Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. It’s easy to look back on a story or a franchise with a lot of fondness for the process they took because it worked out in the end. Sometimes this means that one becomes more critical of current releases because the route that it’s taking seems less obvious without being able to look into the future and know how it ends. The MCU has recently entered a new era, of their universe after closing the Infinity Saga withAvengers: Endgame. Marvel is notorious for connecting most of their movies and having a plan far into the future, and they really proved that withEndgame(either that or they’re really good at making it look like there was a plan the whole time).
However,the newest Phasethat Marvel has entered into feels a little less coherent. It’s sort of the start of a new arc for the MCU, so it could be compared to Phase 1 of the MCU in some ways, but so far it seems to be lacking the amount of concrete planning that prior phases had. A lot of the films coming out during this phase are only connected through short cameos rather than overarching story beats, and it’s hard to see where any of it is going (unlike with Phase 1, which had a clear arc towardsThe Avengerseventually happening). Does Marvel actually have a plan for Phase 4, or are they improvising a lot more this time around?
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Obviously, it’s not a totally accurate comparison to look at Phase 1 and Phase 4 side by side, since the stakes and general vibe around the MCU are so much different than they were back in the late 2000s/early 2010s when the MCU was in its infancy. The MCU generally has themselves more figured out now, but their ambitions have also gotten a lot higher and subsequently made it so that every release has to bethe biggest event possible. It’s a lot harder to get smaller, more character-focused movies now, though even Marvel’s “smaller” movies were never truly small.
At this point, a lot of the newer Marvel movies and TV shows feel mostly unconnected from each other. This would be completely fine if it wasn’t for Marvel’s whole branding being about one large connected universe. They still deal mostly in cameos, which is fun, but becomes a problem when the larger story itself isn’t actually connecting between the movies. It really feels like the MCU is just constantly introducing new characters with no plan for the future of how to fit them all together.In Phase 1, it seemed more obvious how all of the solo movies would come together for a team-up, but perhaps that was mainly due to the precedent in the comics, so fans knew that the Avengers would eventually form.
Right now, it feels like Marvel is just pumping out as many new characters as possible just to have a variety of tones and characters, and also to give fansthe heroes they’ve been asking for, but there still isn’t an announcement about a team-up movie any time in the near future. If they wanted to do another Avengers movie, it would feel a bit strange because of the odd collection of characters they have on the roster, both new and old. Sure, Marvel is notoriously secretive about their plans, but if they did want to eventually do another Avengers movie, one would think they would want to tease it a bit more or at least make it clear within the storyline of the movies that a team-up might be a possibility.
In Phase 1, there were multiple allusions to the Avengers before the team-up movie happened, and Nick Fury made appearances throughout the solo movies as a way to set up the Avengers in the background of each individual story. Now, there is the occasional cameo in a story about a new character from someone who’s been in the MCU roster for a while, but no hint of a concrete plan of what to do with all of them.
It’s not even that the MCU needs to set up a new Avengers team, but if they want to keep branding themselves as a studio that puts out interconnected movies, they need to start actually connecting Phase 4 beyond just a few movies and shows (like howWandaVisionandDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessgo together but don’t really connect to much else in Phase 4). Of course, not every movie needs to be intimately connected because then it runs the risk of being too much for new viewers to follow along with and prevents them from finding an entry point. However, if they want to eventually connect these stories, they need to start setting up that possibility now so that it doesn’t feel forced when it actually happens.
Not only that, but the hints the MCU is giving about what their future plans are point to about 3 different team-up movies (or shows) that could happen, which is starting to make the universe feel overwhelming. There is the possibility of another Avengers movie (though this is the team that has been set up the least so far), multiple hints towards the Young Avengers as members of that team keep popping up in the MCU, and eventhe Thunderbolts, or at least some version of that team from the comics. It’s as though the MCU has a couple of different ideas that they’re following, but without any concrete plans for any of them.
It might seem pedantic to keep comparing the latest phase of the MCU to the past ones when they’re clearly trying to both continue the universe while also having a fresh start, but they were so known for their planning that it’s becoming increasingly obvious how the planning post-Infinity Saga is lacking. Of course,Covid-19 pushed shootingand release dates and made it so that the movies and shows were released differently than the order that was originally planned, but even with that in mind, there seems to be a lack of forethought. TheStar Warssequel trilogy is a perfect example of what can happen when a story has potential but no plan, so it would be in Marvel’s best interests to ensure that they don’t follow down the same path.
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