When we meet Hiddleston has recently finished filming Avengers: Doomsday, picking up from the “glorious purpose” that Loki found at the end of season two. “My contribution has been contributed,” he says of the forthcoming film. And then, slightly less evasively: " It is monumental. The centre of the story is absolutely brilliant, and was so surprising when I read it. It just has never been done before."
I can’t think of an example of them actually using this thing that they crafted. The best part of the MCU phases was realising that they were (somewhat) interconnected and then embracing the communities of fan speculations but recognising that they rarely were as adventurous as the speculators it got stale.
They always have actors spouting off, would not be surprised if they had a metric for delivering viral headlines and receiving payments.
The consequences of each entry rarely impacted the next or anything close until maybe it got to be a minor plot element just to say they had - see the giant cosmic fetus sticking out of MCU earth. It would have been cool to see how the world grew between Iron Man acknowledging his tech and superhero status publicly and vibranium being given to the public but they just became random tidbits without consequence.
F4 was solid, obviously made by committee again though so we got left with the shadows of its charm and weight. Thunderbolts was very good, and novel.
Oh I agree post Endgame they overall fumbled the ball.
The best story we have Wanda. WandaVision Wanda is processing grief but being otherwise villainous. She turns full villain in Multiverse of Madness (which I admit was poorly done since it just sorta happened, but I can fill in the blanks and make it work.) and dies. Then Agatha All Along continues that story and mystery of what happened. It looks like VisionQuest is going to give us the next step. And I fully expect Doomsday to finish this story. That’s a great use of connected characters.
Sam Wilson Captain American? Shield handoff in Endgame was great. They gave him his struggle with the moniker TV series, it had some issues but mostly worked. Then… We finally got his solo film this year but otherwise the character was on the bench. The solo film was just a mash of ideas and while it wasn’t the worst… it wasn’t great.
Hulk? Has a nice little story with his cousin She-Hulk but otherwise absent. Also a kid for some reason. Also She-Hulk meets Daredevil and then nothing. And Daredevil met Echo and nothing. And Echo met Hawkeye and Fisk… But that was nothing in the end.
Ms Marvel! She got the intro TV show, mostly well done. Teased mutants… How many years ago? Then was in The Marvels, a rushed film with a weak villain story wise but she was great. Oh and she’s building the Young Avengers team. Maybe? It’s been years.
Shang CHI!!! Comes out swinging. Excellent film! Where the fuck has he been?
Agree of the Wanda thing, the last battle sucked but Agatha was really good.
What I mean for impact across the universe is that unless it is deliberate plot element then the default is that the world is the same as ours. After 15 years of open superheroism and mass planet wide terrorism I would hope that some of the tech would have made the planet different. There are zero impacts shown for all the technology and magic that the earth posseses. It should look like an alien planet now, hell capes should be a fashion item in universe given their prevalence in pop culture there
The Snap. We should have had an entire series set during the Snap and an entire series dealing with a world post Snap. Captain America and The Winter Soldier touched upon it briefly, but it should have been so much more in depth.
Absolutely, the winter soldier show was good despite its neutering of its story. It ended up middling as a result of cutting any substance from baddies and the universe…and that ending was meh