saying superhero movies aren’t real cinema, and people acted like he committed some kind of crime. While he wasn’t entirely right, he wasn’t entirely wrong either. I think a lot of people missed the point he was trying to make. These movies lean on spectacle, hype, and built-in audiences. There’s nothing wrong with that by itself, but when that becomes the entire business model, you’re going to lose depth. Hollywood was already getting lazy with storytelling, and the MCU gave them the justification to double down. It showed studios you can print money by sticking to a formula, recycling characters, and playing it safe instead of actually writing something worth a damn.
Over time, I felt the drop.
There were still some hits. The first Guardians of the Galaxy was fun. Daredevil was great. Loki had its moments. Even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was great.
But for every one of those, there’s mountains of forgettable or outright bad content sitting right next to it.
Hawkeye. Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Echo. What If. WandaVision, which started strong and then completely tripped over itself at the finish line. Most of the movie sequels range from “fine, I guess” to “why did this even get made?”
Then there’s Thor: Love and Thunder.
I still don’t know what the hell that was supposed to be. A comedy? A parody? A midlife crisis on film? That movie felt like Marvel making fun of itself without realizing it.
The writing across a lot of this stuff has been rough. Marvel shows and movies have become filled with cringe dialogue, forced moments, and scenes that feel like they were designed in a marketing meeting instead of written for a story.
The all-women team-up at the end of Endgame is the perfect example. It didn’t feel natural, it just felt staged. Especially when Captain Marvel was built up to be this powerhouse who was almost on par with Thanos himself. She didn’t need backup. The scene wasn’t about the story, it was about making some kind of point, and it stuck out because of it.
Same thing with the scene in Captain Marvel, where she’s fighting while “Just a Girl” plays. That didn’t feel empowering, it felt like someone checking a box. There’s a difference, and audiences can tell.
This is probably the biggest issue. A lot of it doesn’t feel like storytelling anymore, it just feels like content being pushed out to keep the machine running.
Marvel keeps cranking out shows and movies that don’t really go anywhere, don’t really add anything, and don’t justify the time you spend watching them. It’s just volume. The more they release, the less any of it feels important.
They’re oversaturating their own brand into the ground.
The most frustrating part is there’s no excuse for it. They’re sitting on decades of incredible source material, with amazing characters, great storylines, and tons of stuff that should be impossible to screw up. If you hand all of that to writers who treat it like a checklist instead of a story, this is what you get.
At that point, I’d almost rather they just stop.
Maybe the future’s brighter than we think, though. I’m interested to see what Jon Bernthal does with the Punisher. If they had the balls to pull from Garth Ennis’s Punisher MAX run, we could get something legitimately great.
It’s doubtful they’ll go that direction though, and in the miraculous event they do they’re probably going to water it down. Even if they didn’t, I can’t picture anyone but the late great Michael Clarke Duncan playing Barracuda, so maybe it’s better if they just leave it alone.
Fantastic Four wasn’t bad either, so maybe there’s still a chance they figure it out. I’m not holding my breath, but there’s at least a small window for a turnaround.
At the end of the day, it’s not complicated.
If you’re going to entertain me, then actually entertain me.
If you’re going to tell a story, then tell a good one.
Right now, Marvel isn’t doing either, and that’s a hell of a fall from where they started.
More from Angry_Jerk
Don't miss any new posts. Join AJnet Magazine's mailing list and receive updates straight to your inbox once a week!