A lot of the criticisms of later entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe date back to the earlier films and TV shows in the franchise where they were much easier to tolerate or ignore.
Films
- Much of the criticisms that plagued the MCU in its later years (such as severe amounts of Mood Whiplash, Bathos, turning its characters into Adaptational Comic Relief, big-budget CGI fight sequences at the end, its heroes fighting villains with the same power sets, etc.), especially starting around The Multiverse Saga, were all actually present in The Infinity Saga. Back then, the shortcomings were more tolerable because the MCU was hailed as being a fun, high quality and comic-accurate alternative to other superhero films made by Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Sony. Whereas the superhero movies by Warner Bros. and DC Comics outside of The Dark Knight Trilogy were highly divisive, Fox's main X-Men Film Series was declining in quality and Sony had rebooted its Spider-Man films to mixed reception, the MCU was seen as the strongest competitor compared to the rest despite its formulaic approach. With Fox eventually bowing out following its buyout by Disney, Warner Bros. reshuffling its DC film slate, and Sony eventually partnering with Marvel while still pursing other projects, the MCU became the dominant superhero series—and it was at that point that fans were starting to tire of the same old formula and wanted something new. Unfortunately, now that the company was seen as the bar to clear for its competitors to make a good superhero movie, rather than the best of the bunch made by the big four, what fans appreciated compared to DC, Fox and Sony back in the day was now seen as an annoyance that made the franchise seem stale, not helped by DC films adopting a similar tone, even hiring James Gunn to direct and eventually lead the franchise, making many people burn out on the films' approach even quicker.
- The same problems would become further amplified when the MCU expanded to television streaming services. The increased output of MCU streaming shows meant that there wasn't enough time or resources for quality control, meaning that the franchise's problems like tonal inconsistency and garish visuals became all the more apparent. Furthermore, whereas MCU movies were seen as the gold standard in cinemas, MCU shows faced stiffed competition from acclaimed ongoing superhero shows like The Boys (2019) and Harley Quinn (2019) as well as limited series like "Watchmen (2019)". Subsequently, the incursion into TV made the MCU's problems all the more blatant whether judging the shows on their own merits or in comparison to their rivals.
- Some of the Phase 2 films, particularly Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, were criticized for having too many jokes and Mood Whiplash moments. Iron Man and The Avengers, two well-regarded films in the franchise, both had a lot of jokes, but there was a better balance of seriousness and levity.
- This flaw would become far less forgivable by Phase 4, as many audiences wound up being turned off by the overabundance of comedy, chiefly in Thor: Love and Thunder and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to a lesser extent), as it took away from far too many serious moments or otherwise added comedy where none was needed. It especially didn't help the reputation of Eternals, where it was criticized for trying to balance out Chloe Zhao's grand ambitions of a serious sweeping epic with the typical self-aware comedy used in the MCU, and became a critical and commercial disappointment. The only Phase 4 projects that didn't get hit with this criticism were Spider-Man: No Way Home (largely in part due to the humor better fitting the character, and it being a love letter to Spidey's entire cinematic history), Werewolf by Night (2022) (as it largely eschewed its humor to be a fun throwback to the Universal Monsters franchise, complete with a heavy dose of horror), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which had to take a more somber tone due to the passing of Chadwick Boseman, instead focusing on the character's grief to T'Challa's death), and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (whose humor is considered more befitting of the Guardians). Even when Phase 5 started with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, that same level of humor and Mood Whiplash that audiences felt was more befitting of Ant-Man started to grate on them. To those watching the films and seeing numerous jokes used to a great extent, it felt like the MCU was not taking its characters seriously, and made the franchise feel far more like the popcorn flicks that Martin Scorsese had infamously criticized them as rather than serious pieces showing the impact and relevance these characters had on popular culture.
- Specifically, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) was the first movie to really crank up the comedy, and bring comedic elements to a franchise that wasn't especially comedic in the comics. While the movie did get some flak for the juvenile humor and a few Mood Whiplash moments, like Star-Lord interrupting the villain with a silly dance, it mostly got positive reception because the comedic tone helped the film to stand out from its predecessors and fitted the outlandish Space Opera setting with its wacky characters, such as a human tree and a talking raccoon. In retrospect,
many blame the success of Guardians for this tonal shift, as later films tried to ape its style on the more grounded setting by turning established formerly serious characters into comic reliefs (like the aforementioned Thor, who somehow managed to be more goofy than Peter Quill in Thor: Love and Thunder) Ironically, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was met with praise by critics and audiences in part because the amount of humor and Mood Whiplash moments in the film was toned down compared to the preceding Phase 4 and 5 projects that took inspiration from the first Guardians film. - Speaking of Thor's reduction into comic relief, the first film to do that was actually Thor: Ragnarok, which played up a much more heavily comedic side than all of his previous appearances, and treated some Character Development for laughs, like undercutting Bruce Banner's seemingly tragic permanent turn into the Hulk with a slapstick gag about him hitting the ground first. At the time, this was seen as a breath of fresh air because Thor had always been seen as too dull, especially in the controversial second film Thor: The Dark World, and Ragnarok allowed Chris Hemsworth to tap into his comedic talent. On top of that, this change worked to Thor's favor because it was an 80's Genre Throwback film that utilized The Hulk as the Robert De Niro to Thor's Charles Grodin (as per Mark Ruffalo's comments about the two's Midnight Run dynamic), giving a proper balance and still focusing on Thor's Character Development as a more responsible and wiser man—especially compared to his brother. But come Love And Thunder, this comedy was heavily overshadowing everything about Thor to the point that he forgot much of his character arc in favor of being played as a straight up goofball, and his comedic partner was Natalie Portman's Jane Foster in an Endearingly Dorky performance rather than the more Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic he had with The Hulk, so the film's 80's approach didn't work nearly as well this time around. It especially didn't help that Infinity War had continued Thor's tragic characterization, only for Endgame to have played much of it for laughs at the expense of Thor's gaining weight in the wake of all he had lost, which only made him being goofier harder to watch. Even more ironically, The Dark World would be Vindicated by History precisely because, for all the criticism about its dull antagonist and its uninteresting and confusing plot, it at least took Thor more seriously and played into his development and story arc, while Ragnarok lost some ground for planting the seeds for Thor's eventual turn into a goofball and having its more dramatic moments turn out tragically pointless. Further exacerbating the issue was the contrast of how Thor's supporting cast were treated in The Dark World and Ragnarok: The Dark World does put Hogun the Grim on a bus, but it also makes a concerted effort to give the rest of the Warriors Three, plus Sif, something to do, and to let them show off their charms and personalities a little more than the first film did. Ragnarok, on the other, just kills all three of the Warriors Three off and jokes about how much they suck while doing it while straight up not featuring Sif at all or even mentioning where she is (though she did finally return in Love and Thunder, just without a hand).
- Tony Stark's role as a Deadpan Snarker in the first movie - Tony is portrayed as a jaded alcoholic (a portrayal which has basis on the source material), so his constant joking adds an interesting modern twist to the characterization, and since he's also written as an Insufferable Genius learning to be less of a jerk, his humor helped make the scenes of him being a jackass a lot more tolerable. When similar humor made its way to characters like Captain America (a soldier from the 1940s), Thor (a Human Alien whose civilization inspired the Norse Mythology) and Black Widow (a Soviet/Russian assassin/spy), it started to become a lot more noticeable.note It doesn't help that Marvel's trademark quipster Spider-Man later joined their ranks, and by that point he ended up being overshadowed by everyone else's jokes.
- Even at the time of The Avengers's release, critics suggested that Joss Whedon's signature snark was hitting near critical mass in places, again, especially not but entirely through the character-appropriate Tony Stark, and not exclusively when it would be entirely appropriate to the situation at hand. But The Avengers was a huge cinematic event, the culmination of all the little hints at a future crossover across multiple preceding Marvel films; it was a big crowd-pleasing spectacle and the story was, while not a full-on Excuse Plot, fairly light on dramatic stakes overall. The major exception, the death of beloved minor background character Phil Coulson, was treated with appropriate gravity by the characters and the writing. Avengers: Age of Ultron, by contrast, was much less fresh, the snark even more overwhelming, and attempts to make the story more dramatic and heavy only served to alienate audiences from the humor, especially when, for example, Quicksilver spends his last seconds of mortally-wounded life snarking at Hawkeye before what's supposed to be his heroic death.
- This criticism came to a head in Captain America: Civil War during the signature airport fight scene. The Avengers are literally split down the middle, fighting one another with some of them being as close as family. However, with the rule proving exception of Black Panther, not only do none of them show any angst but everyone seems to be obsessed with trying to out-snark each other. One critic compared it to "A Star Wars movie where Luke, Leia, and Chewie all try to be Han Solo."
- It wound up growing worse by the time of Phase 4, where criticism was levied against many of the new characters introduced there of all being snarky to varying degrees, just in different ways (for example, Moon Knight saw the split personalities of Marc and Steven snarking at each other, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law had Jen do this via Breaking the Fourth Wall, and Thor: Love and Thunder made Thor an Adaptational Comic Relief character) made fans far less forgiving of this flaw, as it made the characters (with the exceptions of the aforementioned Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and the soon-to-be introduced Deadpool, all of whom are considered best fitting of being snarky) in the series less unique.
- The Avengers is accused of the "too many characters" problem that plagued some of the later films. It's less noticeable because the Avengers all had a common goal and the film itself had a fairly streamlined plot, which was helped by the fact that most of the key characters were already well-developed thanks to previous films. Meanwhile, later movies tried to give every character their own arc and storyline, with mixed results. Phase 4 also received criticisms for introducing popular characters such as Shang-Chi, Kate Bishop, Moon Knight and She-Hulk in their own movies/shows, only for the backlog of other content resulting in these characters barely being referenced or showcased again, making their inclusion to the overall franchise seem superfluous.
- Some people complain about Iron Man getting Wolverine Publicity as more or less the most prominent Avenger (unlike the comics where it's Captain America) and the closest thing the MCU has to a main character. In Phase 1, he was especially prominent after his first movie started the whole series. He was the first hero to ever headline two movies (Iron Man and Iron Man 2) in a single phase. His cameo in The Incredible Hulk was the first sign of the shared movie universe truly getting into gear. He was indirectly linked to Captain America's origin story (and later SHIELD's as well) through his father Howard, and finally Stark Tower played a major role in the climax of The Avengers. While a few grumbled about him being treated as the frontman for The Avengers instead of the traditional leader Cap, most fans accepted his increased role at that time since Iron Man was fairly new to the public and Robert Downey Jr.'s snarky comeback performance was unique for superhero movies. However, most complaints about Tony Stark's Wolverine Publicity really began kicking into gear with Age of Ultron, where he replaced Hank Pym/Ant-Man I as Ultron's creator, though this was due to then-director Edgar Wright tying up the Ant-Man characters in their own movie which was stuck in Development Hell during Phases 1 and 2. Then Tony went on to become a co-lead in Cap's third movie Civil War, then went on to mentor Peter Parker/Spider-Man, more or less replacing Uncle Ben, which ticked off more fans. Even his death in Avengers: Endgame doesn't stop this, as Mysterio's motivations in Spider-Man: Far From Home are tied to Stark's actions.
- The complaints the fans had about Tony usurping Uncle Ben in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man's own great supporting cast and rogues gallery tied to his rather than stand on its own, can also be traced back to Age of Ultron, where Tony usurps Hank Pym's status as the creator of Ultron and his entire character arc as The Friend Nobody Likes of the Avengers. This was criticized then at the time, at least by Hank Pym and Avengers fans, but most audiences outside that group were fine with these changes and were welcoming of them. When Ant-Man was released later that summer, some early critics came around and admitted that having Tony take on the burden of Ultron and the baggage associated with it (something he actually did do in one comics storyline) allowed MCU Hank Pym to escape the major toxic reputation that his comics' counterpart had earned. This Wolverine Publicity and Character Shilling however became divisive with Homecoming because Spider-Man has always been more iconic and famous than Ant-Man, and his origins and supporting cast had been adapted previously into iconic and classic films, and whereas Ant-Man and Iron Man in the comics are known for having weak supporting casts and rogues galleries, Spider-Man is considered to have some of the best versions of both categories, and many felt that shoehorning Iron Man and Happy into Spider-Man's corner came off as disrespectful, with Iron Man seen as taking Spidey's thunder.note Ultimately, Spider-Man: No Way Home fixed this by having Spider-Man's identity erased from the world in a way that severed his ties to Iron Man.
- The subplot of Spider-Man as a novice super hero, who makes mistakes and falls into Destructive Saviour mode, but who has a Big Good supervising him so that he grows up to his full potential and may join the Avengers when he grows up. This is an adaptation of a similar plot from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic (with The Ultimates, that universe's version of the Avengers, and Nick Fury instead of Tony Stark)note . However, that plot worked fine in the comics because, as a long-runner, it could show Spider-Man doing his things on his own for the immediate plots, with the adult superheroes showing up every now and then to advance the long-term plots. The limited time of films to narrate their stories forced to have Tony Stark around Spider-Man most of the time to build up that dynamic, and many people saw him as a mere sidekick of Iron Man as a result, requiring Spider-Man: No Way Home to fix that and make him more of an independent hero at last.
- Many of the movies in Phase 2 are often criticized for having flat, one-note villains like Malekith and Ronan the Accuser. This is likely because Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of Loki wound up becoming a Breakout Villain in Thor and (to a greater extent) The Avengers (2012) by having depth and dimension; prior to that, none of the villains (Obadiah Stane, Abomination, Ivan Vanko, and the Red Skull) were all that memorable. Following Loki's popularity, however, audiences were far less tolerant of generic villainy, especially considering that Serial Escalation made the stakes so ludicrously high that there was no way they could succeed. It should be noted that audiences tolerated the weak villains in Phase 1 because it was seen as an acceptable trade-off for focusing on the introductory character arcs of the heroes; by Phase 2 when the hero arcs become less important, fans were less willing to overlook the weaker villains. This would be corrected by Phase 3 and 4 films such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings that eventually provided villains (Ego the Living Planet, Vulture, Killmonger, Thanos, and Wenwu respectively) with substance, if the positive critical response to them is anything to go by.
- On a related note, the MCU's increasing reliance on sympathetic villains from Phase 3 and onward has been criticized as stale and badly written since said villains make legit points yet they still act gratuitously evil because they're villains. However, this trend first started with Killmonger from Black Panther, who is generally seen as one of the best MCU villains. While Killmonger was sympathetic because of how he suffered from systemic racism, and rightfully criticized Wakanda for not helping impoverished black people, he still had gratuitous Kick the Dog moments (i.e. shooting his girlfriend when Ulysses Klaue took her hostage) and strong hatred of white people that were added to remind audiences that he was still a villain. However, what Killmonger had that later similarly sympathetically motivated villains lacked was that Killmonger was one of the first such villains to be featured in the MCU after a long history of largely much more generically evil villains, making a sympathetic villain feel fresh for the franchise. Furthermore, Killmonger's characterization was genuinely sympathetic as the film explored his tragic backstory and his rationale in a way that allowed his Freudian Excuse, while not remotely justification for his evil actions, to be understandable. Yet most importantly, after Killmonger's defeat, T'Challa put genuine effort into addressing Killmonger's arguments and bringing about real change. In contrast, the later sympathetic villains were less well-received because of either their unlikable personalities (Karli Morgenthau), shallow motivations (Dar-Benn), or forced evil actions (Gravik). Even worse is that after defeating the villains, the heroes seldomly acknowledge their arguments or try to address them in favor of maintaining the status quo. So while Killmonger was seen as a refreshing and compelling anti-villain that holds up, his later imitators have neither his novelty nor nuanced characterization.
- The overabundance of spinoff hooks has become a problem that has taken over the MCU and spread beyond to other franchises trying to emulate it. This goes back to the very first Iron Man movie with Nick Fury showing up to tease The Avengers during The Stinger. This was pretty surprising and groundbreaking at the time, but it was purely a bonus scene tacked on after the credits that had little bearing on what came before; Iron Man still worked as a standalone movie without it. Now, a common complaint about Hollywood blockbusters in general (not just Marvel's films or even superhero films) concerns how the films go out of their way to advertise future installments and spinoffs instead of focusing on building cohesive stories that stand on their own, leading to unresolved plot threads that harm the narrative and risk alienating audiences just for the sake of a hook, which can become even worse if the proposed spinoff in question ends up not happening.
- For a close-knit team of superheroes, the Avengers do seem to spend an awful lot of time fighting each other. In later years, this has become one of the biggest criticisms of the MCU, with some critics suggesting that it's an attempt at making up for the fact that few of the actual villains are particularly interesting. The problem can actually be traced back to The Avengers, when the heroes spent roughly half of the movie squabbling and fighting before putting aside their differences to fight Loki. But it was easier to tolerate there, since the squabbling was actually done for Character Development: it established the Avengers as a group of mismatched people with very different philosophies and personalities, and it made it all the more cathartic when they learned to work together. This wasn't quite the case in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, when the heroes went right back to pummeling each other. By Civil War, many fans felt that the hero-on-hero action had gotten out of hand. Civil War, itself an adaptation of a comic that involved heroes fighting each other, has this as its main draw.
- Going hand-in-hand with this criticism of the amount of hero-on-hero violence is this constant subplot about a lack of trust between the heroes, leading to some kind of complication (yelling at best, full-on internal warfare at worst) that allows the villains to constantly advance their plot until the climax finally hits, everybody accepts to at least try to trust the others for the sake of saving the world... and then things get back to square one by the next movie/season, with a potential for the yelling and internal warfare to become even worse. This situation was set all the way back in the very first Iron Man with Tony going behind everybody's backs to try to correct what he felt was his greatest mistake that was his weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, then it hit one of its big snags on The Avengers with Tony and Steve confronting Nick Fury about creating weapons based on HYDRA (and Stark Industries) designs to supplement SHIELD's (by Fury's words) "laughably useless" firepower against enemies like Loki (although then it was the payoff of such things like the Tesseract). By the time of several seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America: Civil War, though, this lack of trust had become truly infuriating and the fact that it was highly important to the interactions between Tony and Peter on Spider-Man: Homecoming (which as noted above, made Tony even more of a Base-Breaking Character) has had more than one person say that this type of plot has about overstayed its welcome.
- The handling of romance, particularly instances that end up coming across as Strangled by the Red String and sidelining the love interests in odd ways, was another problem that started in Phase 1. Specifically, in The Incredible Hulk where Bruce and Betty were together, but rarely got to time to show it, Thor having Thor and Jane fall in love over the course of a single weekend and The Avengers writing out Jane and dropping Betty altogether. What made these forgivable was that the on-the-run nature of The Incredible Hulk meant that Bruce and Betty simply couldn't have much time to get intimate and Thor's romance with Jane was a key part to starting his character arc. Both couples being long-standing pairs from the comics also helped to ease the situation. Tony and Pepper also got some sweet scenes in Avengers to help keep it from being too noticeable.
- The problems grew in Phase 2. In an effort to keep Pepper and Jane from being Demoted to Satellite Love Interest, they were given more direct roles in the plot of Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. The intent was well-meaning, but the results were mixed, eventually lead to both actresses leaving the franchise for a few years later on. Ant-Man and Wasp also had a hook-up at the end with little build-up, albeit one that was lampshaded. But the big one was having Bruce and Natasha hook up in Age of Ultron. They just suddenly were a couple which was supported in-universe, but the audience never got to see the build-up or any real chemistry aside from some scenes one could take as light Ship Tease back in the first Avengers film. It also came across as Bruce just kinda forgetting Betty ever existed.
- Since then, Marvel learned to how to handle romance more realistically. Tony and Pepper would break up and make up with their relationship being handled with more tact from then on, Dr. Strange and Spider-Man Did Not Get the Girl through the circumstances of their movies with Peter also taking time to build up his own relationship and the romantic pairings that did occur generally got a slower, more natural build-up without having acceptance of such get forced upon the audience.
- Fans took umbrage with Black Widow (2021) and how its version of Taskmaster turned out to be In Name Only, as it chose to depict the character as Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of the film's Big Bad that was brainwashed into a weapon in her father's service rather than being the wisecracking mercenary Tony Masters. However, this was actually the third time in the MCU movies that a villain from the comics had undergone a drastic change in the transition from comic to film:
- Iron Man 3 had pulled drastic changes with The Mandarin, revealing him as a drunken actor named Trevor Slattery, who was hired by the real Big Bad, Aldrich Killian, to put on a public face for his crimes while he carried out his real plans in secret—and that twist was met with controversy very similar to the kind that the changes to Taskmaster in Black Widow suffered from. However, the difference in this case is that the Mandarin's twist was slightly more acceptable because there was genuine reasoning behind it. The Mandarin was a character with a lot of Values Dissonance over his Yellow Peril origins so any alterations would be necessary to suit modern tastes, with some people even admiring the twist as a sly commentary on racist stereotyping that can be weaponized for fearmongering. It also helped that the twist was later retconned in All Hail The King by revealing the "real" Mandarin had taken offense to Slattery's portrayal, leading to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings featuring a more comics-accurate take on The Mandarin that shed much of the character's past baggage and made him into a fleshed-out, well-rounded antagonist that even spared Trevor, who in turn managed to redeem himself in the eyes of fans by bringing much needed levity to an emotional story. Furthermore, even the fans who didn't like the twist in and of itself were still able to be entertained by the lively and flamboyant performance that Ben Kingsley put on while portraying the character. As for Taskmaster, himself an Ensemble Dark Horse in the comics, fans weren't so forgiving of the twist because the character didn't have any problematic baggage from the past that needed an overhaul. Furthermore, the fact his female counterpart in Black Widow bore no resemblance to the character fans knew and loved, combined with Olga Kurylenko's plot-induced inability to put on as compelling of a performance for Taskmaster as Kingsley did for the fake Mandarin, made the twist much harder to forgive.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp had similarly subjected a much better received Gender Flip and backstory change upon Ghost, turning the character from a middle aged white man who served as an enemy of Iron Man to a younger woman named Ava Starr who ends up playing an antagonistic role to the film's titular duo. The creative liberties taken with Ghost, however, were easier to digest since Ghost's comic book counterpart was a very obscure flavor-of-the-week villain with no set in stone personality, identity, or even backstory, which allowed the filmmakers much more leeway to reimagine the character as they saw fit, giving the character a much better defined personality, an actual name, and understandable motivations in the process. Taskmaster, however, was already a very well fleshed out and quite popular character in the comics. And as a result, while the changes made to Ghost helped improve on a less interesting character from the comics, the changes made to Taskmaster instead left the character feeling robbed of any agency or unique identity of their own, while neither conforming to fan expectations or improving upon the character in the process.
- Some fans complain about how Phase 4 felt rather directionless given the absence of a clear villain or Myth Arc in contrast to the Infinity Saga. However, this was also true for much of the Infinity Saga with Thanos and the Infinity Stones taking a backseat. Prior to The Avengers, the Phase 1 films were mostly tied together with cameos and background references. Even after the Avengers were assembled, much of Phase 2 focused more on sequels to the Avengers' solo films and introducing new heroes for the audiences. This downplayed continuity worked as most of the movies in the Infinity Saga were self-contained and enjoyable enough on their own. Conversely, Phase 4 suffers from the same level of Continuity Lockout that Phase 3 suffered from, while still feeling like it was also now Four Lines, All Waiting instead of a unified narrative. It didn't help matters that Phase 4 has more movies and now Disney+ shows in the same continuity, making it even more random and directionless. On top of that, whereas the Infinity Saga had Iron Man and Captain America as the main heroes to anchor the central narrative, the Multiverse Saga introduced dozens of heroes, but didn't establish anyone to function as the new face of the saga, further adding to the sense of aimlessness.
- A common criticism of the franchise since Phase 3 was the overreliance on CGI that resulted in movies with bad visual effects and creepy-looking characters. Granted, the MCU has always relied on some kind of visual effect, as is standard in Hollywood tentpole movies, but the Phase 1 and 2 movies used CGI in moderate amounts alongside practical effects and when it made sense (i.e. the Iron Man suits had completely digital legs so that the actors can move better). However, the Phase 3 and 4 entries became increasingly reliant on CGI to the point that entire scenes, characters, props and costumes were completely digital. Even costumes that were previously practical props like Spider-Man's suit and Thor's helmet were replaced by completely digital constructs. Subsequently, while a Phase 1 movie like Iron Man may have around 800 VFX shots, a Phase 3 movie like Civil War can have as many as 3000 VFX shots. When combined with other challenges like the inclusion of digital de-aging, additional work on the Disney+ shows, hiring of directors without prior experience in tentpole movies, loss of talent and COVID-19 working restrictions, the effects in Phase 3 and 4 have only gotten worse with standouts like the poorly rendered final fight in Black Panther and Axl's unintentionally uncanny head projection in Thor: Love and Thunder. Not helping matters is the rise of complaints from the VFX department being overworked and underpaid for their efforts, both at Marvel and also throughout the rest of the film industry.
- A major criticism of Quantumania was by elevating the stakes with an Avengers-level villain who threatened the multiverse, the film lost the relaxing low stakes and intimate and charm of the previous two Ant-Man movies. Other recent installments like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight also attracted criticism for featuring grand, sweeping save the world plots in stories starring characters who are largely known as street level heroes in the comics.note There was a similar Serial Escalation occurred throughout the beloved Infinity Saga, which began with a simple Corrupt Corporate Executive who wanted to sell weapons as the villain of Iron Man, before eventually climaxing with a cosmic tyrant who tried wiping out half of the universe's population in Infinity War and Endgame, but the build-up there was more gradual with a fair amount of Breather Movies that had smaller scale conflicts and a greater focus on character development and interaction in between the massive team-ups. However, following Endgame, Marvel continued featuring gigantic, world (and in some cases, universe) threatening conflicts in the movies, causing some fans to lament that the character work that made a lot of people fall in love with the franchise in the first place was becoming increasingly lost in a sea of spectacle. It also didn't help that by making the villains and conflicts into global or universal threats, the movies ended up being unfavorably compared to the Avengers movies and the Arc Villain Thanos, which only furthered skewed perceptions.
- Similarly, many fans were left underwhelmed by Kang who was hyped up prior as being THE new threat to the MCU after Thanos and set to be the subject of the next Avengers film, feeling that, despite Jonathan Majors' best efforts, he simply wasn't as threatening or dangerous as he was hyped up to be, getting defeated by Scott without too much trouble. This echoes similar complaints about Thanos prior to Infinity War that he was regularly spoken of as a serious threat but didn't seem particularly effective, his first two appearances showing him get betrayed by underlings and actually losing one of the Infinity Stones by entrusting it to Loki. This only faded once Infinity War was released and he finally lived up to his reputation as a villain, which resulted in almost every named hero introduced up to that point assembling to take him down and still not being able to defeat him, and ultimately lost in the end. Kang on the other hand was introduced as a physical threat in Quantumania and as He Who Remains in the Season 1 finale of Loki, both of which had him being killed/defeated by the likes of Ant-Man and Sylvie in contrast to Thanos whose first major appearance with the heroes has him utterly demolish Thor, Loki and the Hulk in battle after slaughtering almost all the surviving Asgardians, showing right away how dangerous and powerful he was. This had the consequence of having audiences perceive Kang as a much lesser threat by comparison, especially since he doesn't achieve any lasting victories in either installment.
- Some fans were unhappy that several heroes gradually replaced their original costumes with those made of nanotechnology, with said suits being criticized for looking fake and uninteresting. This had previously been done way back in the first Black Panther movie and both Infinity War and Endgame. However neither film elicited too many complaints about nanotech suits at the time because it made sense for characters to use such technology. Not only was T'Challa's nanotech suit made by Shuri within an Advanced Ancient Acropolis, but the switch to nanotechnology was justified in-universe by pointing out that the King of Wakanda should have a way of changing into his Panther habit as quick as possible without having to be distracted by doing things like manually putting on a helmet while getting shot at by enemies. Similarly, Tony Stark having nanotech suits made sense as he is an incredibly smart engineer and scientist of his own, helped with the fact that Wakanda had started sharing their technology with the world at this point, and it's perfectly in character for the legendarily paranoid Tony to build a suit he can take anywhere and put on in seconds with no prep time (he did that as early as Iron Man 2, when he carried his suit in his briefcase). By contrast, characters such Thor and Ant-Man having nanotech suits in their later films not only made little sense in-universe, but also highlighted the weaknesses of having them show up so frequently throughout the franchise.
- Relatedly, a lot of people have noted how the main characters' costumes changing for each installment was getting very annoying and unnecessary in Phases 4 and 5. While the updating of superhero costumes has been a staple for the previous three phases, people didn't have a problem with it back then, as the costume changes were usually done to show Costume Evolution and were generally weaved into the story (i.e: Iron Man constantly building new suits or Captain America updating his costume to fit the modern era). Later installments, however, can't seem to stop changing costumes for their heroes even when there isn't anything wrong with them, resulting in quite a few accusations from fans that the costumes are changed simply for the sake of making new merchandise.
- A frequent complaint during the MCU's later phases is the frequent adherence to Marquee Alter Ego in contrast to the comics, who kept their heroes masked for the most part. In truth though, this is something that has been common for many MCU productions; in part because of the lack of secret identities within the franchise. However, previous phases tended to make sure that masked heroes only showed their face when they needed to or when it wasn't necessary to hide it anymore, which also had the added effect of allowing the actors to emote with their faces more than in the source material. Later films began receiving criticism for having characters constantly removing their helmets for essentially no reason - and in some particularly egregious cases, right in the middle of battle where they're vulnerable to damage - just so that the actors' faces are visible. The fact that many of the heroes' helmets are now collapsible CGI has only made this worse for some viewers, and it came to a head with Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which had him constantly turning off his purple TV helmet despite Jonathan Majors' face being perfectly visible with it on.
- A common complaint that cropped up for the franchise around Phase 4 (and to a lesser extent Phase 3) is how many of the installments hint at massive changes to the world, only to revert back to Status Quo Is God at the end of the day. This wasn't quite an issue previously, as most of the threats the Avengers and their allies faced then were either evil businessmen, modern-day fascistic leaders or blatantly evil bad guys without any meaningful motivations or greater impact on the world. However, when installments started introducing more complex villains with legitimate criticism of the heroes and higher stakes in save the world conflicts, it became more frustrating how the heroes hardly change their views or improve the world in response. Relatedly, many huge sweeping events such as the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D, Asgard's destruction and even the Snap itself had their effects either undone or flat-out ignored in later installments, further adding to frustrations about the lack of change. The most arguably blatant example of stagnation was in Thor: Love and Thunder, which glosses over Thanos' massacre of the Asgardians and Thor's failure to stop the Snap in Infinity War by showing off Infinity Conez, a Thanos-themed ice cream shop in New Asgard, and Thor regressing back to his egotistical pre-Infinity War personality. The lack of any meaningful changes to the world or characters only made the major villains and cataclysmic events seem trivial and weightless in the grand scheme, and ironically allowing Ultron's statement that "you want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change" to ultimately be proven true.
- During Phases 4 and 5, a number of people began criticizing Marvel's tendency to hire lesser-known writers and directors to helm some of their major upcoming projects, with many feeling that their inexperience lead to diminished overall quality. Yet Marvel has always hired lesser-known filmmakers since the very beginning of the MCU, with directors and writers like Jon Favreau, Ryan Coogler, James Gunn and The Russo Brothers having only previously worked on smaller projects that hardly saw mainstream success. That said, it's worth pointing out that the above mentioned directors had some prior experience with action, drama and/or comedy that could easily be applied to the superhero genre. By contrast, many recent installments have been criticized for having the people in charge of it not even meeting that standard. Most notably, the writers on She-Hulk had no prior experience in writing legal comedies, Jeff Loveness's only major writing credits came from the comedic animated series Rick and Morty before penning the more serious Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Chloé Zhao never worked on a movie with a budget north of $5 million before helming the $200 million epic Eternals. Subsequently, the inexperience of post-Phase 3 creators in large-scale productions or specialized genres resulted in projects of diminishing quality, a fact that became very apparent when the Writer's Strike of 2023 revealed that Marvel Studios often exploited their inexperience to make them more likely to adhere to executive mandates.
- In general, the franchise's usage of Mirror Match fights has been increasingly scrutinized over the course of the MCU's life cycle. When they were done in earlier installments such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, viewers saw them as an interesting reflection of the main characters' journeys, especially since the villains were personal foes for each respective hero. When later installments began using them more often however, fans began to get tired of them quickly due to other films providing more distinct and entertaining ways for heroes to fight their villains, with the Mirror Match becoming increasingly worn-out and tiresome.
- The Multiverse Saga is often criticized by fans for not having a solidified plan as to where the overall Myth Arc was going to lead or who the main characters of it were. In truth, the Infinity Saga had the exact same problems when Marvel Studios was just starting out, as Thanos being revealed as the Greater-Scope Villain was a last-minute suggestion thrown in by Joss Whedon, and his connection to the Infinity Stones was made up in the span of a few hours by James Gunn when he was writing Guardians of the Galaxy. This was easier to overlook at the time as the franchise established three overall main characters of focus (Iron Man, Thor and Captain America), the quality of each film was consistently solid, and Thanos would not established as a direct threat until the very end of the Infinity Saga, with focus being put on his various minions or independent antagonists. By contrast, the Multiverse Saga introduced Kang the Conqueror as an immediate threat, only to do very little with him going forward, and the quality of each installment was very hit-or-miss, while also being very wishy-washy over which of the introduced characters would become major players for the overarching storynote . Thus, the lack of planning and cohesiveness became far more obvious and aggravating for viewers.
- Captain America: Civil War is often referred to by fans as "Avengers 2.5" as despite being nominally a Captain America movie, its primary focus is the dynamics between Avengers. The film sidelinded several of Captain America's own plotlines, such as his struggle to adapt to the modern times, and his role in the world following the dissolution of SHIELD, and uses his relationship with Bucky mostly to drive the eventual conflict between the Avengers instead of exploring Cap's feelings on the matter. While the film was well received at the time due to being the first non Avengers film to really emphasize the interconnected nature of the universe via characters from multiple previously separate subfranchises crossing over together, fans would criticize later MCU films for devoting too much time to developing the series' overall plotline and not enough on the heroes they're named after, leaving the characters feeling Flat and underdeveloped. Having every MCU film be a Crisis Crossover also served to make them all feel similar to one another, and made the actual crossovers less unique and appealing. To some, The Marvels (2023) felt like the culmination of this trend, where the villain and conflict only existed to facilitate Kamala Kahn and adult!Monica Rambeau interacting with Carol Danvers, and to set up the X-Men's introduction in The Stinger, as opposed to telling a compelling story.
TV Shows
- Several of the things that critics and viewers came to dislike about Netflix's Iron Fist could actually be traced back to the far more successful Daredevil:
- Right off the bat, Daredevil took place in a very gritty, grounded setting that was far more subdued than anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or even the other Marvel TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter. The series was generally light on superpowers and codenames, and with the exception of Matt Murdock himself (who didn't even don his iconic red costume until the first season finale), there were no costumes whatsoever. This not only gave the series a unique tone that helped ground it in reality, but also felt like a reasonable creative decision given the way the Daredevil comics (particularly under Frank Miller) are known for their street-level feel and Film Noir trappings. However, despite also being a street-level hero, Danny Rand's stories and world are generally more fantastic, with elements like dragons, magical powers and ancient hidden cities. Subsequently, the decision to downplay the fantasy elements in Iron Fist were received far more negatively, and immediately called attention to the show's lack of budget. Thus, rather than being seen as a gritty stylistic choice, the show's lack of costumes or other "comic booky" elements merely added to the perception that it was cheap.
- Another area where Daredevil succeeded was in balancing the crime-fighting aspects with the day to day lives of the characters, with many scenes following Matt, Foggy and Karen at their law practice, Ben Urich's job as a reporter for the New York Bulletin, and even Wilson Fisk's social life. These plots were generally well done enough that viewers didn't mind sitting through dramatic scenes and lengthy bits of dialogue to get to the action, but on Iron Fist, the execution was far less successful. The decision to focus so heavily on Rand Enterprises bogged down the story, with many viewers and critics questioning why a series that was ostensibly about martial artists was spending so much time on attempts at boardroom politics and corporate intrigue. Not helping things was the generally mediocre quality of the fight scenes on the show (brought on by the tight filming schedule), which meant that most found that the action wasn't really worth waiting for.
- The first season of Daredevil treated its central plot as a slow burn, with the story gradually unfolding across 13 episodes. While the writing was engaging enough to keep people's attention, the attempts from Iron Fist to mimic this pacing came across as boring to much of the audience, with many accusing the show of merely Padding for time. To a lesser extent, the criticisms about the story being unnecessarily stretched out to fit the 13 episode order were also directed at fellow Marvel Netflix shows Jessica Jones and Luke Cage before it, and The Punisher after it.
- WandaVision came under heavy flak for revealing that Evan Peter's Quicksilver, like Iron Man 3's Mandarin before him, was a fake, being a man named "Ralph Bohner" whom Agatha Harkness brainwashed and empowered to drive Wanda over the edge and reveal her true power. The Mandarin twist, however, was somewhat more forgivable due to it working surprisingly well as a commentary on the original comic depiction's Yellow Peril tropes, Ben Kingsley giving a memorable performance in the role, the Mandarin having never before been portrayed in live action at all beforehand (let alone by Kingsley) and thus not had any particularly strong expectations from prior portrayals to live up to, and the fact that the whole business was eventually further retconned in All Hail the King in favor of there being a Truer to the Text Mandarin still out and about (who in turn would finally see the light of day in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). The twist with Evan Peters' Quicksilver, on the other hand, was much harder to forgive since Peters was reprising his role from the X-Men Film Series in lieu of Aaron Taylor-Johnson (whose own take on Quicksilver in the MCU had been dead since Avengers: Age of Ultron and was therefore unavailable to soften the blow from the twist). And this same film series had not only been influential towards the start of the comic book film genre that eventually made the MCU possible, but also unceremoniously cut short by Disney's buyout of Fox and ended on a poor note with the terrible reception of Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants. Combined with the fact that Peter's Quicksilver was a preestablished character who was an Ensemble Dark Horse for his Signature Scenes in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, fans took umbrage to the twist not only because it was a major fakeout, but also because it came across as extremely disrespectful towards the X-Men films that Disney not only owed the MCU's ability to exist to, but had also already been responsible for ending—especially since said twist lead to nothing but a dick joke.
- Ms. Marvel faced backlash for changing Kamala Khan's powers from shape-shifting/size-altering to hard-light constructs. The franchise had likewise altered characters' powers with Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau). Scarlet Witch went from magical, probability-altering hex-bolts as her primary power to telekinesis and mind-control from the Mind Stone. Captain Marvel went from Super-Senses, projecting and shifting into energy from the entire electromagnetic spectrum at light speed to nebulous "energy manipulation" that mostly amounts to pretty light shows. But while Scarlet Witch's case could be written off as pragmatism to simplify a confusing power for mainstream audiences and make it more visually impressive, and Captain Marvel's just being plain easier to deal with all around, Comic!Kamala's powers are simpler than her MCU counterpart's. Many were looking forward to seeing her use her elasticity powersnote in live-action. Wanda's powers were also unique in the MCU, at least at the time and in scale, whereas Monica was at least given powers that mostly resemble her comic book counterpart as one of several company wide authors saving throws after critics started calling out Marvel for shafting the character for decades. Kamala's colorful, energy-based powersnote , by contrast, aren't just inaccurate but also struggle to stand out after Eternals and Captain Marvel.
- Secret Invasion
- The show was criticized for deviating too much from its source material, specifically in regards to its smaller scale. However, Captain America: Civil War previously went with a similar downsized adaptational approach that didn't attract as much criticism. Like Secret Invasion, Civil War deviated from the original comic to focus on a handful of heroes instead of a massive Crisis Crossover, most notably by omitting the Defenders and downplaying Spider-Man's role, not to mention naturally omitting characters related to the X-Men and Fantastic Four (whom Marvel Studios wasn't allowed to include at the time due to those characters having their film rights held by Fox). However, while some fans expressed disappointment over not seeing much beloved fan-favorite characters from the original comic storyline, Civil War improved on its source material by making its leads more sympathetic, as Steve's points about potentially corrupt world governments hampering the Avengers and Tony's points about keeping the Avengers in check to avoid collateral damage were both grounded in good reasons despite Tony's guilt complex and Steve's savior complex keeping them from stopping the conflict. As such, the smaller scale actually benefitted by making the story more personal and the characters more sympathetic. On the other hand, fans weren't so forgiving with Secret Invasion because of how the show places so much focus on a handful of characters who weren't that interesting or sympathetic. The Skrulls, though justifiably angry that Fury broke his promise to find them a new home, went from living amongst humans with seemingly minimal issue to casually attempting genocide against humans. Likewise, while Fury certainly wasn't wrong about how humanity would never have any guarantee of accepting the Skrulls, he is similarly at his least sympathetic in Secret Invasion due to having used them as his personal spies, failed to fulfill the promise he and Carol had made to find them a new home in exchange, and stolen the entire superhero community's DNA behind their backs for research purposes. Furthermore, the smaller scale hurts the stakes of the show as it couldn't adequately convey the global scale of the crisis due to focusing on a small handful of characters and filming in sparsely populated areas. So by omitting the original story's scope while failing to tell a personal story that improved on the source material, Secret Invasion made for a less engaging experience.
- Some fans took issue with the comics-accurate depiction of the Skrulls as Scary Dogmatic Aliens who use shapeshifting to cause chaos and take over the Earth. However, Marvel had previously switched out a more 'unique' depiction of a traditionally villainous Marvel character with a more comic-accurate depiction with (say it with us now) Wenwu a.k.a. the real Mandarin. After Iron Man 3 gave audiences a fake In Name Only Mandarin, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings depicted a more comics-accurate Mandarin in the form of Wenwu. Like his comics counterpart, Wenwu is a magical Chinese warlord who fights with Kung Fu and runs a secret terrorist organization. However, despite the problematic Yellow Peril aspects, Wenwu was embraced by audiences because he was still a cool yet nuanced villain as he personally fights alongside his minions, genuinely loves his wife and respects his Chinese heritage. It also helps that he is the enemy of the Chinese-American Shang-Chi instead of the White American Tony Stark, thereby avoiding the uncomfortable East vs West racial subtext. It also helped that the Iron Man 3 Mandarin was originally a divisive Marvel villain, so his replacement was seen as an improvement. In contrast, the evil Skrulls in the Secret Invasion are depicted as dogmatic aliens whose sympathetic motives are undermined by their actions of living among humans to plotting genocide, and gets rid of their previous characterization as pitiable refugees fans had begun to grow attached to across multiple other Marvel series and movies (which, while explained as being a rogue faction led by Gravik, with good Skrulls such as Talos and the morally conflicted Gi'ah still making appearances, it can be rather jarring when watching the series and comparing them to their previous appearances). It also doesn't help that their plan to replace government figures drew uncomfortable comparisons to real-life conspiracies about government that lead to political violence.
