The Rise and Fall of the MCU

[Music] what's up my comic comrades get ready because today we are talking about the rise and fall of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now I know what a lot of you were saying Eris the MCU hasn't fallen the DCU is what fell and is over and this is true the MCU has not been scrapped like the DCU or the SN verse but guess what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has most certainly been on a down tick since endgame wrapped up the 10-year Infinity Saga back in 2019 that's something that's been debated for years but at this this point it's just undeniable since the start of phase 4 in 2021 the MCU has been all over the place and most certainly on a decline pretty much across the board Revenue fan reception quality of film making a clear story Direction and we could go on and on the problem has become so obvious that it's escalated to the top of the Disney Corporation with CEO Bob Iger making several damning statements about the state of the MCU in recent months including his most recent comments at an investors conference in San Francisco where he admitted that Disney has quietly canceled a number of projects that they didn't feel were strong enough and while he didn't say which if any of those were MCU projects based on other comments Iger has made about the MCU shifting its focus back to its stronger franchises we can safely assume that a number of previously announced MCU projects have gotten the axe for one example Avengers the Kang Dynasty Will at best be getting a new title if not being scrapped completely so that's what we're going to dive into here how the once seemingly Unstoppable Marvel Studios went from a box office guarantee to its current crisis state in just a few short years also if you're looking at me wondering where you can get one of these dope variant snapback hats you can grab your own along with a bunch of other variant merch at our variant lab shop at variant comics.com it's a great way to rep the variant nation and support what we're doing here on the show the link for that is in the description okay so let's start this deep dive into the state of the MCU by establishing that the first 10 years of the MCU is what launched comic books and their characters to a level of Pop Culture awareness it had never seen before now to be clear the 1978 Christopher Reef Superman movie The 89 Michael Keaton Batman movie along with the fox X-Men movies and the Toby McGuire Spider-Man films were huge hits and Pioneers of the genre but when Iron Man came out in 2008 it was the start of a new golden age of comic book films it was the introduction to a universe of complex characters that were interconnected across several films this meant Robert Downey Iron Man could cross over with the Hulk which he did in the very first MCU Hulk film when Edward Norton was still playing the Hulk it also meant after the first Iron Man Hulk Captain America Iron Man 2 and Thor movie they could assemble and give us the Avengers on the big screen for the first time which they did in 2012 and it was one of the most epic things to witness we're spoiled now but back in 2012 seeing the Avengers assembled for the first time in Manhattan facing off against Loki and the chatari was mind-blowing it still gives me chills when I rewatch it because I remember the feeling of seeing it for the first time after the first Avengers film was such a huge success for Marvel Studios seeing that the fandom was loving it it set us down an incredible road for the next 10 years leading to a true boss fight if you will all while giving us great films along the way like Captain America Winter Soldier the first Guardians of the Galaxy Age of Ultron Ant-Man Captain America Civil War Doctor Strange black panther with others along the way all leading to the incredible Infinity war and endgame finale that wrapped up the first 10 years when you look at it all on paper it really is astounding what the MCU accomplish for film and fiction in the first 10 years is just mindblowing they were undeniably ruling the box office in all of fiction for a decade driving movie sales comic sales merchandise just everything for the medium across the board I'm not Jing when I say Generations will look back at the first 10 years of the MCU starting in 2008 with Iron Man and ending with endgame in 2019 even though technically phase 3 ended with Spider-Man far from home as an iconic era for comics and movies the MCU dominated the box office for so long the aless actors would even comment saying if it's not a superhero film it's probably not going to make money with the success of the MCU that meant other Studios would have their own superhero films as well bringing us into the Golden Age of comic book films with the MCU undeniably leading the charge but as the saying goes all good things must come to an end or maybe it's the bigger they are the harder they fall either way that certainly seems to be where the MCU is for now and while there is hope on the horizon with the current shakeups at Disney Marvel Studios let's take a look at how we got to where we are now first and foremost one of the major problems the MCU faced after Avengers endgame was the fact that they lost the two pillars of the MCU the two characters the entire universe was built on Iron Man and Captain America with their stories concluding in Avengers endgame think about it in the DC film world that would be like getting rid of Batman and Superman that is extremely detrimental now you can't blame the MCU for this as by that point Robert Downey jior and Chris Evans had been playing the characters for a decade but nonetheless that meant the MCU had to find characters the audience loved as much as Iron Man and Captain America to keep building off their shoulders as the universe needed to continue forward now I'm not saying there weren't any other characters in the MCU that were up for that task to bear that cross so to speak in my opinion black panther doctor strange and Spider-Man given their popularity could have done that well black panther would have been my number one pick because he is literally the king of the most advanced civilization on the planet extremely well-intentioned fan loved all around and just a great character the first Black Panther movie was great in Chadwick boseman's performance as black panther was phenomenal the problem is the MCU and Kevin foggy weren't able to pass the torch to him so to speak as Chadwick Boseman unfortunately passed away this forced the MCU to have to shift directions both with the Black Panther Sequel and with their plans going forward as he was no doubt going to be an intrical part rumor has that he was going to be the next leader of the Avengers and that would have worked perfectly so again after endgame you lose the two characters your Universe was built on and the unfortunate passing of another one of your most popular characters also Scarlett Johansson AK Black Widow one of their other core Avenger members is also gone and said she's only going to do one more film which is a prequel to her story so it's not even going to push her forward so right out the gate we didn't have Iron Man Steve Rogers Captain America we don't have black panther and black widow will make one more appearance in phase four but it's a prequel that's phasing her out and setting up the New Black Widow yena belowa but even with all that I still think the MCU could have stayed at a high or at least higher than they are now if they made different choices to see what I'm talking about we have to look at Phase 4 and I want to be clear I'm not saying phase 4 as a whole wasn't good it just followed a slow decline the first phase 4 project after Avengers endgame was W division on Disney plus which released January 15th 2021 overall it was a really solid series giving us Revelations of how Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicks got their powers further rounding out their characters Scarlet Witch is one of my favorite MCU characters and I thought the series did a great job furthering her and vision story as well as introducing new characters like Monica Rambo and Agatha then in March of 2021 we got the Falcon and the Winter Soldier which I liked and it seemed like that was the General audience reaction where people liked it but they weren't overwhelmingly flipping out about it the series served as a setup to Sam Wilson as the new Captain America which is a tough pill to swallow in the sense that Chris Evans had such a good run as the OG Captain America it was going to be really hard for someone else to fill those shoes I think Anthony Mackey did a good job and I'm curious to see where they take it when he gets his solo Captain America movie next year then we have Loki season 1 I don't have a bad thing to say about the Loki series Loki season 1 and two are easily the best thing to come out of phase four and five thus far and that's just a fact I'm not even going to say that's my personal opinion that is a fact if you disagree with that you're sleeping but moving through these a little quicker because there's a lot in Phase 4 18 entries spread across movies and TV to be exact after Loki we got the Black Widow prequel movie that came out in July 2021 I dig this movie I know it was polarizing but I liked it for the most part my only real gripe is Taskmaster I said it on record countless times you can call that character Taskmaster but it is not Taskmaster they should have called the MCU version of Taskmaster Abomination it's more of an Abomination than the actual Abomination Hulk villain anyway after this we got what if season 1 again really solid no complaints then in September they release shangqi and the legend of the 10 Rings another solid film but after this the seventh entry into phase 4 is where I felt like we got the first big uh-oh moment and that is what the eternals film to this day eternals is the second lowest ranked MCU film on Rotten Tomatoes with a 47% critic score with the lowest being only one points behind it now I'm not saying I agree with Rotten Tomatoes or that they're always right but for our purposes it's a good gauge to get the general Vibe and consensus the biggest thing wrong with the eternals at least for me is you just didn't care about these characters which is so shocking considering what made the MCU so successful in the first place is how much they made you care about their characters but in the eternals everything just felt forced rushed and not there this is also where they started doubling down on changing characters from the comics for a film don't get me wrong the MC was no stranger to changing a character from the books for their films but it seemed like they did it extra for this movie to be fair not many people were familiar with the eternals in fact unless you're a comic fan you probably couldn't even name me three eternals before this movie came out but for better or worse this did upset a certain chunk of the fandom either way after the eternals we got the Hawkeye series Spider-Man no way home and moonnight I dug Spider-Man no way home I mean the fact that it brought back Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield alone makes me giddy they knew how to pull on our nostal alra strings hence the movie being the seventh most successful film of all time making 1.9 billion in theaters so yeah I think people enjoyed this film but then we got moonight which was just serviceable in hindsight it was just okay I did really enjoy Oscar Isaac's performance and do look forward to seeing him reprise the role but as a whole this season is nothing to ran and Rave about it also doesn't tie into the greater MCU all that much it's very much its own thing the first few Disney plus releases they had W division the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and certainly Loki did deal with the Fallout of endgame or continue to push these character story forward setting up for new things within the universe but not so much with moonight as for the Hawkeye series it's still one of my favorite Disney plus MCU series it did a bunch to flesh out his character and I love his interaction with Kate Bishop to that point I think it did a really good job of setting up Kate Bishop for the future so in our opinion Hawkeye is definitely one of the bright spots in the last few years but before we move on we want to talk about Marvel characters in a different way the gaming way can I tell you I love me some Avengers I also love fun games so I'm extra excited about Avengers Infinity Quest from today's sponsor Stern Pinball in this epic pinball game players will transform into their favorite superheroes as they battle Thanos and his minions across the Cosmos on his unrelenting quest for Intergalactic omnipotent power it's a race to hunt down and recover the six infinity gems before Thanos gets his hands on them it's up to players to stop Thanos and the black order from succeeding they make the story line really cool with an interactive Doctor Strange spinning kinetic sling ring disc with dual Direction velocity detection aiding players on their journey to opening portals and starting Infinity gem quests the game has an Avengers Tower lock ramp and magnet hold that captures pinballs in midair as players unlock the Iron Man multiball and I got to say the multiball in all these machines is really fun it just adds to the chaos but in a good way and to help you max out the gameplay through Insider connected you could use the location map to find any connected Stern machine near you you also be able to earn achievements and connect with other pinball Fanatics across the world it's free threr app which can be downloaded for iOS or Android just visit Stern pinball.com or use our Link in the description below to get your game on okay so another thing that really started to turn things in a negative Direction ction for the MCU was a new reasoning for the choices they were making for instance Miss Marvel is clearly a tween Disney Channel younger audience type show that was the target audience which is awesome for that audience but your main audience is not that and before certain people start getting all huffy and puffy I'm not saying the MCU shouldn't try new things one of their strengths for the first 10 years was trying a lot of new things like Ant-Man being a heist film Guardians of the Galaxy being a space adventure and so on but at a time where you really have to be locking in your core audience and showing them hey look at this cool thing that's coming we got dopeness ahead you need to be selecting more fan favorite characters and do shows that appeal to your main demographic but instead a little bit after Miss Marvel they gave us She-Hulk attorney at law this is quite possibly the most hated thing in all of phase 4 or even just post end game in general so the type of shows and character selections they were giving us wasn't the best again at a time where you lost some of your best characters and needed to give us some bangers to keep us excited this didn't feel like the best route I know a blade film with Mersa Ali is coming rumors of Ghost Rider and the midnight Suns and so on but they should have led with that you give us those fan love characters you've yet to introduce in the MCU up front and give us a new direction to keep the fan base excited and then sprinkle in those lesser known or loved characters to try new things and build out the universe more we would have much rather had the X-Men up front instead of now just finally getting them teased now I know Deadpool and Wolverine is probably going to do a fantastic job setting them up but you're telling me it wouldn't have made more sense right after endgame to jump right onto the X-Men that would have kept the MCU at a high because everyone freaking loves the X-Men that's a big reason why we're so excited for Deadpool and Wolverine but instead you gave us Miss Marvel and turned her into a mutant by the end of the series even playing the X-men theme briefly in the season finale to force us to care about her as she's now a mutant tied to the X-Men the only reason why they changed her into a mutant in the show is so she could be an X-Men and we would care about her more and then of course Marvel Comics had to follow Sue and also make her mutant in the comics because Marvel publishing often wants to reflect the film to keep everything in unison but also the Inhumans both in the comics and the MCU remember that God awful TV show yeah me either wasn't received well they tried to make the Inhumans the new X-Men because the amcu didn't have the rights of the X-Men films at the time but fans were like yeah that's not happening so the fact that we got characters like Miss Marvel She-Hulk even moonight who I love as a character and then where we'll find Knight before the X-Men and Fantastic 4 is mindboggling and I don't want to hear they didn't have the rights no that is bull crap Disney acquired the rights to the X-Men A Fantastic 4 in 2019 when they bought Fox phase 4 didn't start till 2021 so if they would have put some hustle in it we could have gotten the X-Men A Fantastic 4 like 3 years ago then in between you know moonight Miss Marvel She-Hulk and the new characters that were introduced they still were doing Legacy characters so to speak from the first 10 years for example right after moonnight we got Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which was plagued with horrible CGI and a not great story overall they straight up missed the mark on that which is unfortunate because I love doctor strange and Benedict Cumberbatch in the role and then it pains me to say it but after Marvel we got Thor love and thunder this is the worst entry in the entirety of the MCU in my personal opinion and mine because they took Thor one of the most beloved characters of Stanley and Jack Kirby one of the founding members of The Avengers and ruined him they literally made of the punchline of every joke and a complete imbecile so much so Hemsworth has gone on the record basically saying that if they do a Thor five the tone would have to be very different I mean for God's sake Thor was in a love triangle with Muir and Stormbreaker and don't even get me started on Gore the god butcher much like I said earlier about Taskmaster you can call that Gore the god butcher but that's not Gore the God butcherer no butchering was had so even with their Legacy character so to speak from the first 10 years they were still missing the mark and I think a lot of that had to do with letting their directors and creatives have too much free reign especially when a lot of these directors and creators admittedly weren't fans of the characters and just took the job for the money Tao was literally on Jason bait's podcast saying he took the job because he needed money for his family and he thought Thor was always always a Goofy character so it's like what did you expect and I want to be clear here we're not blaming the filmmakers this is clearly on Marvel Studios as they're the ones hiring these people you can't hand films over to people who know nothing about the characters or care about them and expect these films to come out good you might get lucky every once in a while it has happened but it's a big gamble the only reason why you're making these films is because of how L the stories are in the books so wouldn't you want to get people who love and respect the source material in any case this brings us to Phase 5 which is not complete yet phase four started with W Division and ended with the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special which was a ton of fun nothing bad to say about it but there was a lot of stuff in the middle of these that was not the best Phase 5 kicked off at the beginning of last year in February with Ant-Man in the WASP Quantum Mania yet again another character from the first 10 years many of us love but for whatever reason this film was just not it also out of all the films you could have made Kang the main antagonist for you decided to make him the main villain in an Ant-Man movie that just seems like an odd Choice from the beginning but yeah this film was not not good the only redeeming qualities of the film in my opinion is Kang and let's speak about Kang for a minute because this is another important part of why I feel the MCU started going downhill for the first 10 years we knew everything was leading to Thanos Marvel Studios masterfully teased his impending arrival throughout several of their films ultimately leading to Infinity war and endgame Kang not so much he was introduced in the finale of Loki season 1 and then didn't reappear until Ant-Man in the WASP Quantum Mania which is crazy because this was still very early on in Phase 4 so we were all like yeah that that's our next big bad for the MCU but then nothing there was legitimately 15 entries into the MCU across TV and movies after his introduction that did nothing to further King's arrival and tease how big of a threat he will ultimately be it's almost like they weren't sure that's the route they wanted to go so they needed some time to make sure that's what they wanted to do I love Kang he's a great character big fan of him in the comics so I was happy to see him in live action but again they should have introduced The Fantastic 4 around 2021 2022 and told us the big bad was going to be someone like Galactus I mean the dude literally eats planets that's a serious threat while simultaneously introducing Dr Doom which would also lead into something like Secret Wars we are rumored to be getting a secret Wars film with Dr Doom now but that's only seemingly because they had to ditch Kang because of everything that came out in real life with Jonathan Majors either way the point is the lack of a clear Direction with a big bad hurt the anticipation for the MCU as there wasn't really something for fans to look forward to or to follow and try to link together also the way they were building Kang see more on the actual actor than the character which I thought was really weird there was so much emphasis on Jonathan Major's as king and not necessarily the threat that Kang is as a character so I feel like that didn't help them out either anyway let's continue after Ant-Man and the WASP Quantum Mania we got Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 which was good super solid film but it was the end of an era essentially wrapping up this version of the Guardians of the Galaxy and then we have the most current phase 5 movie at the time of making this video the Marvels it's the mcu's biggest flop the worst box office performance out of any film they ever released because yet again the majority of fans were just not intrigued with Captain Marvel and Miss Marvel now you could say superhero fatigue was setting in which I do believe is a thing but at the same time the Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 which was released a few months earlier made over 800 million worldwide so it's not that people aren't willing to spend money on superhero movies it's just they're only going to spend money now on superhero movies that look good or characters they want to see the age of fans just seeing any Marvel or DC movie is gone that time has passed you have to earn movie goers money now but even MCU TV has been on the decline like secret Invasion for the most part fans really did not like it and that's because it wasn't great they ruined the super Scrolls and just Scrolls in general I feel like the MCU doesn't know what they want to do with the scrolls are they good guys are they bad guys are they misunderstood they don't know then we got Loki season 2 which was phenomenal one of the best things the MCU has ever done this felt like something that would have come out during the first 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe I don't have a bad thing to say about it it was phenomenal so I'll give them that what if season 2 was also good but then they gave us echko which was not the best it was just another show that was like why did we get this instead of I don't know something on Nova another character we've all been waiting to see however to end on a brighter note we have X-Men 97 currently airing weekly on Disney plus and the first two episodes were pretty amazing we had our fingers crossed for this one like many of you but so far it's a ton of fun and a solid continuation to the original series we also have Agatha darkhole Diaries coming later this year which may or may not put the MCU in another precarious spot but that's pretty much where we are right now for the MCU as we wait for Deadpool and Wolverine which looks tremendous so hopefully this could be where the MCU starts to tick back up again the some things up what we're saying is the MCU hasn't completely Fallen but it has certainly fallen off from where it's been there is no denying that the MCU has been struggling for the last few years certainly the last two Revenue in box office is showing that so the next two years is going to be very crucial to see if the MC will eventually go the way of the DCU but as I said in the open one of the most telling things about the seriousness of Marvel's current state is the fact that Bob Iger has taken a much more intense position on the future of the MCU stating quantity hurt quality and they followed that by reducing Marvel Studios 2024 movie slate to just one film and Iger since canceled projects they quote no longer believe in again there's been a ton of speculation about which MC project has gotten the axe I'm looking at you eternals too but no matter what the fact that they're making these drastic moves says it all so this is why it's extremely important that Deadpool and Wolverine succeed at course correcting because if it's not good A lot of people are going to check out and it's going to be extremely difficult for the MCU to Garner attention and regain momentum I honestly believe if Deadpool and Wolverine fails we are looking at the permanent downfall of the MCU however it most likely is going to be good so I don't think that's going to happen when Bob Iger last year said Disney as a company which means Marvel Star Wars Pixar and so on has to focus on storytelling and not messaging he was admitting in CEO language that they made a mess he's aware it's an issue and that things need to change so again hopefully the massive shakeups underway leads to a solid course correction for a franchise many of us love I know we certainly do not want it to fail but what do you guys think do you think the MCU can redeem itself with some of its upcoming projects what's been your take on phase 4 and Phase 5 so far let us know down in the comments other than that we'll see you next time when we talk about all things comics [Music]

Channel: Variant Comics

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Keywords: rise and fall of the mcu, rise and fall of the marvel cinematic universe, marvel cinematic universe, mcu, mcu phase 5, tony stark - mcu, tony stark marvel cinematic universe, ursa major mcu, avengers secret wars, ultron, moon knight, vision mcu, daredevil born again, deadpool and wolverine, xmen 97, x-men 97, new marvel game, eternals 2, luna snow mcu, marvel rivals, luna snow marvel, ursa major marvel, marvel phase 6, sam wilson marvel, mcu movies, mcu tv shows

Id: eJHrNpMQFP8

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024