There is a recurring conversation around the current Marvel Cinematic Universe that could be summarized with three questions. Is there fatigue after Avengers: Endgame? Has the interrelation between the works become overly complicated? And has the production of television series contributed to the increase in this fatigue? According to Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of Bojack Horseman, the spell between him and superheroes has been broken.
“Bravo to the MCU for recapturing the magic I felt as a kid when I realized that the superhero stories I had wanted for years had become so complicated that keeping up had become more of a chore than a pleasure, and the I abandoned it completely, giving me the freedom to discover other delights elsewhere,” he honestly expressed on his social networks.
The statements are surprising for their clarity and add to the moment of crisis that Marvel is experiencing on a creative level, both on the television and film sides. Since The Avengers: Endgame there has not been a title that has grossed 1 billion in movie theaters with failures like The Eternals (403 million), curiously the work that has the most authorial profile, and Antman: Quantumania (476 million).
Even Antman (519 million) and Antman and the Wasp (622 million) had done better at the box office without being sold as Marvel events that were going to solidify the idea of the multiverse. And, in the case of the third Antman film, Thor: Love and Thunder or Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, not even critics have been particularly favorable to the creative drift.
On the television side, furthermore, Disney titles have problems garnering good reviews, obtaining viewings that justify their ambitious budgets and penetrating the cultural conversation. Secret Invasion, the last one broadcast, is the best example: it was beaten for using credits created using artificial intelligence and not even a cast led by Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke and Olivia Colman allowed it to spark online conversation week after week.
The interrelation of the stories, rather than contributing to their complexity, is leading to criticism with two arguments: that the understanding of the stories is excessively complicated (there are too many homework) and that these are not perceived as stories in themselves (but simply pieces in the global scheme, subtracting their identity).
You just have to look at the imminent premiere of The Marvels. To understand who its three protagonists are and to be able to enjoy the story, it is advisable to have seen the movie Captain Marvel and the series WandaVision and Ms Marvel.
