Ooooof, this post is gonna make people upset but fortunatly for me nobody read that blog (it's, in fact, the reason I made this blog, to avoid entering into some kind of heated discourse with strangers who can't accept that people have a different pov about fiction).
I also made this blog to talk about comics, mostly, 'cause it's easier to share pictures and just talk about something on different places at the same time ('cause as an artist online I have more than one place to keep care of and talking about Sam is highly related to what I do so) and it's just better to read, edit etc... Than Xwitter or Bluesky or whatever.
But anyway, because of MCU Sam coming back soon, I've been talking a lot about the MCU rather than talking about comics, I've been rewatching a few film and I wanted to talk about it once and for all.
So let's talk MCU !
I have a deep love for the MCU. As a person who grew up in a country where comics book were very niche, the MCU was my biggest introduction to comics.
I knew comics from 90s cartoon such as Batman, Justice League, Spider-Man and X-Men (Hulk apparently too but ironically I don't remember this one) that I used to deeply deeply love.
Then you had the Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman and Superman movies, though honestly I was never into CBM before so I didn't really care back then.
I don't wanna put too much time talking about my personal life but long story short I started watching the MCU in the worst moment of my life and it was "there for me", if that make sense.
Thor is the first MCU movie I watched and the first thing that made me feel good and gave me a little bit of fun after years of pain. It was like following a very small light in the darkest fog and eventually that little light led me back to a lighthouse (Hulk comics, Sam) and this lighthouse got me back on the path I lost and on my life.
But as much as I love the MCU, it's far from perfect and ironically the thing I hate the most about it is everything related to Hulk (and yet I'm very easy to please). So I'm gonna try to talk about things I like about it, things I dislike, the things people say about it and why it doesn't always make sense even if it's based on a deeper problem etc... So yes, it's yet another long and clumsy post because I have a lot to say and I really don't know where to start.
I'm a big fan of some MCU projects and I remember a time when I was incredibly excited over any trailers. Back when you weren't allowed to make the sligthliest genuine criticism against the MCU or people would threaten to murder all your family, funny how now you see these exact same people threatening to murder your family if your dare liking anything about the MCU (that's what I was talking about in this intro when I explained why I made this blog haha).
But like a lot of people, I slowly started feeling tired of it until one day for a totally unrelated reason I started highly limiting my time on social media and I realized that my problem wasn't the MCU itself but people. The way people mention the MCU even if it's not related to whatever they're talking about (doesn't matter if it's to simp or hate over it), like lately how people are "LOOK SHADOW'S SHOES ARE MCU-IZED LOL" about the latest Sonic trailer. Also the way medias keep talking about the MCU to make clicks through its trend. Everything has to be about the MCU somehow 'cause it's trendy and easy to create engagement through it and I think it's part of the "super hero fatigue", that's why I don't believe in Super Hero Fatigue, I mean, Spider-verse did pretty well and even big directors who are against the MCU praised it.
But I do think there's a fatigue over these kinda "easy to make" blockbuster. Yet another Jurassic Park, yet another Ghobusters, yet another CBM (Marvel, DC or even something else), you get what I mean. I think it's rather a fatigue over fanservice but even saying this is wrong 'cause fanservice can be (and is) a very nice thing, unfortunatly it became a shield to create lazy projects, hoping people will jump in because they see a familiar face. That's what you can see with Disney lately. Frozen 3-4, Zootopia 2, Moana 2, Stitch live action, Snow White live action, Toy Story 5. None of these movies should exist, live action have nothing really new or different to tell and are full CGI anyway so what's even the point ? The point is easy money with minimum effort and expend, that's the point. Disney is trying to refill their bank account and repair the big flop Disney+ was in the quickest most profitable way, using popular names to bring you back to theater and it's hard to blame them (and trust me I do) when people do fall for it and would rather watch yet another Toy Story rather than a new franchise with something fresh. But then again isn't it because Disney put less effort into their new franchise that people would rather see something they already know?
So yeah, to me while there's no "super hero fatigue", there's a global problem with the cinema industry and I think the little talk Miyazaki and Pete Docter had together recently perfectly summarize that. When Docter asked Miyazaki "when do you make change for yourself and when do you make change for audience" he answered "I never think about the audience", that's the thing here that make Ghibli a symbol of quality over time while people are getting slowly tired of Disney, they don't care about box office, they care about telling a story. And I think you can do both in fact, you can care about box office while telling a very good story, Disney used to be great at that, but unfortunatly you have more and more blockbuster that are just playing with your nostalgia without really trying. It used to exist before but it seems kinda more obvious now, the way cinema is slowly turning into a big factory and how people controlling it care less and less about cinema itself, but I really don't think the MCU is to blame for that because back in the 90s it was already a thing, you had a shit tons of franchises with a lot of movies and minimum effort as well. I think it's just more obvious with the MCU because it's bigger, longer, there's a new MCU projects every two months so it's an easy target and talking about the MCU always bring a lot of attention to you, that's also why hating on it became a trend, because it became some kind of clickbait to just trashtalk it ever since website put way too much attention on Scorsese opinion about it.
And let's talk about Scorsese's MCU opinion too while we're at it 'cause it's now the root of pretty much everything you hear about the MCU. There's not a single person in the cinema industry who isn't asked about it even when they have absolutly no connexion to the MCU.
I think Scorsese was right when he called the MCU a "theme park", however he was incredibly wrong when he said that as if it was a bad thing. I love theme park and I think most of you love it as well because when you go to a theme park you just forget about everything and have fun. I love deep movies, I love getting depressed and angry over them but I also love to "rest" and watch something simple from time to time and just chill, just like no matter how much I love gastronomy from time to time I go to fast food because it's easier and you know you're gonna have an easy good time. However cinema is slightly different from that in the way that just because something is very simple it doesn't mean there's not a lot of care, work and effort in it. So yes, the MCU is a theme park, so is Disneyland and yet you have no idea of the amount of details and incredible work a shit tons of people did and still do in it to make it near perfect, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's poor or lazy.
I could spend hours talking about some very smart things about the MCU before Endgame and after (and I do through Sam here). Even now there's still a lot of very powerful and impactful moments they made with a lot of care, through writing, through acting, through staging that are way deeper than just "omg this is an homage to this other MCU movie". Hell I could write a whole-ass essaie on that simple Loki moment and even explain how incredibly comics accurate it is even if there's nothing like that in the comics and the code they used to make that possible, playing with the 4th wall and things like that.
I mean, the MCU has the power to make you feel emotions through a simple credit intro
Art doesn't have to be perfect and good to be Art, it's a Supremacist take to think otherwise in fact. Your kid drawing stickmen of you is objectively "bad" compared to what pro can do but it's still Art and it still brings you emotions because Art is about communication, it's about having something to tell and while it's not deep the MCU does tell stories and does make you feel excited, angry, sad, curious etc...
And yes, the MCU is far from perfect, I have A LOT of problem with it but I still think most haters take are of very bad faith or just pointing the wrong problem.
Let's talk about Hulk for a moment and not even because I'm a fan of it (though it helps) but because it's the biggest exemple of what I mean.
I LOVE the Incredible Hulk movie, it's on my top 5 all time favorite movie even with its problem and I think it's a very great interpretation of Bruce and Hulk. Leterrier did very great given the absolute chaotic shit he had to face for that movie. For exemple I love how Hulk is "hidden" in the beginning of the movie when he's presented as a threat to the viewers and reveal once he's not, it's a very simple horror code that works very well here.
But Anyway, I really dislike what they did with both Bruce and Hulk after Ultron. It's sad to see a character like Bruce Banner, one of the smartest Marvel character ever, being so dumb so characters like Tony or Shuri can shine (as if they even needed him for that). It's sad that a character created through horror movie can't properly respect this monster heritage. It's sad that even his blip got forgotten because Tony's snap was just cooler and more emotional. And it's sad having a character about mental illness, depression, suicide even, being written as a comic relief and his struggles as jokes because anxiety sure is an incredibly FUNNY experience haha look at the naked dude who's having a panic attack.
I'm upset at the MCU for failing to adress all these very important topics properly, I'm upset at how they erased Bruce's dissociative identity disorder, I'm upset and how they erased his abusive past and I'm upset at how they failed to adress anything about Bruce and Hulk relationship.
There is a huge problem with Hulk's writing but it was never "gngngn Hulk is not strong anymore he's lame" and IN FACT one of the main problem with MCU Hulk is how it makes most of you believe that his strength is what matter about this character. No the problem isn't Prof Hulk, the problem is how Prof Hulk happened off-screen. The problem is how since Ultron we have absolutly no on-screen developpment for Hulk and even less for Bruce because a lot of directors who worked on Hulk only see him as a giant strong beast breaking shit and see no interest in developping him and because the MCU is incredibly popular and kinda "control" the vision people have of a Marvel character, Hulk who was in the holy trinity of the most popular Marvel character ever, became the least fav Avengers because "he's boring". So yeah, people screaming they want Savage Hulk back are ironically part of the problem they point out and that's a problem you often see, people rightfully complain about the MCU but for the wrong reasons, making it very annoying no matter if you like the MCU or not.
And yet, as I said there's a lot of things to point out with the MCU. The homophobia for exemple. Loki being canonically they/them non-binary genderfluid in comics is summarized through a very small sentence you can see by pausing at the right moment so it's not visible enough to recognize yet still "here" for damage controle.
And no, the problem isn't Sylvie. That's another good exemple of pointing out the wrong problem. Sylvie is NOT Loki, she's her own self, that's the whole point of the goddamn show, being more than just "Loki". In fact she's closer to Enchanteress than she is from Loki but people just love hating on women when they're "in the middle" of their ship so what can I say. Even without her, the problem with Loki's gender and sexuality remain.
Marvel Snap enchantress variant card
In fact everything LGBT+ is easy to censore so they can export their movies in country where it's forbidden while protecting themself from homophobia allegation, it's called pink-washing, being homophobic and using LGBT+ to shield yourself or sell merch and Disney are the "best" at doing this. It's easy to find people who worked for them pointing this out, Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls, for exemple. MCU Loki is bisexual, like his comics self, you learn that through a very little clumsy little sentence "a little bit of both" that can be very easily ignored or cut off and has absolutly no impact on his story and character to avoid upsetting people who want their characters to be all about their heterosexuality while feeling offended when a gay character is gay. Valkyie is bisexual, like her comics self, you learn that through a little sentence that I don't even remember in a movie with very loud humor, making it sounds like a joke rather than a statement.
Ayo and Aneka powerful lesbian couple has been reduced to a 2sec moment (cut off in a lot of countries) head kiss in Wakanda Forever.
And you know what makes it worst ? It's how Marvel keeps bragging about their LGBT+ representation, congratulating themself over it. I remember the Russo Brothers being so proud of themself for putting a gay nameless character one of them portrayed who was talking about a dude he was flirting with or whatever and making so many fuss about it like it was all progressive and impressive when it's a 10sec sentence of a guy saying "him" to talk about the flirt he found that most people didn't even notice. It came out in fucking 2019. Their LGBT+ erasure would be less upsetting if they would just shut the fuck about it and stop pretending it's progressive when you have projects like She-Ra about lesbians and trans people properly written and shown without making their personality all about it and yet still be relevant very openly LGBT+ icons.
Eternals did a better job but it got censored in a few countries (and seeing "parents" feeling offended by this and walking of theaters and putting bad reviews when there's a sex scene in the beggining is as funny as it's sad and disgusting).
Remember how Black Panther almost never happened and it's Kevin Feige (if I remember well) who had to push very hard for it just like he's currently trying to save Eternals 2 and that's another point I strongly disagree with, the hate Kevin Feige takes.
I'm not even a fan of him, he's still a corporate guy Wellington his stuff but I'm tired of reading "he doesn't read comics, he doesn't like comics, he doesn't care". I think Feige read way more comics than us because he's the freaking CEO of Marvel INCLUDING Marvel comics. Feige does love and care for Marvel, it's very visible through what he does and says, he often has to fight against Disney to allow movies like Captain Marvel or Black Panther to exist as I said above because Disney only cares about the toys they can sell while Feige want to tell stories. I think a lot of people forget that the biggest income for a franchise like Marvel and therefore Disney is merch. That's why every characters have a different design in each movies, to sell toys and Disney didn't think they could sell toys to little girls so they didn't care about developping women and they didn't think black characters would sell well either. And it's a very outdated opinion of course because girls and black people do have access and care about pop culture as well and really it's up to you to create a hype over a character, I mean, who the fuck cared about Groot before the MCU ? And how many money did they make out of him ? Same for Iron Man, United Staters tend to forget that comics aren't popular outside of their country so pretty much nobody really cared about Tony Stark before the MCU. That's why Bob Iger sayin he doesn't want to take risk anymore bothers me so much 'cause without risk neither Marvel nor Disney would be the empire they currently are.
But anyway, now here's another problem we pointed out right above, the overbundance and saturation of cameos for fanservice.
And I have a hard time caring about the two upcoming Avengers movies because of that honestly.
If the MCU worked better before Endgame it's not because of a fatigue, it's because prior to Endgame you didn't have that much characters and every movie was about developping them rather than developping a "bigger story". Even if all movies were slightly connected you could just enjoy the Cap franchise or the Iron Man franchise without really caring about anything else. Now it's the other way around, Marvel put the "main storyline" above the characters, they develop another "endgame" situation rather than developping their characters and it can't work because we can't get attached to these new characters like we did with the first Avengers team. We can't because Marvel makes them less interesting and important than their multiverse storyline and we can't because there's just too much. And that's even dangerous 'cause if a movie is delayed or cancelled they have to rewrite everything and it shows, you can feel the changes. You would think that Chadwick's tragic passing, COVID and the (rightful) strike would teach them to know better but here we are.
We reached a point where people just watch MCU projects to see what it's going to tease rather than learning to know the character it's about and enjoy the story. That's why people felt disappointed in Wanda Vision or Moon Knight while loving Deadpool, because the MCU made it a standard for their movies to just throw random cameos and fanservice and making their movies and series some big trailers for other projects and it's sad, that's why I don't necessarly blame people for expecting cameos and big-ass trailers rather than a more modest project about the characters they should be watching, because the MCU made it a standard themself.
There's a good exemple of that, Mandalorian s2 finished a few days before Wanda Vision started if I remember well and you had two totally different reactions for these. Wanda Vision was "bad" because no Doctor Strange cameo, Mandalorian was "good" because Luke Skywalker and that's the thing with cameos, Luke worked incredibly well because it was unexpected while Wanda Vision was disappointing because it was expected. And sure you could say "well it's fans being angry at things they made up", sure, it's kinda true but if they weren't so used of having what they're crying for they wouldn't be that upset over it. Basically the MCU spoiled them and now they have to deal with spoiled bratts. That's why phase 4-5 were supposedly highly disliked (supposedly because MCU movies keep making a shit tons of money even when it's a """flop""", as I said, it's just bad faith.
And honestly a lot of projects were good in these two phases. Eternals, Shang Chi, Doctor Strange 2, Loki, Wakanda Forever, GotG 3 were even better than some phase 1-2-3 movies, it just suffer that new standard the MCU set up and the hate trend.
And it problably suffered the "lack of hype".
Because that's one of the biggest problem with Marvel currently and it was born of that standard.
Too. Much. Projects.
There's simply too much. You don't have time to care about a story or a character because there's already another one coming. Honestly Endgame wasn't that good compared to some other MCU projects, out of the whole movie only the final battle was peak when you think of it (so 1/3 of the movie) but it worked incredibly well because of the hype they built for a whole year over it (and even more if you consider it was born with the first Iron Man). Between IW and Endgame you only had Captain Marvel and it happened prior to IW so you had nothing to really distract you from the waiting and the waiting create hype, the less the better. That's why the promote era of Avengers Endgame is the best MCU memory of a lot of people.
And this trailer didn't show anything relevant, which is yet another problem. The MCU shows too much. Curiosity is part of the hype, it's the first law of erotism in Art in fact but it works for pretty much everything, we mentionned that when we talked about horror movies above. Suggesting create more emotions than showing.
And y'know, that's why I'm having so much fun with MCU Sam (Sterns) right now, because we don't know shit about him, we have two shot (one is from a leaked trailer most of us weren't even supposed to see) and the very vague things Tim Blake Nelson tells us and that's why it brings back my interest for the MCU, because I feel exactly like I felt during the promo era of Endgame, because Sam is an important character to me, I want to see what happened to him the same way I wanted to know what happened to our heroes in Endgame. And of course it works on me because I cares about MCU Sam so much and because I waited over 16 years and carefully watched everything just to get a little glimpse of him, an answer. Everytime we got a new projects I prayed that it would be the project that would be the pay off. So yes, him being back feels incredibly rewarding and that's why Endgame worked.
And honestly when Feige joked about it I thought "I mean, it's not like a lot of people were waiting for that dead end, sure people were curious about it at best but that's pretty much it" and yet, yet I keep seeing people feeling incredibly hyped over Tim Blake Nelson. Hell, the crowd cheered for him before he even started talking during SDCC last Summer, because it feels rewarding and not needed, kinda like finding a neat bonus in a video game or like adding whipped cream to top your ice cream, not needed but incredibly good nonetheless.
And Endgame felt rewarding because it felt like a "bonus" to all our stories rather than a project teased over years through other projects, if that makes sense. We didn't really know it would be the conclusion of most of our heroes arcs so that's not the reason we felt so hyped about. We were hyped 'cause it was a bonus, we didn't really know it would pay off nor how when he first saw Thanos in Avengers, we thought of a little homage to comics rather than a teasing.
The first person yelling "wooh" is my energy honestly, thank you stranger.
But anyway.
I don't think the MCU is dead, far from it. Different yes. It did mistakes yes but nothing impossible to solve and while it will probably never be able to bring back the 'first time' hype of the previous Saga, it's still very enjoyable and it's far from too late to fix the few issues it got. Just like comics were supposed to die a shit tons of time and it's still around, less powerful but still very good, with some ups and downs. The MCU will stick around for quite some times no matter if we love or hate it and I think people should stop making so much fuss about it 'cause the over buzz (good or bad) is the main and biggest issue here.
Stop treating your personal taste and pop culture as some way to reach a social statut you lack of, remember that you can point out problems on things you love and on objectively great things (as long as you stay respectful) just like you can love something that is objectively bad and hated by most people. It doesn't matter if someone like something you don't or if they dislike something you love, it shouldn't prevent you from having your own fun and a stranger opinion about it shouldn't bother you just like you shouldn't feel the need to tell a stranger than you like something they don't or hate something they like.
I loved the MCU for helping me out when I needed it, I love the MCU for the memories it gave me and I will always love the MCU because it was part of my life for a while and gave me the strength and motivation to grow and to live. I don't have to like or care about every MCU projects, I don't need to agree to everything they do either and in fact it's important to stay objective and to point out a problem when there's on. But saying "lol it's lame" isn't gonna change anything and closing your eyes and pretending something you love is perfect isn't a way to show affection either, because when you love something you want it to properly grow. There's a balance to find and I hope you'll find it as well and be able to just enjoy things without caring about how it can impact your social statut.
Until next time, enjoy~
