MCU Pt 2: Continuity (Continued) M-she-U

Hi there, thank you for tuning in. Let's continue the conversation from last week. Last week, I was playing creative exec and breaking down what I would have done if I were Kevin Feige. In Phase 4, we had many introductions of new female superheroes to the MCU, where comic book fans dubbed it post-Endgame, M-She-U. It almost felt like Disney had this agenda planned out. In the second half of Phase 4, Disney released three MCU movies: Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love & Thunder, & Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

2022

In 2022, the struggles continued when it came to the creative direction of the MCU.

With Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, it's been six years since a sequel has been released. However, Dr. Strange played major roles in Infinity War, Endgame, & No Way Home. Nevertheless, with Multiverse of Madness, after the introduction of the multiverse in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the creative direction wasn't up to the Infinity Saga's standards.

The film heavily focused more on young teen America Chavez than on Dr. Strange. In the comics, America Chavez assumed the title Miss America from the original Miss America, Madeline Joyce. Her ability to jump between dimensions was heavily featured within the film.

The tone of Wanda's character, from her redemption story arc in WandaVision to being a villainess in Multiverse of Madness, playing a "distressed mom" role bothered me. The pace of the film felt rushed and didn't build on the emotional ending of No Way Home. There were elements that could have made it a good film, but the final product fell short of expectations.

Love & What?

Thor: Love & Thunder was a terrible film from start to finish. From its villain to the return of Jane Foster, the film felt somewhat silly and did not build off of Endgame. Thor leaving with the Guardians following Endgame had a lot of potential for a Thor Sequel. Thor and the Guardians had a lot of chemistry when they first met up in Infinity War.

This film needs to be scrapped altogether and focus on Thor's road to redemption following Endgame and build on his relationship with the Guardians.

Killmonger mentoring Shuri

Wakanda Forever was probably the best film out of the three, but I honestly didn't know if the film should have been made following Chadwick Boseman's death.

Here, I would've liked to see a bit more of Michael B. Jordan's "Killmonger" mentoring Shuri in person. Shuri is a character who outsmarts others with her mind rather than her fists. She spent too much time struggling with taking the mantle rather than embracing that responsibility.

We also got introduced to another female superhero, college engineering student Riri Williams, otherwise known as Ironheart. She was depicted as a super genius on the level of Tony Stark. She was able to build a suit of armor almost like the Iron Man suit out of stolen materials on the campus.

Namor as a villain was a bit underwhelming. I expected a bit better. The excuse he makes for getting involved in surface-level affairs after the events of the first film, which was four years prior. Where were they during Endgame? Were they affected by the snap? Or only surface-level people were affected by Thanos' snap?

My gripes

I have no problem with adding female superheroes to the MCU. However, when it feels like there's an added agenda to it, that's when it's time to question the creative direction. They need to focus on the creative direction of the MCU characters they already have and tell better stories. Hire directors and writers who care about the source material and actually read the source material.

Introduce new characters that add to the main plot of the story but don't let them become the main focus of the main protagonist. Produce content people care about like Fantastic 4 and X-men.

When companies forget who their main audience is, along with terrible storylines and character development, it's a recipe for losing hundreds of millions of dollars on a bad product.