Why Does This New Phase Feel So Disjointed?


Phase 4 of the MCU has covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. When the new phase was announced by Kevin Feige at Hall H at Comic-Con in 2019, these new series and movies were meant to fill in the gaps of the post-Avengers: Endgame era of pre-existing characters, titles like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Hawkeye. Simultaneously, the new phase of Marvel has introduced brand new characters with their rich backstories and mythologies to explore and enrich the expanding universe. Newcomers like Simu Liu, Iman Vellani, and Xochitl Gomez are bringing lesser-known heroes into the Marvel spotlight in fresh, exciting ways. The fun doesn’t stop there– Phase 4 is introducing A-list stars like Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, and Harry Styles.

Drumpe VIDEO OF THE DAY

RELATED: ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Review: Ryan Coogler Explores Loss and Legacy in One of the MCU’s Best Phase 4 Films

As Phase 4 comes to a close with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, audiences have traveled across time and the multiverse as the first act of the Multiverse Saga, unveiled by Feige at the Hall H presentation at this year’s Comic-Con. On Earth-616 alone, we’ve traveled from New Jersey to Egypt and from Madripoor to London. The stories being told have been complex and challenging, exploring themes of grief, mental illness, and family trauma, just to name a few. (Who says “theme park” movies can’t be serious?) With each new title, there’s an intimacy to their stories, one where you feel like you’re really getting to know them and their sector of the world. What’s made Phase 4 so strong is also its weakness – while we’re getting to deepen new and old characters alike, the expansive universe these characters live in feels isolated and disjointed.

Letitia Wright as Shuri during T'Challa's funeral in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Image via Marvel Studios

For over a decade, Marvel Studios has made a name for itself from the serialization of its movies, creating a cinematic universe for its characters to co-exist and interact in. From Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home, Marvel built an empire from their Infinity Saga, weaving storylines and characters together leading to a record-breaking climax. Starting with six characters, they built out their Avengers team; and from there, they’ve added characters like Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), lending their stories as part of the Infinity War storyline with Thanos (Josh Brolin) waiting at the goal post.

The titan-sized hole left by the finale of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame is too big to ignore. You can’t replicate this right off the bat; you have to work your way back up to that scale again. Based on what we’ve seen in Phase 4, the stakes have ranged from small to the size of the multiverse, with no clear, singular threat or villain they’re leading towards. Each character lives in their own bubble (or Hex, if you will) with very little overlap. Take Moon Knight for example– the six-episode series introduces Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector to the MCU, who has Dissociative Identity Disorder with multiple personalities. Marc is an avatar for the Egyptian god Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham) and protects the travelers of the night as Moon Knight. While the series itself is a great exploration of this new character (and deserves to live on its own), the implications of the series have little impact on the larger MCU narrative.

The post-credits scene of the series is usually reserved to tease a connection to the overarching story of the phase; instead, it conveniently finishes off Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) after Jake Lockley, Marc’s third persona, shoots him. To drive this point further, part of the season takes place in London; Stephen Grant lives and works at the National Art Gallery. London was also recently visited in Eternals; both Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) work at the Natural History Museum in the city. At the end of the movie, Arishem the Judge (David Kaye) is seen from the sky in London before he kidnaps Sersi, Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry). Surely an event like this would be fresh in people’s minds, or even the drone attack from Spider-Man: Far From Home? As it happens, there’s not even a brief mention of what would’ve been a massive event in a major global city. Outside of a reference to the Ancestral Plains from Black Panther, the entire series lives independent of the cinematic universe.

Kit Harington and Gemma Chan in Eternals
Image via Marvel Studios

Another reason why Marvel Studios has been successful over the years has been the way they’ve created layers to their characters with each of their appearances. This happens by honoring each storyline and building upon it in order to discover new details about them. For example, the Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) we meet in Captain America: The First Avenger is transformed by the time his arc completes in Endgame, making Captain America one of the best characters in the MCU. When a preceding storyline isn’t acknowledged, a character arc can suffer.

The Hawkeye series connects with Black Widow through the character Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). Yelena is on the warpath to kill Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), who she believes murdered her sister, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Though her storyline is continued in this series, it’s buried between the introduction of Echo (Alaqua Cox) and the Tracksuit Mafia, not to mention the return of Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. Her arc and its impact on Clint are weakened. Even with Echo getting her own Disney+ series, her corner feels more on the fringe compared to other new MCU characters.

The lack of continuity of character arcs and connection to the overarching story is most apparent in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. WandaVision does directly connect to the events of the movie since Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) has been studying the Darkhold and her search for her sons across the multiverse is the catalyst for using Gargantos to hunt down America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). When we do start to connect the pieces of WandaVision and Doctor Strange 2, Wanda’s growth from the series is put aside in order for her to be the villain. After everything WandaVision introduced, the Scarlet Witch’s arc takes what was strong from the series and cheapens it to further Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his story; her storyline is closed up with her sacrifice, removing her from the playing field. It’s also worth noting that the events of Multiverse of Madness happen after Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Strange cast the spell that ripped open the multiverse. For a catastrophic event like that, there is barely a mention of this interference, and even less so for its consequences.

Elizabeth Olsen Multiverse of Madness

To take the Doctor Strange 2 example a step further, the Loki series directly impacts the multiverse after Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kills Kang variant, He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), disrupting the Sacred Timeline into multiversal madness– yes, that was intentional. Her actions here are massive enough to break open the multiverse; shouldn’t there have been a reference to this in Multiverse of Madness? Plus, with Kang unleashed, he’s on the table to also wreak havoc across the MCU. We know Kang will be the primary villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Instead of introducing a deep-cut comics character played by an unannounced actor for shock value, Doctor Strange 2 could’ve used its mid-credits scene as an opportunity to overlap and connect these similar story threads together to advance the new saga.

For all the criticism mentioned, there are a couple of series that make a conscious effort to connect itself with Phase 4 – Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. By introducing an Avengers-loving superfan in Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan’s journey to becoming her own superhero is striking that balance between her story and her place in the MCU. For instance, Arian Moayed reprises Agent Cleary from No Way Home looking for the superpowered person from AvengerCon. In the closing credits, the Trust a Bro van from Hawkeye is seen on the streets of New Jersey. Not to mention, as a superfan of the Avengers, she seamlessly drops references to the Avengers and the MCU all the time; even her Ammi has a huge crush on Kingo! And even without the knowledge of Iman Vellani co-starring in The Marvels releasing in 2023, Ms. Marvel is the first series that is starting to put their pieces of the puzzle together with the rest of the MCU plus, the series introduces the term “mutant” to the MCU, teasing the arrival of the X-Men.

Then there’s Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) and the superhuman law division that begins to weave together and make sense of the MCU timeline. She represents Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) for his parole when the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Wong (Benedict Wong), breaks him out in order to participate in an underground fight club; this directly links back to the scene in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings when Wong is seen fighting Abomination in Macau. It’s a rare instance where we get a sense of where in the timeline this takes place, something that has been severely lacking in Phase 4. Also, thanks to her interaction with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), She-Hulk officially welcomes Daredevil into the MCU and sets up his future series, Daredevil: Born Again.

ms-marvel-iman-vellani-episode-1-1

Phase 4 is like a puzzle whose pieces have been dumped on the table. These pieces are still being flipped over while a couple of edge pieces are being sorted with little connecting. While the individual stories are personal and rich, the overall narrative is so expansive that it hasn’t given a full sense of where it’s leading. There’s a lot of potential on the field but the stakes aren’t there yet. On the ground level of Earth-616, there’s strong evidence to suggest that it’s leading towards Young Avengers, West Coast Avengers, or even Midnight Suns. It would be great to see Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) and Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) team up to create their own criminal empire, instead of operating in their own spheres independent of each other’s existence.

In theory, all of these team-ups are exciting, but with too many teams, there’s a higher chance for many of these characters’ storylines to slip through the cracks unless they’re interwoven in meaningful ways. From the galactic side, there are a plethora of options to take Thanos’ spot as the new Big Bad. We have Kang, the Celestials, the Egyptian pantheon of gods, Zeus (Russell Crowe) and the gods found in Omnipotence City (RIP Illuminati-838). There are powerful players on the table but seemingly no hierarchy or connection to each other. Who is the bigger threat? Who could cause the most damage to the MCU as we know it?

Thanks to Comic-Con in 2022, we now have a picture of where the Multiverse Saga is leading. In the Marvel Studios showcase, Kevin Feige pulled back the curtain to reveal the name of the new saga, the full Phase 5 slate, including Thunderbolts, and three titles from Phase 6; the road of the Multiverse Saga is leading Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. This confirms a popular theory based on the comics crossover event of the same name where the 616-universe crashes with another universe and combines together, bringing variants of characters into the same space. Quantumania kicks off Phase 5 with Kang the Conqueror; now that we have The Kang Dynasty to look towards, it’s clear that Kang is going to fill the void of a long-standing villain, like Thanos.

Jonathan Majors loki

Though there’s a lot to be excited for, the storyline needs to be earned after the current players on the table start to connect their storylines towards this massive, multiversal one. Not to mention, we still have more characters to introduce and reintroduce. From Deadpool 3 bringing back Hugh Jackman as Wolverine to Marvel’s first family kicking off Phase 6, the MCU is starting to feel a little crowded. We want time with these rebooted, returning characters before they’re thrust into Secret Wars where the stakes are multiversal.

The reason why Marvel Studios has been the powerhouse in Hollywood for the past decade is the way they’ve been able to follow through with their stories. It’s nice to finally have confirmation on where Kevin Feige and the creative team are leading audiences towards. However, at the end of Phase 4, it’s clear that the personal stories don’t have a direct impact on the overarching narrative of the new saga. Maybe this is a lesson in audience expectations and waiting to see the full picture, but when a studio has built a cinematic universe off the back of each movie with a throughline story for over a decade, the lack of one in Phase 4 feels incomplete.

Laisser un commentaire

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

*