I loved Hawkeye and Moonknight because they were largely disconnected stories that built off the established universe, that should be the formula for Marvel shows in my opinion. Just added world-building and deepening of the lore instead of trying to make everything matter to everything else
Edit: Daredevil Born Again does this well too, but I started wondering where the fuck Spider-Man was during all of it lmao
I loved Hawkeye and Moonknight because they were largely disconnected stories that built off the established universe, that should be the formula for Marvel shows in my opinion.
This formula was the exact reason (most of) the Netflix shows were successful. When those shows got the axe, I knew that was likely signaling the end of those types of self contained stories involving Marvel characters.
Daredevil and Punisher have never been my faves in the comics, but were the two shows I enjoyed the most, even more than most of the newer movies for the exact reason that they were well written and weren't trying to tie into everything else. They were just good stories driven by a smaller cast of characters.
The thing that made the big comic events like the Infinity Gauntlet and Secret Wars so great back in the day were that they were things that occurred rarely. More recently, it seems like there's some big event happening once per year and it's exhausting. I stopped reading comics because every time I turned around there was some other thing that was going to "change the Marvel Universe forever" and I just couldn't do it anymore.
The movies are following that model where there's always some big catastrophe they're building up towards. The Infinity Saga ended and before we as an audience had a chance to breathe, they started throwing Secret Invasion stuff at us.
And honestly, I wasn't even a fan of Infinity War or Endgame. I hated how they changed the entire Thanos story from the comics. No, I didn't need an exact interpretation as I know that would be impossible, but changing it from Thanos collecting the Infinity Gems himself to sending lackeys to do it for him took a lot of the wind out of the character for me. They also completely dropped the ball on Adam Warlock (one of my few critiques of the GoTG movies) and characters like Silver Surfer and Mephisto, pivotal characters in the comics story arc, were completely absent. I know in the case of SS it had to do with rights and I wouldn't have even minded so much if they'd stayed more true to some of the other elements, but all these things combined just annoyed me so much that it kind of ruined the whole experience for me.
Making Thanos some rando cosmic warlord who wanted balance in the universe was the absolute lamest motivation they could have come up with and I'll die on that hill.
Sorry, I just realized this turned into an entire rant I hadn't planned on.
TL;DR: The shows should be small, disconnected stories so we can enjoy the characters facing non-apocalyptic threats.
I just didn't understand why when Thanos had all of the stones he didn't just make x2 resources instead of deleting half of the life in the universe. I feel like it would be easier to make a quadrillion avocados.
They also completely dropped the ball on Adam Warlock (one of my few critiques of the GoTG movies) and characters like Silver Surfer and Mephisto, pivotal characters in the comics story arc, were completely absent.
Also leaving Death out completely was questionable. Thanos does so much just to get her attention/affection.
He was obsessed with Death. As in the physical embodiment of death. He wanted to gain power to become her equal and that's why he collected the Infinity Gems.
The snap was to impress her and try to win her over but she still wouldn't give him the time of day, literally. She wouldn't speak directly to him and essentially iced him out.
Comics Thanos is also quite insane. The nickname The Mad Titan is literal. He's a megalomaniacal nut. There was no, "My work here is done so I'm just gonna chill and wait for someone to come kill me" moment in the comics after the snap like they did in the movie. He was literally trying to become a god.
The only reason they were able to beat him was because he did some kind of astral projection thing and left his body unprotected and they were able to take the gauntlet off him. But that doesn't play as well in a movie.
Plus Thanos in MCU is much much weaker than Thanos of the comics who is a pure beast. he has so many powers and hi tech weapons at his disposal that he can absolutely solo ragdoll all the Avengers without ever using the Infinity Stones
But in the movies, he is just alien purple hulk with all of his glorious backstory erased.
And he doesnt care about balance or whatever. he is a simp for Death, but a darn awesome one.
I actually think that would be the wrong formula.
Moon Knight was supposed to be a launching pad, and that failed because of mcu fatigue and Eternals not doing well.
The shows should be largely disconnected, but also include a beloved existing character and not star a new character they want to launch.
The shows should offer more from a beloved character, but in a way that doesn’t make them mandatory. Wandavision was great, made good use of the show format and audience that skipped it needed little more than ‘she got corrupted by a dark book’ to catch on.
The shows that tried to cover a new character largely flopped because who cares? Ms. Marvel, she-hulk.
Hawkeye did better because she continued the clint story.
Daredevil is a good exception, because they chose to make him a show hero with a show format and multiple seasons.
So the shows should be largely disconnected but then when they are they fail because who cares… uh, what? Do you guys even know what you want or are you just looking for excuses to complain? It’s ok to just not be interested in the MCU, you don’t have to pretend they did something wrong.
Try actually reading the full comment? I’ll try simplifying
Show based on new unknown characters -> who cares? -> fail
Show based on beloved character -> most likely a succes.
To prevent overloading more casual people? Make most of the shows somewhat disconnected so they don’t feel like mandatory viewing for casual people.
WandaVision is great and can easily be explained for those that missed it.
Missing Falcon and Winter Soldier isn’t a big deal (and had promise if it wasn’t for the pandemic)
I really like the mcu and have watched most of it. Series are just very time intensive to watch and they went ham. They churned out so much that the audience turned apathetic and now half of the shows don’t go anywhere and have become a dead end for the main hero. That’s just sad.
82
u/I_eat_mud_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I loved Hawkeye and Moonknight because they were largely disconnected stories that built off the established universe, that should be the formula for Marvel shows in my opinion. Just added world-building and deepening of the lore instead of trying to make everything matter to everything else
Edit: Daredevil Born Again does this well too, but I started wondering where the fuck Spider-Man was during all of it lmao