Is The MCU's Problem Superhero Fatigue Or Something Else?
Image Source: Screenrant
The MCU has been in decline. While it used to rule Hollywood, the MCU has seen a bit of a drop-off recently in their box office return with Antman and The Wasp: Quanumania allegedly bombing at the box office. While it's showing at just over $476 million seems impressive at the surface, it ranked relatively low at the box office, and as shows like She-Hulk Attorney at Law saw huge rating drop-offs through their runs, the question should now be asked: is superhero fatigue setting in? Has the MCU, when combined with DC’s series of movies, combined with shows like Invincible, simply worn out the novelty of superheroes? Let’s look at what’s happened, and see what’s going on.
Superhero-related media has certainly been more and more common post-covid. Before the release of Disney+, despite being the king of the box office, Marvel wasn’t bleeding too deep into other mediums. The only real exception to this is comics, which is where it got its start, and is a medium that doesn’t remain very popular in the mainstream. It would release usually 2, maybe 3 movies per year, the vast majority of which were quite good, and focused mostly on characters that were known even to non-comic book fans, such as The Hulk and Captain America. With little to no real hype of The Marvels coming out, you have to wonder if Marvel moving on from their biggest money-makers may have been a mistake. Non-comic fans look at some of the new characters and wonder who they even are.
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Image Source: KnowYourMeme
Recently, however, more obscure characters that the public isn’t as familiar with such as Shang-Chi and Doctor Strange have been getting more of the spotlight. While these characters certainly don’t have barriers stopping people who see the movie from enjoying them, the general movie audience is a lot more likely to look at these characters and not be able to think of a face. In addition, a bunch of shows have flooded Disney+. While things started with well-reviewed shows like WandaVision and Loki, the novelty ran out fast, as more recent shows like Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, and SheHulk: Attorney at Law have seen poor reviews. While whether or not the shows have gotten worse is a matter of taste, the idea that your average fan has just gotten tired of superheroes is certainly possible.
While all of these show that superhero fatigue is a possibility, and likely at least part of the issue, the situation is almost certainly more complicated than that.
As many fans of the show know, The Simpsons, which was at its peak, possibly the most popular show of all time has been in decline for more than two-thirds of its lifetime. While fatigue could likely be blamed for this as well, a rotating of staff outside of what the original intent of the show was, it’s possible that the show just plain ran out of ideas, which is certainly a possibility with the MCU as well.
Image Source: TheGamer
There’s also the fact that the MCU doesn’t seem to have a streamlined plotline anymore. While Phase 1 was pretty quick to get together a small handful of characters and unite them before The Avengers, recently the movies and shows aren’t combining in interesting ways. Thor: Love and Thunder, for example, was mostly a “meanwhile, in Asgard,” story. The events of The Eternals, despite seeming to have world-shaping effects on the world (there is literally a giant hand coming from the middle of the ocean) and out of the several stories that have happened since on Earth, none of them have even mentioned it. The events of Hawkeye and Spider-Man: No Way Home had no impact on each other, despite happening at the same time in New York. The apparent upcoming villain Kang has so far only been seen in one movie and one show. So it appears as if the lack of an overarching plot could also be blamed for Marvel’s decline.
Overall, the decline of the MCU is a complex issue, and while it’s tempting to just point the finger at one issue, things aren’t that simple. Superhero fatigue is one factor, but it’s one of many.
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Source(s): IMDB MCU rankings
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