With MCU’s Phase 4 officially coming to a close and Phase 5 about to kick-off next month with Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, fans are still scratching their heads about where they think the Marvel Cinematic Universe is leading them. After the conclusion of Endgame back in 2019, many avid followers of the MCU truly began to wonder how the studio was ever going to top the spectacle they had managed to create and whether or not continuing the journey would be worth it after such a satisfying ending.
But when all was said and done, nothing was going to stop Marvel from trying to duplicate the success that they found with their first 3 cinematic phases. So on they pressed to Phase 4 – and it was interesting, to say the least. Not only did it contain the most projects per any MCU phase (17 to be exact) but it also lasted the least amount of physical time (only 2 years). With so many projects packed into such a small timeframe, it was understandable that audiences and fans were expecting to have a better idea of where Marvel was planning on leading the cinematic franchise… unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.
Despite the amount of content put out over the last two years, the MCU feels messier and clunkier then ever before with countless new heroes, villains, and even secondary/tertiary characters for fans to try and pay attention too. That said, disregarding the backlash from overzealous fans, the MCU might not be as messy as it seems to the everyday viewer. While Phase 4 was by no means perfect, it absolutely had direction and vision that loyal watchers might have been too close to the picture to fully see.
As already stated, Phase 4 has felt a little jumbled to some viewers due to how clunky the schedule has gotten. Again, 17 projects over 2 years as opposed to 23 projects over 11 years – that’s a lot of new content. But despite how much new content that has come out during Phase 4, part of the issue is that fans had been spoiled by Marvel over the duration of the first three phases. After all, Endgame was just that – an Endgame. That meant that Phase 4 would be a new starting point, not a stepping-off point (Black Panther pun intended) and not a true continuation from Phase 3. If anything, Phase 4 was meant to be the new Phase 1.
Now what exactly does that mean? Well, in hindsight, it means that Phase 4 was actually supposed to feel a little jumbled and clunky – just like Phase 1 was. Think about it – Phase 1 was a jumbled mess and the original Iron Man and Avengers are the only projects that truly jump into anyone’s mind. Iron Man 2 was a poor follow-up to the introduction of the MCU. The original Thor and Captain America movies were relatively liked, but are nowhere near the top when it comes to MCU projects. The Incredible Hulk was so critiqued that a different Hulk had to be recast (although there was behind-the-scenes drama too). And all these respective movies contained easter-eggs/breadcrumbs that (during the time) seemed random and out of nowhere, when in actuality (after several more projects were released) most of them ended up paying off in some way, shape, or form. Keeping all of that in mind, despite Phase 4 putting out three-times as much content as Phase 1, it’s completely understandable why it feels a little disjointed because the Phase it was trying to imitate also did.
Since it should now be understood that Phase 4 should have closer mirrored Phase 1 in terms of its content, the question still remains as to why it has gotten so much more critique and backlash than Phase 1 ever did. Well, the answer is quite simple – there has been far more content put out for people to critique. Again, let’s look at the facts that Iron Man and Avengers were truly the only A+ projects to come out of Phase 1… that’s a whopping 33% for the Phase. But it was only six projects spread over a course of 4 years with lots of gaps in-between for fans to look forward to the next project – a luxury Phase 4 wasn’t granted. Instead, Phase 4 began producing project after project and put a new one out nearly every single month, most of which were television shows that lasted much longer than a typical MCU would.
So, once audiences found something that they didn’t like about any of the new projects, that caused expectations for the next project to sky-rocket. And when those expectations weren’t met, the process continued on and on in a vicious circle to the point where if any MCU show or movie released in Phase 4 wasn’t an A+, fans would whine and complain that it was horrible. While that is an argument that fans on the Internet could spend countless hours debating over, the sad truth is that Phase 4 has felt like a more jumbled mess than it actually is simply because there’s a surplus of viewers who are just waiting to pounce on any inaccuracy or continuity error that they can find.
Despite all of the arguments made above, this was where Marvel really shot themselves in the foot for Phase 4 (and why it felt directionless and a mess). Prior to Phase 4, audiences had gotten used to the MCU formula – introduce/revisit a bunch of standalone characters in standalone projects, and then watch them all come together in one cumulative event to see how their singular stories could be interwoven into one massive comic-book movie narrative. While this was of course meant to be a treat for fans to see all of their favorite heroes on one screen, it had a more important story-telling quality that allowed the entire MCU to feel like a true interwoven universe where actions in one project could/would/should affect the others… but Phase 4 didn’t have that.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was arguably supposed to be the cumulative event that was missing from Phase 4 with the true inclusion of the multiverse into the MCU (that might have been how Marvel executives saw it), it wasn’t the icing on the cake that MCU fans really needed. While the movie itself was a culmination of past heroes and villains, it didn’t combine any of the new heroes that the MCU had begun introducing, nor did any other movie. Thus, it left a hole in the Phase where all of the heroes actions affected one another, and instead felt like a dozen and a half standalone projects that had no connection. Because of this, not only did the Phase feel like a mess, but audiences have had a difficult time accepting that the new MCU has any “real” consequences since it appears that none of the heroes actions will affect any of the others.
In conclusion, it’s perfectly understandable why Phase 4 felt like a mess from the outside looking in. It had far more projects than an introductory Phase should have had, and produced them all in such a short amount of time with no cumulative event. Thus, the Marvel Cinematic Universe now feels like the Marvel Cinematic Standalone Projects. But, that doesn’t mean that Phase 5 & 6 won’t turn things around.
Most viewers have already heard that the MCU is ramping up to several large cumulative-event movies (Thunderbolts, multiple Avengers) and those projects should allow Marvel a little wiggle room in getting their universe back on track – but keep in mind that Marvel may not have ever left that track in the first place. Again, Phase 1 felt like a bit of a mess and loose-ends were readily handled and cleaned up in the following years. So, while Phase 4 may have seemed like a mess to some viewers, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that Marvel has had a plan all along to make sure the mess is cleaned up in Phase 5 & 6.