Summary
As the MCU has grown into the cultural giant that it is today, it’s had a lot of major moments along the way. There are even scenes and events that take place in the MCU that have become cultural touchstones in their own right. A lot of these moments happened during the Infinity Saga of the MCU, which is everything up to and includingSpider-Man: Far From Home. This particular era of Marvel was the most beloved, and the recent direction of the MCU has failed to live up to it.
There are a number of reasons whythe current MCU offerings aren’t working as wellas the films of the past, but one of them is due to one of the most significant things that happened at the end of the Infinity Saga. A major character death at the end ofAvengers: Endgameprovided a sense of closure to the MCU as fans knew it up until that point, but it also made it so that the future of the MCU felt much more directionless.
Tony Stark’s Death Was An Important Moment
Tony Stark passing away inEndgamewas one of the most pivotal moments in the MCU, as it signaled the end of an era. Tony was the character who started the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 withIron Man, and so it was fitting that his story was the one that closed out that era (eventhe plot ofSpider-Man: Far From Homerevolves around him quite a bit). He was such a major character that his death felt like it would shake the MCU up in a way that it had never been shaken before, and that proved itself to be true.
But It Ruined The MCU
The choice to kill off the person who was, for all intents and purposes, the main character of the franchise was monumental at the time and may have been a fitting ending for that particular movie, but it fundamentally changed the feeling of the MCU going forward, and not for the better. The current phase of the MCU has been attempting to get back to what the franchise felt like back in the days of Iron Man and Captain America, but it has failed to recapture that same magicever since Tony Stark died.
The MCU worked so well for so many years because they had created a solid formula for their stories and had endeared a very specific group of characters to the audience over the years, which meant that these characters, who were now near and dear to fans, were easy to root for and the audience was able to easily follow their stories from beginning to end. However, with the death of Tony Stark, it seemed that that specific brand of Marvel also died out, making way for a new approach that wouldn’t work quite as well as their past attempts had.
Current MCU Phases Are Lacking A Central Figure
Though there were a lot of characters that the MCU followed, Tony was always at the center of things. He would show up in other people’s movies, and his arc was always very central tothe Avengers movies. There were other main characters, but Tony was really the main central figure. The current iteration of the MCU has failed to realize that that kind of cohesion is exactly what a franchise this big needs to continue feeling connected through all of its various movies and TV shows. While they’re bringing back familiar characters, none of them are leading the charge, which makes it feel like there’s no way these stories could believably intersect in the future.
This new phase of the MCU has been about exploring the stories of a plethora of different characters and introducing perhapslesser-known Marvel heroes and villainsto the audience. The problem with this approach is that it feels very disjointed, as though none of the stories are connected to each other, even if they technically are. There is no one consistent character across the movies and TV shows that helps connect them, and it just ends up feeling like a bunch of unconnected stories that get haphazardly thrown together whenever the franchise needs a crossover event.
When there’s no one to revolve the franchise around, it starts feeling less like an intertwined cinematic universe and more like a collection of stories that are technically in the same universe, but hardly influence each other at all. This, combined with the sheer amount of content that Marvel has been putting out (which is way more than was ever seen in the Infinity Saga), makes it hard to follow the overarching story of what’s going on. There’s a sense that there’s less of a plan for the new phase than there was for the old one, where they had a central figure to bring the story back to. Rather than wanting to explore a character, each new entry becomes a way to set up more plot points forthe future of the franchise.
While it made sense for Tony to die inEndgameand thus bring an end to the character and that particular era, it caused a wealth of problems for the current MCU, as they’re now fighting to get back to the heights of where they once were. They may not be able to recapture that same kind of magic unless they go back to the basics and bring in a central character to weave the stories together, the way that Tony Stark tied the stories of the Avengers characters together throughout the Infinity Saga.
MCU
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a sprawling movie and television franchise that weaves together individual stories of superheroes including Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, Black Widow, and many more. The first film in the franchise, Iron Man, was released in 2008. The MCU has garnered critical praise and financial success, earning billions at the box office and becoming a cultural phenomenon.
