As I walked out of the theatre of Avengers: Endgame for the fourth time, when I had finally processed what had happened in the last 10 years of storytelling within Marvel, I was left wondering: What’s next?
The so-called phase 4 of The Marvel Cinematic Universe started slow due to a pandemic meddling with filming schedules, nevertheless we now find ourselves deep within the phase. Five Movies and six series in, to be exact. I think that is a decent amount of storytelling to look back at and have some thoughts about how Marvel’s future is going.
Phase 4 is weird. In many ways. Some of them intentional, some less so. But let’s try to structure my thoughts.
Structure
It seems to me that they are walking down three different paths in terms of setting.
- The grounded path
- Black Widow
- Falcon and The Winter Soldier
- Hawkeye
The grounded path provides an excellent opportunity to shine a light on the less sung heroes of the Infinity War Saga but also introduces ever more freshmen to the Avenger’s roster. Meanwhile some shady organizations are set up in the backdrop of it all.
- The divine path
- Shang Chi
- Eternals
- Thor: Love & Thunder
- Moonknight (?)
Gods. Or Mythical creatures. This path seems to be the least cohesive one. It’s not clear to me where this is going, but there is certainly enough of expanding world-building to intrigue me.
- The Strange path
- WandaVision
- Loki
- What if…
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
In my eyes this seems to be the main path Marvel is taking for phase 4. It’s best represented by Dr. Strange, since there is some reality breaking stuff going on there.
First of all, I think it’s great that there are different paths. It provides variety while still building a coherent world. I don’t know yet where Miss Marvel will land on these three paths. Moonknight stands out, since it is about gods, but the concepts introduced in the series – distrusting your reality – fits better into the Strange Path.
Themes
Moon Knight brings us to the question about the ongoing themes in phase 4. The grounded path seems to focus on the topic of family. That makes a lot of sense, since the Infinity War Saga was all about family. I see this path as some sort of epilogue to the Saga. The new overarching theme prevalent in both the divine path and the Strange path seems to be about the question of determinism and choice. The Eternals pose the question if they should follow the purpose, their creators meant for them, or if they should find a new one, for example. On the Strange Path Loki is the most straight forward discussion of this theme.
Quality
Introduced by Loki’s reveal of He Who Remains, possibly the next Thanos-level Villain, the multiverse is established in the MCU. The idea is expanded upon by The What if..? Series and I can’t tell you how hyped up I was for the real movies to take up the ideas and consequences of the multiverse. And especially the movies on the Strange path delivered the weirdness and scale one expects from a multiverse. But they were weird in more than one way.
What’s so strange with the movies and the series of phase 4, is that I have a hard time to figure out if they are great or just pretend to be.
Of course, I had a blast at Spider-Man: No Way Home for the cameos, the nostalgia and the disbelief, that they managed to pull it off. But was the story good? It was certainly better than it had business to be with that many characters and story strings. It pulls it off quite well due to its focus on the characters and not the multiverse. But then again, it was very convoluted. Just one example I always catch myself thinking about: it started off like some type of law thriller, but that aspect gets completely ignored later. I’m still left wondering if it is a good movie.
The same goes for Dr. Strange. The ideas in this movie are bonkers, some scenes are exquisite. There are character journeys but not the most coherent ones. I genuinely can’t decide if I’m disappointed with the movie or if it is my favourite “Stand-alone” Marvel movie to date.
- I think more than ever in the Infinity Saga, Marvel is walking a dangerous line between meaningful story (at least they try) and fan-service with references and cameos.
Moon Knight as well, I was thoroughly intrigued throughout my first watch. I love the concept and its execution. The acting of course is on another level. But there were deep complications in the story that take away from my enjoyment, when thinking back at it. How could the scales be evened out when they don’t even know that there is a third personality? The series treats the third one like an easter egg, like a cute little nod to the comic lovers, while ignoring it entirely for the story of becoming whole. But then Lockley has a huge effect on the plot as they only win because of him. There is also Harrow’s broken glass, which I discuss in a separate post.
Even Loki, which I personally love because of its dialogue that masterfully serves to deconstruct the character of Loki, I can’t recommend as a truly amazing show with good conscience. The plot is rather random at some points and the production, while aiming high, caught my attention for being suboptimal from time to time.
WandaVision is incredible, simply because of its interesting approach of storytelling, far different to the Marvel-Stuff we’re used to. But it’s climax, and that is something it has in common with Moon Knight, bounced right back into the Marvel formula of an uninspired CGI Fight at the end.
- Maybe we witness Marvel trying to break out of their common practice, but don’t quite dare to fully abandon the proven tactics. Ironically this seems to restrain them from reaching true greatness.
A third thing Phase 4 made me think about is the Management of Expectations. This is to a part also my fault. Since Infinity War and Endgame, I’m expecting huge events – or revelatory hints at one to come – every Marvel movie I watch. But to some point also Marvel has some fault in my high expectations. I don’t think the Zombie-Strange, Evil Strange, the tentacle-monster and Captain Carter shown in the trailers, just coincidentally were very similar to their counterparts we met in the What if… series. Similarly, Spiderman was insanely hyped up by fanbase and Marvel alike. Each show gets scrutinized, and every new character appearing gets intertwined in theories about how it all could fit together. From my own experience I go to the Marvel movies to find out about the next big story arc. Every movie I hope that Kang appears or gets alluded to. Every movie I look out for tie ins in other parts of the story or set ups for the next movies. But maybe I am forgetting here that the big arc needs space to breath. The Infinity Saga took over ten years to conclude. And most of the movies before did not obviously tie in with each other. It took four years before the first Avengers came out. I understand that we are not at the beginning of the Marvel worldbuilding anymore, but to set up the next story arc still takes time. Hell, maybe phase four does not have great movies, but each of them is certainly better than the pre-Avengers era movies. And although they don’t go all the way, there are certainly attempts to move into different, more daring directions in style and story. I am intrigued in the MCU’s future and while I exercise patience, I look forward to Love and Thunder as a cool looking stand-alone Thor movie.
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.