Why isn’t the MCU’s Multiverse Saga Working?
The MCU is over two years into the multiverse saga, every year we’re getting more movies, tv shows, and special presentations. But to most fans it’s been a pretty shaken ride, there’s been more disappointing projects then there should be. So I wanted to share my thoughts on the saga and why it doesn't work. Plus, there’s been some interesting reports coming out over the last couple of weeks that I want to talk about. So let’s get started!
Not Focused: So we’re now 2 ¾ years into The Multiverse Saga, Kang Dynasty comes out May 2026. That’s about 2 ½ years from now we’re getting the next Avengers movies. We still don’t know who The Avengers are, who are going to be the people fighting Kang. Which is very frustrating because we’ve had twice as much hours of content in phases 4 and 5 then we did in the first three phases. Yet, we don’t know who the faces of the MCU are, who’s the next generation. We can probably start putting some of those together, Doctor Strange is probably going to play a big part in this. I’m sure Captain Marvel will be involved, Loki will probably be there too. They’ve introduced all of these new characters without it being entirely clear when we’ll see them next, or if we will see them again. They introduced The Eternals about 2 years ago now, they’re these ancient beings where a god-like creature was seen in the sky taking Eternals up with him. A celestial head is now in the middle of the ocean, nobody has mentioned that since November 2021 when Eternals came out. That seems like a major thing that will have a lot of countries and people concerned about this and wanting to know more. Moon Knight’s finale had two god-like creatures fighting above the pyramids in Egypt. Nothing about that has been mentioned since, that’s weird. Even Sam Wilson became Captain America in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we’re not going to see him again until Captain America: Brave New World that doesn’t come out until next summer. So it’ll be over 3 years since we’ll follow up Sam Wilson becoming the new Captain America. What they really need to start doing, is starting to feel like a shared universe again. They’ve had characters appear in other movies and tv shows. Like Wong was in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law obviously he's a character from the Doctor Strange world. But it’s not like Wong is there recruiting people warning people about the danger of the multiverse. He’s just there for a cameo that you could easily cut out.
Who are the leads?: In September, Marvel put out a book that’s essentially the history of the MCU. I’ve seen on social media people talking about segments and quotes from that book. One thing that was said was that on the set of Endgame Tom Holland, Brie Larson, and Chadwick Boseman were told they were going to be the new faces of the MCU. They were going to be the new trinity of the MCU. I hear this and I think it makes sense, in The Infinity Sage they all had hit films two of them made over $1 billion. I also hear this and I go how these two characters are the face of THE MULTIVERSE SAGA, none of the characters really deal with the Mutliverse. There’s a side of me that’s wondering if they had a different plan post-Endgame that was changed because of three things. One, the passing of Chadwick Boseman. Second, the response to Captain Marvel and Brie Larson’s portrayal as the character was not received well. It also sounds like because of the hate she got she doesn’t want to keep on playing Captain Marvel, which makes good and reasonable sense. Third, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is in a very weird spot at the moment. Back in 2019 there was a report that said Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is out of the MCU, he’ll still be Spider-Man but not in the MCU. Sony and Disney came to an agreement to make No Way Home. I’m wondering if that ending is a way to send off Tom Holland’s Spider-Man inside of the MCU. So, the three original main characters for phases 4, 5, and onward kind of are in a tricky situation as to what their future in the MCU is. They probably had to of course correct a lot, so I’m very curious if Chadwick Boseman was still alive, if Brie Larson was getting hate, and if Tom Holland’s Spider-Man safely remained in the MCU. What would this new saga look like, would it be better?
Corporate Products: There’s been a lot of reports over the last several months where MCU actors have talked about a lot of reworking done by Marvel. Xocthl Gomez, America Chases from Multiverse of Madness said they demanded 33 re-writes of the script. Elizabeth Olsen was saying she stopped reading the scripts because they’re being handed new ones so frequently it didn’t make sense to read them anymore. David Harbour when promoting Gran Truismo said Black Widow’s third act was reworked and changed. The finale we saw in the final version of the movie is not what was originally supposed to be the third act of the movie. Apparently Quantumania’s ending was reshot a month before it was released. That’s why the movie’s epilogue feels a bit weird and why there’s lines of dialogue where Scott Lang says “I don’t have to win, we both just have to lose”. But nothing really dramatic and meaningful happens. They put that line in the trailer, they made us believe this movie was going to have big consequences for the future of the MCU, it doesn’t. It feels like a corporate product produced by Disney that’s not as good as it should have been. Even then, reports have come out and said that Marvel was shocked by the mixed to negative reactions to Quantumania. They all thought they had a great movie that people were going to love. That confuses me because very clearly that feels like a movie directed by a committee that couldn’t make up their minds on what they wanted, it was directed by them…not Peyton Reed. Even with Multiverse of Madness they got Sam Raimi to direct the film, he’s a legend in the comic book movie genre. Not even he was given creative control to tell the story. They need to stop doing this, if they hire directors, writers, or show runners for a project they need to let them do what they want to do. Sure, Kevin Feige is still going to give them notes, that's what every producer does. But there’s a difference between giving notes and feedback to the director and taking a movie away from them and doing their own thing with it. Look at Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 earlier this year, a beloved movie. Most people by the end of the year will probably end up having it in their top 10 of the year. A lot of people say it’s the best MCU since Avengers Endgame. Why did that work so well? Because, it feels like one creative vision for the movie. It feels like a James Gunn movie, it feels like one creative force was over the entire thing. Marvel and Disney need to learn from the success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and do that, more than what they did with stuff like Quantumania or Multiverse of Madness. Earlier this month, Daredevil: Born Again fired the original writers and are going to find new writers for the show. And they’re going to start focusing on multiple season tv shows with a showrunner. Not a group of writers, but a showrunner. So it seems like they’re noticing that their strategy of “fix it in post” isn’t working, so they’re trying to fix it.
Jonathan Majors and Kang: So back in mid-2020 it was announced that Jonathan Majors had been cast as Kang in the MCU. He was said to be the villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and he was going to be the big bad in the MCU in The Multiverse Saga. Secretly he was in Loki season 1 which came out about a year and half before Quantumania came out. Now he’s in Loki season 2. So we are getting a flavor and taste of Jonathan Majors in the MCU. As of now, I like Jonathan Majors in the role. I think he’s a great actor, I know there’s a lot of stuff going on in his personal life. But I like what he’s doing, he’s able to play all of these different variants so well. But I’m not sure if he’s a great villain that I buy as being the next big bad of the MCU. We all saw Kang fighting Ant-Man in Quantumania earlier this year and he’s defeated. He’s defeated by an army of ants, which I look at and I go this is the guy who’s supposed to be fighting The Avengers. I’m not sure how a guy defeated by ants can go up against Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, whoever is The Avengers. I know that the film has a mid-credit scene that teases there’s a how council of Kangs, there’s a lot more of them. But I feel like that still hasn’t posed him as a big enough threat. Now to compare and contrast Kang with Thanos, we didn’t spend a lot of time with Thanos until Infinity War, pretty close to the end of Phase 3 and The Infinity Saga. In a certain sense, Kang is introduced sooner into the saga then Thanos was. But with Thanos you bought him as a threat more, you see that he sent an alien invasion army down to Earth in The Avengers. He was in Guardians of the Galaxy; he was in the mid-credit scene of Age of Ultron. We knew that he was a threat, we knew that he was hunting down these Infinity Stones. There’s a scene in Guardians of the Galaxy where The Collector tells the heroes and the audience about the dangerous power of The Infinity Stones. So we know that Thanos wants these dangerous stones, we don’t know what but we know he wants them. We don’t really know what Kang’s big master plan is. We don’t know why we should be scared of him, we don’t know why The Avengers need to team-up to stop him. That’s the problem, he feels like he’s just there. Going back to Quantumania as I said earlier, the movie feels like it was reworked and changed…because it was. In the trailer we got this great line from Scott that said “I don’t have to win, we both just have to lose”. And the movie doesn’t live up to that, the movie doesn’t earn having that line. I feel like Quantumania needed to end on a bit of a cliffhanger where Kang kills Scott or somebody that establishes him as a threat, maybe he destroyed The Quantum Realm. Have something happen in that movie that makes you leave the theater and go “Kang…he’s scary and dangerous”. But the movie doesn’t and I feel like that’s a flaw with the movie. I hope in the back half of Loki Season 2 and wherever we might see him again, they do something that makes you establish him as a dangerous villain.
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