Captain America- Brave New World- trailer
I feel this is kind of like the Dennis Allen years
The impulse is to say it didn’t work out so it was a bad idea
But it made sense at the time
The major heroes (and their specific fans) were saturated but there were plenty of threads and also the impulse to broaden fanbase and stories
Made sense but (as I see it) there were 3 main issues
- Marvel had grown a very rigid top down system that didn’t shepherd the new stories well
- a part of fanbase who resisted- in the strongest terms- any attempt to broaden and diversify the stories and characters
- Covid and it’s need for as much content as possible
Covid is a big part of this, and I think that does go overlooked. I also think that the switch to Bob Chapek as Disney CEO and the "turn the content taps on" mandate to bolster Disney Plus put pressure on Marvel to create a bunch of things they maybe otherwise wouldn't have.
It has been well documented that the last several years saw Feige spread way too thin and unable to give everything the same level of attention he had before.
But all that said, I still have one glaring issue with the last several years, and that's a complete lack of identity as to what the overall goal of this saga is.
Phases 1-3 are now collectively referred to as The Infinity Saga. Obviously not everything in them is about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, but there is a sense of everything building to that. In some movies it's just breadcrumbs or references. In others its establishing storylines for later payoff. In others it's very direct plot and character development.
Phases 4-6 are The Multiverse Saga. Phase 5 ends with Thunderbolts. At this point, entering the final act of the saga, I still have no idea what the Multiverse Saga is or what it is possibly even building to aside from some vague notion of Secret Wars tying it up and maybe acting as a soft reboot in a way. There has been very little forward momentum for the overarching MCU. The multiverse concept has mostly just been used for gimmicks and nostalgia and not as an actual plot device. At this point we know that the multiverse exists and we've gotten a bunch of cameos and returns of other iterations of characters for largely self contained stories. And that's it, basically.
I feel no sense of building to Doomsday or Secret Wars. Everything has just been so scattershot and undercooked.