Marvel Needs a Hero

Soren Kim • November 4, 2024

For the last 16 years, Marvel has been the biggest movie franchise in the world, amassing over $29.8 billion in box office revenue and receiving rave reviews, with over 12 of their movies having at least 90% on Rotten Tomatoes (Business Insider). Although Marvel’s success in movies has been consistent, in recent years the overall quality of new projects has dropped significantly. Marvel’s recent films such as “The Marvels” have not been able to achieve the same economic success as their previous works, with “The Marvels” even losing $237 million in the box office, partly due to its dearth of original ideas and its shameful excuses for plotlines. As a result, these movies have received lackluster reviews from critics, which can be attributed to Marvel’s spreading themselves too thin. As a consequence of working on too many projects simultaneously, the quality of Marvel’s writers and directors has been subpar and recent films are just a shell of what Marvel used to be. Marvel’s newest saga, or part of the story they are currently producing, has followed the concept of the “multiverse,” or the idea that there are several Marvel universes with alternate realities to the main universe. This introduction of multiple universes has been another of the main reasons for Marvel's decline, since now that there are an infinite number of characters to take from the multiverse back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the connection with each character and the stakes for what they are fighting for have all been meaningless.

The film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” released on May 6, 2022, tries to swing for the fences with characters from the comics appearing on the big screen for the first time. Mr. Fantastic, played by popular actor John Krasinski, was given less than 10 minutes of screen time and was killed off shortly after. Soon after, Marvel announced a “Fantastic 4” movie with an entirely new Mr. Fantastic played by Pedro Pascal. Because of this, it feels as if there are no longer stakes in any of the movies, because characters can simply be replaced by a new version of themselves from other universes. Instead of these surprise characters and plot points being shocking and exciting, they are being used as merely a crutch for bad storytelling. As a result, recent movies have been mediocre at best, failing to have many of the components that make a good film. Many new Marvel films have had poor writing and lazy visual effects, such as “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which took major shortcuts. Some of the film’s bad visual effects include the use of lazy nanotech helmets and a specific floating head scene that is notoriously bad for having low-quality CGI. The film’s story is just as crummy as the visual effects: the writers failed to make the fan-favorite character Gorr the God Butcher a proper villain, never showing his full potential. His presence on screen is only somewhat redeemed by having the brilliant Christian Bale playing him.

The release of “Avengers: End Game” in 2019 marked the end of the original storyline of the MCU, known as phases one to three. These “phases” are collections of movies released together in given time periods of the MCU. During these early phases, Marvel released 22 movies in 11 years. In comparison, during phases four and five, Marvel has released 36 movies and TV shows in total. This disparity in earnings has been attributed to audiences’ shortened expectations of Marvel movies, as the dip in quality has made it a chore to invest in the emotional storylines of most characters. With the overload of projects and the varying quality, keeping up to date has become almost impossible to do. Junior Nathan Gray agrees with this statement.

“The anticipation and hype of watching a new Marvel movie was such a good feeling up until ‘Endgame,’” Gray said. “After that, it became more of a chore to keep up with all the mediocre TV shows and an excessive amount of movies.”

Another one of Marvel’s main issues is the overall quality of both movies and shows having dipped below the golden standard that the old MCU always delivered. Throughout their early phases, the MCU’s films had a very consistent quality. Projects such as the “Avengers” films all told compelling stories and introduced characters with which viewers could bond over the course of 11 years. Films such as “Thor: Ragnarok” represented the epitome of Marvel’s quality, since the film not only contained stakes and was of supreme quality, but also had very endearing and positive lessons. Throughout “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor suffers an intense personal conflict after the passing of his father; however, after finding home in his people, he finds strength to lead them, taking the words of his father before he died to heart. Another fitting plot point was Thor’s personal conflict of not believing himself to be worthy enough to lead Asgard, his home nation. This conflict was reflected in Thor losing his main weapon, his hammer Mjolnir, which can only be wielded by those who are worthy. Clearly, “Thor: Ragnarok” was crafted with immense thought, having characters with developed backstories, perfectly encapsulating good storytelling — something that is an essential for any good movie or script, but is noticeably missing from current Marvel projects.

In comparison, the laughably bad “Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness” fails to match any of these qualities, with little to no substance in its plot — the movie simply follows Doctor Strange as he travels the multiverse to stop the rogue Scarlet Witch. That’s it. A doctor chasing a witch. There is no intrigue, no lessons, no introspection, no genuine feeling. The film tries too hard to be funny and then attempts to shock the viewers with disappointing cameos to fan-favorite comic book characters. In comparison, the original “Doctor Strange” film, released in 2016, has a brilliantly written story which delves into Doctor Strange's personal journey of changing from a selfish individual hell-bent on being the best surgeon he could to becoming a hero, sacrificing himself to save the world. Junior Moses Newmark compares “Thor: Ragnarok” to Marvel’s uninspired projects today.

“Marvel’s new projects don’t have fun or action-packed storylines that people are looking for,” Newmark said. “I loved ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ because it delivered on both the storytelling and humor, aspects which make a good Marvel movie.”

With Marvel pushing out progressively more media following the advent of their own streaming service, Disney+, shows such as “She-Hulk” have failed to reach the same quality. For “She-Hulk,” Marvel pushed for senseless plot points, such as the integration of the character Daredevil, who is normally a fan favorite. Simply put, Daredevil was poorly written and only used in one episode, never to be seen again. Recent movies have also leaned too hard into the humorous aspect of Marvel, partly due to the laziness of many of the new directors, with the majority of them forgetting about the most integral part: storytelling. Even actor Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, apologized for the issues in his recent film “Thor: Love and Thunder,” stating, “I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness and became a parody of myself.” Sophomore Kayden Sanchez agrees that Marvel should abandon its Disney+ ventures and instead focus on a core of central projects like they used to in phases one and three.

“Disney should be giving the fans what they want — major projects instead of random shows on Disney+,” Sanchez said. “People want high-quality movies again like ‘Avengers: End Game.’”

On a positive note, the release of “Deadpool and Wolverine” has sparked new hope for Marvel, raking in $1.32 billion worldwide. The film was well-crafted and the humor was on point, bringing dedicated fans the satisfaction that they have lacked from Marvel projects for years now. “Deadpool and Wolverine” brought back what made old Marvel so special, having a very exciting story while also executing its references to old characters and movies properly, making fans rejoice. Future projects such as “Avengers: Doomsday” also look to be huge hits, featuring massive stars such as Pedro Pascal and Robert Downey Jr. Even through its ups and downs, the new era of the MCU looks to recapture its former glory and unite fans once again. However, for Marvel to continue succeeding, they must spend less time constantly pumping out films and shows and instead focus on refining content that is released less frequently and ensuring the quality of each story.