Marvel was once one of the biggest names in television and movies, but lately, some say it has taken a turn in the wrong direction.
Some think Marvel started “falling off” after the 2019 “Avengers: Endgame.” Endgame marked the end of the storyline Marvel had been developing for 11 years. The storyline included a great cast of characters, deep backstories, and high-quality production. Vision dying in Infinity War, Iron Man, Black Widow, and Gamora dying in Endgame, and Captain America retiring, it was time for an almost completely new cast of characters.
A good Marvel movie has a good cast, is relevant to the main storyline, and doesn’t look and feel cheap. A bad Marvel movie is cheap-looking, irrelevant, unasked for, and has a bad cast. I feel like Deadpool and Wolverine have met this criteria. Their newest movie was a huge success and I think fans are gaining hope again. As a long-time Marvel fan, it brings me great joy that Marvel is seemingly climbing out of what I will call the “Dark Ages.”
Marvel’s first production after Endgame was “WandaVision,” set just three weeks after Endgame. WandaVision set the tone for what Marvel would do after Endgame. The fact that it was a show caught me off guard because I had never watched a Marvel TV series before. For the first few episodes, the show was set in black and white. I loved it, binging all nine episodes in one night, but I realized the show was more controversial than I thought. I saw a lot of mixed reviews, but more of people in favor of the show than not. It got a 92% on rotten tomatoes and a 7.9 on IMDb. According to Nielsen Top 10 Streaming Rankings, WandaVision racked up 434 million minutes of viewing time in just 3 days. It was the most watched Disney series of 2021.
Jayden Bagget, 14, says, “I think it was hard because so many key characters aren’t in the [Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)] anymore.” Some fans agree that Marvel started going bad around the time of the pandemic. Obviously, this would lead to movies not coming out on time, and maybe things having to be rushed. By this logic, most of their low-quality movies would be between 2021 and 2023
According to Rotten Tomatoes’ list of all Marvel movies ranked, Out of the bottom ten, five of the movies were made between 2021 and 2023, with the worst being “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania,” scoring a 46 on the infamous tomatometer. Some movies that I loved that came out during this timeline were “Spider-Man Far From Home,” “Shang-Chi,” and “Spider-Man No Way Home.” It’s hard to mess up a Spider-Man movie.
In the old MCU, All movies preceding endgame led up to Thanos, so who will be the new villain? Well, at first, Marvel started toying around with Kang, played by Jonathan Majors. However, he was convicted of assault and harassment, so Marvel decided it was best to drop him. It seems the new villain is to be Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr., the previous actor for Iron Man. His debut movie is Avengers: Doomsday.
Trey Pegues 14, who is a long-time Marvel fan said, “They’re not as good as they were, but it’s better.”
Another big success for Marvel was the new movie Deadpool and Wolverine. Sydni Harris, a 15 year old fan, said, “I love Deadpool and Wolverine. I think it’s in the top 5 in Marvel.”
It was declared the highest grossing R-rated film in history, according to Walt Disney Company. It grossed $1.33 billion, making it the 21st highest grossing film in history, despite being recently released in late July. This movie generated all this success in less than half a year.
