(Opinion essay)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has dominated cinema and the superhero genre for many years. Phase 3 was a massive success, with movies such as Avengers: Endgame (2019), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Black Panther (2018), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Now that Phase 4 has officially ended with the Christmas Special of the Guardians of the Galaxy, people have looked back on Phase 4 and thought, “Hey, this is not as good as Phase 3, Marvel, and Phase 4 are flopping.” Well, when I reflect on this phase, I agree with that statement to a certain extent, but there are also some points of disagreement.
Phase 4 had its ups and downs, in my opinion. It kicked off with WandaVision (2021), which I absolutely loved. It was something new and exciting; the first MCU series! It was a hit, and people on social media are still talking about it. Then we have other series such as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Hawkeye (2021), and Loki (2021) which were not as acclaimed as WandaVision, but were still enjoyed by the majority. And we cannot talk about the Phase 4 series without mentioning the successful Moon Knight (2021).
Phase 4 also gave us movies such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Eternals (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Shang-Chi, No Way Home, and Black Panther was widely loved by the audience. Eternals was dubbed “boring,” but I thought it had something unique, and I watched it twice with pleasure.
Now we come to the Phase 4 projects, which were less acclaimed. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) was, in my opinion, not as awful as many people said, but compared to the other Thor movies, this wasn’t great. They tried to one up Thor: Ragnarok but that made them make too many unnecessary jokes. Besides, the story could have been much better without all these jokes shoved into the movie. I also disliked the ending and found that Gorr had more potential. However, comically, we had to see this coming. People argue that it doesn’t come as a surprise that a Thor movie isn’t good since Thor (2011) has 2.9 stars on Letterboxd and Thor: The Dark World (2013) has 2.4. Thor: Ragnarok was just a glitch in the Matrix.
Furthermore, movies such as Black Widow (2021) and Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (2022) got a lot of criticism, while there were also many who liked them a lot. I, for example, thought that Natasha deserved a better movie (which ideally should’ve been released earlier), but the movie wasn’t that bad. And if you ask me, Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness didn’t deserve all the backlash it got. Yes, there were missed opportunities in the movie. But it being labelled as a “horror” movie added something new to the MCU which I can appreciate.
But let’s talk about the elephant in the room: What if…? (2021), Ms. Marvel (2022), and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). These series are considered the biggest flops of this phase. And I agree. Ms. Marvel had some good moments in my opinion and was a decent coming-of-age series. She-Hulk and What if…?, on the other hand, were boring at certain parts and unmemorable.
The CGI in She-Hulk was mediocre compared to, for example, Eternals, and the story seemed to be lost throughout the season until the two last episodes. What if…? was wasted potential, the idea is great and so many things could’ve been explored. I hope that in the rumored second season they will explore more wanted questions. A very popular question that popped up when I asked my followers on Instagram what episode they would’ve liked was: “What if Wanda died instead of Pietro?” which I would’ve loved to see. Questions like these would’ve made the series much better, in my opinion. Instead of questions such as: “What if Killmonger rescued Tony Stark?” — which not one single Marvel fan has ever asked themselves, by the way. But to be fair, I did like seeing T’Challa again, the episode of “What if the world lost its mightiest heroes?” and the Doctor Strange one were also good. And some episodes, like the Zombies one, were also decent. The way the episodes came together was also done nicely. Yet I understand why people consider this a flop. I also do, since I frankly always forget that this was even released.
People often talk about the “marvel fatigue” they received from Phase 4 since so many movies and series came out this year. Saying that they were focusing more on quantity rather than quality. And I agree with this completely. In the last phase, I was excited for almost every project. This time, I didn’t even have the time to get excited for the next project since they were all so close to each other. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, I was very excited to see Spider-Man: Now Way Home. The same went for Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness. However, this fatigue is felt all over the world; fortunately, Marvel will break the monthly project rule and help to alleviate the situation. I was happy to hear this, since I think this fatigue also played a part in this sentiment of Phase 4. We might not want to wait years to see a movie, but I believe everyone has enough patience to wait more than a month.
To summarize, in my opinion, this so-called Marvel fatigue is a real thing. This phase went by extremely fast. But I am not sure if I would call this phase a flop. Yes, there were some flops, such as What If…? and She-Hulk. Yes, a lot of projects are mediocre. But there were also great projects that came out of phase 4, and I think we cannot let the bad overshadow the good.
Alice ‘t Lam
