Everything Wrong with the MCU
When Iron Man first came out in 2007, with the promise of a pending Avengers team-up, I was a giddy comic-obsessed eighth grader who still got made fun of for being into superheroes.
It’s hard to believe that superheroes are no longer part of nerd culture, but rather, an all-encompassing genre that just about everyone adores. While the gatekeepers complain about the mainstream commercial takeover of comic culture, I’m just ecstatic to finally have contiguous sequels to my favorite superhero flicks rather than never-ending reboots.
However, as much as I have enjoyed the last two decades of the MCU, I have to say I’ve also vehemently objected to some of the decisions made along the way.
This list won’t be an exhaustive list of every teeny tiny continuity error. These are objections to major creative decisions that affect the overall future of the franchise.
Agent Carter
The only mistake that was made with Agent Carter was the decision to cancel it in 2016 after two seasons of critical success and lackluster ratings. What Disney failed to understand was the long-game aspect of Agent Carter. The disappointing number of people who tuned in for weekly episodes is nothing compared to the number of people who would find the show years into its run on streaming networks, and the value that it brought in terms of world-building.
Agent Carter gave the MCU the opportunity to map out the decades of SHIELD activities leading up to Nick Fury’s Big Week and to establish new characters and storylines that could one day make the leap to the big screen. It’s not too late for a revival of the show on Disney+, so lets cross our fingers that the network producers rectify their mistake some day.
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 really irked me in a lot of ways. From the annoying first-person narrative to the way the Iron Man suits are way too easily destroyed, this movie just seemed sloppy and poorly made.
This movie is treated like a conclusion to the Iron Man story and Tony even destroys all of his suits at the end of the movie, which makes no sense since he has them back by Age of Ultron. I also don’t understand why the US military hasn’t made a whole fleet of their own suits since they now have the War Machine.
Finally, they cure Pepper Potts of her Extremis at the end of the movie, which I think was a mistake. It would have been way cooler to leave her with her powers to greenlight an Iron Maiden story.
Jessica Jones
Everything about the first season of Jessica Jones was wonderful, except for the death of Killgrave. Far too often in cinema we see superhero franchises kill villains who could have been involved in splendid storylines for years to come. I would much prefer to have seen him imprisoned in cryostasis wherever Abomination was kept so that he could reappear later on. With his powers, Killgrave could have easily been an Avengers-level threat if he had ever decided to become ruler of England or something like that.
Age of Ultron
The decision to kill off Quicksilver after a single movie was annoying enough, but I’m less irritated by that than I am by their decision not to bring Phil Coulson back from the grave.
As Agents of SHIELD fans know, it was Coulson’s Theta Protocol that provided the Avengers with their deus ex machina helicarrier to save the day at the end of the film. What a perfect opportunity they had there to reunite Coulson with his fellow Avengers.
For bonus points they could have even introduced Coulson’s squad to the big screen to help save the day with an extra episode of SHIELD before the Inhumans showdown to deal with the Ultron aftermath.
Agents of SHIELD
There were a lot of things Agents of SHIELD got wrong. For starters - Phil Coulson was the only agent of SHIELD anybody knew of who actually made the cut. No Sharon Carter, Black Widow, Hawkeye, or Maria Hill. That was a disappointment right out of the gate. but fortunately the characters that were invented for the show proved to be even more loveable than their big screen counterparts.
Agents of SHIELD did a great job of setting up for Winter Soldier and the episodes in the fallout of that movie were some of the best in the MCU. Unfortunately, the show and the movies never really intertwined much after that.
Little bits of the movies trickled down into the show, but not much went the other way and when it did it was more of an Easter egg than a true crossover (see Age of Ultron).
Agents of SHIELD should have served as the backbone of the MCU, bridging the gaps between movies and allowing for more worldbuilding and character development with guest appearances along the way. Sure we got one or two brief appearances from Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Lady Sif, but that was about it.
Adding television guest appearances to the contracts of the movie stars would have allowed for a more immersive MCU while simultaneously boosting interest in the shows.
The Inhumans
At the end of Agents of SHIELD’s second season, the US’s fish oil supply is contaminated with a Kree diviner, effectively giving powers to countless Inhumans around the world. That plot device is crucial to season three of SHIELD, but never comes up in the rest of the MCU.
Marvel had a fantastic opportunity to introduce scores of new superpowered heroes and villains in the mainstream but completely dropped the ball.
Also Inhumans the show. That whole show was a mistake.
Captain America: Civil War
The first thing this movie got wrong was the title. Why is it called “Captain America” when it has more Avengers in it than any Avengers movie up to that point?
The title aside, this was an exceptional film that came far too early in the franchise. Civil War was one of the most expansive and engrossing storylines in Marvel Comics history and the MCU should have devoted an entire phase or more to it.
Civil War should have been an actual civil war, perhaps in the post-Endgame world, with the entire world plunged into chaos as tens of thousands of powered individuals duked it out in the name of freedom. Instead we got a dozen guys beating each other up in a parking lot.
It was a great movie, but it wasn’t the grand epic it should have been. In fact, the biggest problem is (again) the title. Just don’t call it “Civil War.” Call it anything else and don’t change a thing about it.
Black Panther
My only problem with Black Panther is part of a recurring annoyance. Bring back Phil Coulson! Nix Everett Ross and replace him with Coulson and this would have been one of my favorite MCU films by far.
Spider-Man and the Osborns
I like Tom Holland as Spider-Man, and I like the Spider-Man movies. I really do. But I hate the direction they went with not including many of the OG characters and even going so far as to say there is no Norman Osborn or Oscorp in the MCU’s main universe.
I get wanting a fresh start to a franchise that had been rebooted twice in the past decade, but Norman, Harry, MJ, and Gwen are so crucial to Peter’s storyline.
Hopefully they’ll at least give us sequels to the first two Spider-Man series in the wake of No Way Home, but I honestly don’t see that happening and even if they do, Harry is dead in Toby Maguire’s world and I wasn’t the biggest fan of his character in Andrew Garfield’s world. To write him out of the MCU so unceremoniously was quite disappointing.
Norman Osborn was also a pivotal character not just in Spidey’s universe but in the MCU overall. I would have loved to see him as the Iron Patriot instead of what they did in Iron Man 3.
