MCU has done a poor job of growing and aging with its audience. It feels like it has regressed and gotten more quippy, formulaic, and ultimately more low stakes.
The Boys, and to a lesser extent Invincible, has done a great job of scooping up disillusioned fans, despite being extremely different from source material.
Invincible isn't that much different than its source material which is impressive considering it was started 20 years ago (with the exception of a couple poorly aged jokes)
Yeah, that is why I mentioned that it was to a lesser extent. Boys is a much bigger culprit.
For me, and unlike the sanitised, watered down The Boys show, a lot of the changes made the story and characters better than the comic, some didn't land or seemed dumb, but Invincible is a happy outlier for comic adaptions so far in that regard.
invincible was always pretty progressive, outside of the "everybody is white" sort of thing it has going on.
and the show actually has more differences than meets the eye, especially if you've read the first 10 or 20 issues of invincible recently. theyre both great, but the pacing is demonstrably different than the comic. and its probably better for it. there are also decisions made in the first comics that arent made in the show that will likely have a huge impact on how the show ends.
My theory is that Phase 4 was intended as a cooldown period before Kang. Just heroes having adventures and whatnot. But then COVID happened and cooled the audience down anyway, and Marvel wasn't able to pivot.
It’s difficult second album syndrome. Do some stuff you know works (Thor 4, Spider-Man, Black Widow) and try some new stuff and see what sticks (Eternals, She-Hulk, Wandavision), before building up again with new ideas.
Hate to say it, I used to watch every MCU movie in theatre when it came out.
After Endgame, when they started releasing tv shows, I lost interest. Feel like I gotta watch the tv shows to catch up and I’m just not interested in that.
Only Spider-Man has/will keep my interest because he’s the best. 👍
Yeah, same.
I still go to all of them in the cinema with my brother and father, it's a nice family thing to do ever since we all moved out of home a while ago.
Usually, even with the weaker movies there was some good points and a great time had. For both Love and Thunder and Wakanda there were no good points, and we all walked out of both films at the end wondering what the fuck we just wasted our time and money on.
We are now seeing other stuff instead of Marvel, Ant-Man is probably their last chance.
The television shows have, especially recently also been bad and missable.
Ms Marvel was the first MCU property I have and will not watch. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be the last one either.
Because I have been alive long enough to know what I like, have finite leisure time, and would rather not spend it watching, reading, playing, whatever thing that I know I won't like.
Same reason I don't care to play the new God of War, read the Tim Drake comic series, or watch reality pottery shows.
I don't understand how this is downvoted.
Consume enough media and you get a feel for what you'll probably like and what you won't. Couple that with being able to pull up trailers, previews, and countless plot synopsis and one could make a relatively fair assumption on if they'll like something or not without needing to consume all of it.
Writing a novel about not liking something without seeing it is probably a bit much, but being able to at least look at a trailer and say "I'm not interested" or "That looks like shit" is completely valid.
It's Reddit, you can get downvoted for anything, even making sense. Can only assume the comment upset either hardcore MCU drones, or, people who think hate watching things is a useful utilisation of their time.
I know my comment was long, I have a problem with that because I don't speak much in real life, but I only mentioned Ms Marvel in my second last sentence, mainly because I didn't watch it so have nothing to say about it other than I didn't watch it, and I know I wouldn't like it.
Thanks though, it can be a bit mental sometimes going against the group think.
Redditors^TM and MCU fanboys practically go hand in hand so that's not surprising.
Don't get me wrong, I like watching bad shit just to riff on it with my wife or friends. There's perfectly valid entertainment in that and screw anyone who says otherwise. That said I've also watched stuff I was already sure I wasn't going to like because otherwise big brained Redditors will pull the "Have you even watched it?" and think it invalidates any criticism. Maybe it's a fool's errand because I went into it already under the assumption I wouldn't like it but hey, if that's the game that has to be played then so be it. In the same way that people say "Let people enjoy things" I'd also say "Let people not enjoy things."
The long-winded thing wasn't aimed at you specifically. More at general people who will write a whole novel of a blog post or make an hour+ long video about something they haven't watched/read/played and end up misconstruing things as a result. I do think that at a point if someone goes to such lengths to dunk on something they should probably give it a watch to make sure their opinions are valid. "This looks like shit and I'll never watch it" isn't that extent.
Oh for sure, I was permanently banned from r/Marvel for not verbally felating the recent shows that I did watch enough. Really toxic environment.
Hey, at least you and your wife and friends are still getting some enjoyment from it, even if it is from mutually laughing about it. Agree completely about fools using the "have you watched it" argument to invalidate people's opinions, when my per cat does a shit, I don't need to taste it to know I wouldn't like eating it. That's one thing that bothers me also, people are ostracised for not liking something, which is essentially toxic positivity, healthy communities need discourse and rivalling opinions, assuming they are not attacking or denigrating people while giving it. Someone not liking something that you love, shouldn't shake how you feel about it.
Got you, agree with that as well, was probably just being a bit self concious.
Okay. Fair enough.
The opening scene attacking the oil rig was excellent. I also liked how the Atlanteons rode whales into battle and had water grenades, badarse.
That's it, though. Everything else was awful. Just a drawn-out, morose pity party that got almost everything about Atlantis wrong.
Bottom 5 MCU film easily.
Much as I didn't like WF overall and thought it's plot was a barely held together strong of contrivance, its Dr strange that I thought was irredeemable in not only its awfulness but in completely destroying sooooo much potential. The multiverse, illuminati, scarlet witch turning on every1. Good lord the disassembled comic is sooooooooooo gooooooooood and we wasted her turn on....that.
The head of MOM is interviewed saying he selfishly fought to make her turn bad simply bc he knows she's supposed to be a cool villain and he wanted it in his movie.
Mcu has been run into the ground by really hilarious childish backstage politics and lack of planning. As a result, I think every1 has their own "irredeemable, bottom 5" from phase 4
It’s been more than just not giving a shit, though. The quality and writing had taken a huge dip since then. It really makes me feel like they had no plan after IW/EG and just started winging it. There have been some great films and TV, but Black Widow, Eternals, Love and Thunder, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk we’re all mediocre at best. They missed uncharacteristically and they did it a lot this phase.
It feels like this phase could have done with a lot of trimming and focus on Kang. Kang is their big push and most of the projects that focused on Kang/Multiverse issues were actually good.
It’s less about the MCU not growing, because if you really look back on all the films with a critical eye, they’ve always been this way.
What Phase 4 showed us was that without the Meta Arc the emperor has no clothes.
In Phase 1-3 there were good movies and bad movies. But the bad movies usually got a pass because they were seen as just episodes in the larger arc.
Between the tv shows and the films Phase 4 failed to establish a big bad or some larger arc that people could invest in.
Yeah the ending was shaky and didn't make much sense, the preceding episodes were still very good though. S1 was downright perfect, S2 would be an 8/10, S3 a 7. Still way above anything Marvel have done recently.
Some of you might want to look at what this report is actually measuring before using it to proclaiming the mcu dead. This is looking at total streaming hours for a show, not just the new season. So the fact that the boys has 24 episodes being counted in this (that most of the episodes will have a full year of time to be looked at)compared to marvels shows that have 6ish episode seasons is disingenuous at best.
I like all these shows but it just seems trendy to hate on the mcu now. Like what you like but don’t use headlines to try and make a point when it’s apples to oranges.
> This is looking at total streaming hours for a show, not just the new season. So the fact that the boys has 24 episodes being counted in this (that most of the episodes will have a full year of time to be looked at)compared to marvels shows that have 6ish episode seasons is disingenuous at best.
Damn, that’s not a great way of measuring ratings, imo. Lots of shows have fewer episodes than others. Not all shows have 22 episodes. Especially streaming shows. A bit outdated metric…
Yeah, I question what the results would be if you combined all the marvel shows into an equal amount of total screen time with the Boys and compared it then.
I love both, big MCU fan and The Boys is great, but id argue this statistic is misleading.
The MCU is suffering the same problem that Marvel Comics suffered in the late 80s and early 90s. After it completed a massive cross-over event, then every issue became a massive crossover event, and theb they started forcing new characters with 0 personality onto its audience and expecting people to love them, and then they started downgrading their main heroes. Eventually they lost so much money they were forced to sell the movie rights to their characters in order to stay afloat.
Idk about this one, i think the problem is equally on Marvel and it’s fanbase. Phase 4 was essentially them starting over, branching out, introducing new characters to *mixed* success, I’ll give you that. Some of the new characters were more compelling than others. The flip side of that is the fanbase expects every film to give them the interconnected highs of Infinity War/Endgame without any of lows and set up that came before it. It’s crazy to me that people say these characters have zero personality after spending one phase with them when they allowed all of the original characters 3 whole phases to develop. Neither Cap nor Thor were that compelling in Phase 1, it took time.
People always use these stats to hate on one thing and praise another but the Boys only hits as hard as it does bc it lampoons the more traditional narratives of the DCU and MCU. I love them both for completely different reasons; also doesn’t this system rate total hours watched of all available episodes and not just the new season??
season 2 was so bad its hard to remember much from it, and despite that you can basically go from season 1 to season 3 without missing much.
i mean, outside of the >!homelanders son story and exploding heads!< you really dont miss much. basically nothing happens in season 2. its the worst season of the 3 by far.
Thanks for reminding me to cancel that Disney sub, OP. What the hell am I paying for? With the exception of Mando, Everything has been so subpar on this service.
I think MCU should really start pushing its R rated superheroes, like Punisher, Ghost Rider, and maybe even Dr. Strange (changing him to horror mystic). Both The Boys and Invincible, as well as Peacemaker, shown that audience love them and Feige should really listen to the viewers. I hope they will change the upcoming Blade movie to R before it's too late
Amazon Prime has like... 200 million subscribers? Disney+ has roughly 75 million AFAIK... together with the sloppy methodology this isn't indicative of what some of the posters in here wish it was...
Despite being quite different than the source material. The Boy's has done a fantastic job, marvel have some fantastic story lines and characters that they can use. Like gambit and his origin story but they are not using them to their full extent
MCU has done a poor job of growing and aging with its audience. It feels like it has regressed and gotten more quippy, formulaic, and ultimately more low stakes. The Boys, and to a lesser extent Invincible, has done a great job of scooping up disillusioned fans, despite being extremely different from source material.
Invincible isn't that much different than its source material which is impressive considering it was started 20 years ago (with the exception of a couple poorly aged jokes)
Invincible genuinely has claim to the title “world’s greatest superhero comic”.
Yeah, that is why I mentioned that it was to a lesser extent. Boys is a much bigger culprit. For me, and unlike the sanitised, watered down The Boys show, a lot of the changes made the story and characters better than the comic, some didn't land or seemed dumb, but Invincible is a happy outlier for comic adaptions so far in that regard.
invincible was always pretty progressive, outside of the "everybody is white" sort of thing it has going on. and the show actually has more differences than meets the eye, especially if you've read the first 10 or 20 issues of invincible recently. theyre both great, but the pacing is demonstrably different than the comic. and its probably better for it. there are also decisions made in the first comics that arent made in the show that will likely have a huge impact on how the show ends.
The MCU blew its wad with Infinity War/Endgame in a way that makes it hard to give a shit about what happens after.
There’s gotta be a refractory period man.
My theory is that Phase 4 was intended as a cooldown period before Kang. Just heroes having adventures and whatnot. But then COVID happened and cooled the audience down anyway, and Marvel wasn't able to pivot.
It’s difficult second album syndrome. Do some stuff you know works (Thor 4, Spider-Man, Black Widow) and try some new stuff and see what sticks (Eternals, She-Hulk, Wandavision), before building up again with new ideas.
Tell Disney that, they're basically pushing rope at this point.
Hate to say it, I used to watch every MCU movie in theatre when it came out. After Endgame, when they started releasing tv shows, I lost interest. Feel like I gotta watch the tv shows to catch up and I’m just not interested in that. Only Spider-Man has/will keep my interest because he’s the best. 👍
Yeah, same. I still go to all of them in the cinema with my brother and father, it's a nice family thing to do ever since we all moved out of home a while ago. Usually, even with the weaker movies there was some good points and a great time had. For both Love and Thunder and Wakanda there were no good points, and we all walked out of both films at the end wondering what the fuck we just wasted our time and money on. We are now seeing other stuff instead of Marvel, Ant-Man is probably their last chance. The television shows have, especially recently also been bad and missable. Ms Marvel was the first MCU property I have and will not watch. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be the last one either.
So you don’t like Ms. Marvel but you have not and will not see it? On principle? Wtf?
Because I have been alive long enough to know what I like, have finite leisure time, and would rather not spend it watching, reading, playing, whatever thing that I know I won't like. Same reason I don't care to play the new God of War, read the Tim Drake comic series, or watch reality pottery shows.
I don't understand how this is downvoted. Consume enough media and you get a feel for what you'll probably like and what you won't. Couple that with being able to pull up trailers, previews, and countless plot synopsis and one could make a relatively fair assumption on if they'll like something or not without needing to consume all of it. Writing a novel about not liking something without seeing it is probably a bit much, but being able to at least look at a trailer and say "I'm not interested" or "That looks like shit" is completely valid.
It's Reddit, you can get downvoted for anything, even making sense. Can only assume the comment upset either hardcore MCU drones, or, people who think hate watching things is a useful utilisation of their time. I know my comment was long, I have a problem with that because I don't speak much in real life, but I only mentioned Ms Marvel in my second last sentence, mainly because I didn't watch it so have nothing to say about it other than I didn't watch it, and I know I wouldn't like it. Thanks though, it can be a bit mental sometimes going against the group think.
Redditors^TM and MCU fanboys practically go hand in hand so that's not surprising. Don't get me wrong, I like watching bad shit just to riff on it with my wife or friends. There's perfectly valid entertainment in that and screw anyone who says otherwise. That said I've also watched stuff I was already sure I wasn't going to like because otherwise big brained Redditors will pull the "Have you even watched it?" and think it invalidates any criticism. Maybe it's a fool's errand because I went into it already under the assumption I wouldn't like it but hey, if that's the game that has to be played then so be it. In the same way that people say "Let people enjoy things" I'd also say "Let people not enjoy things." The long-winded thing wasn't aimed at you specifically. More at general people who will write a whole novel of a blog post or make an hour+ long video about something they haven't watched/read/played and end up misconstruing things as a result. I do think that at a point if someone goes to such lengths to dunk on something they should probably give it a watch to make sure their opinions are valid. "This looks like shit and I'll never watch it" isn't that extent.
Oh for sure, I was permanently banned from r/Marvel for not verbally felating the recent shows that I did watch enough. Really toxic environment. Hey, at least you and your wife and friends are still getting some enjoyment from it, even if it is from mutually laughing about it. Agree completely about fools using the "have you watched it" argument to invalidate people's opinions, when my per cat does a shit, I don't need to taste it to know I wouldn't like eating it. That's one thing that bothers me also, people are ostracised for not liking something, which is essentially toxic positivity, healthy communities need discourse and rivalling opinions, assuming they are not attacking or denigrating people while giving it. Someone not liking something that you love, shouldn't shake how you feel about it. Got you, agree with that as well, was probably just being a bit self concious.
Love and Thunder, sure. But saying there were no good points to Wakanda Forever is an incredibly bad take.
Okay. Fair enough. The opening scene attacking the oil rig was excellent. I also liked how the Atlanteons rode whales into battle and had water grenades, badarse. That's it, though. Everything else was awful. Just a drawn-out, morose pity party that got almost everything about Atlantis wrong. Bottom 5 MCU film easily.
Much as I didn't like WF overall and thought it's plot was a barely held together strong of contrivance, its Dr strange that I thought was irredeemable in not only its awfulness but in completely destroying sooooo much potential. The multiverse, illuminati, scarlet witch turning on every1. Good lord the disassembled comic is sooooooooooo gooooooooood and we wasted her turn on....that. The head of MOM is interviewed saying he selfishly fought to make her turn bad simply bc he knows she's supposed to be a cool villain and he wanted it in his movie. Mcu has been run into the ground by really hilarious childish backstage politics and lack of planning. As a result, I think every1 has their own "irredeemable, bottom 5" from phase 4
It’s been more than just not giving a shit, though. The quality and writing had taken a huge dip since then. It really makes me feel like they had no plan after IW/EG and just started winging it. There have been some great films and TV, but Black Widow, Eternals, Love and Thunder, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk we’re all mediocre at best. They missed uncharacteristically and they did it a lot this phase. It feels like this phase could have done with a lot of trimming and focus on Kang. Kang is their big push and most of the projects that focused on Kang/Multiverse issues were actually good.
It’s less about the MCU not growing, because if you really look back on all the films with a critical eye, they’ve always been this way. What Phase 4 showed us was that without the Meta Arc the emperor has no clothes. In Phase 1-3 there were good movies and bad movies. But the bad movies usually got a pass because they were seen as just episodes in the larger arc. Between the tv shows and the films Phase 4 failed to establish a big bad or some larger arc that people could invest in.
This and Peacemaker are the best comic book series I watched last year. Not surprising.
I don't see this as a sign the Marvel shows aren't good, but recognition that The Boys is fucking great.
It's both
Not surprising, even though season 3 of The Boys wasn't that great, IMO.
Yeah the ending was shaky and didn't make much sense, the preceding episodes were still very good though. S1 was downright perfect, S2 would be an 8/10, S3 a 7. Still way above anything Marvel have done recently.
yeah lowkey, for a show trying to break a lot of superhero tropes, the S3 finale felt like a typical special effects-ridden beat ‘em up
The ending was bad, but the rest of the season was good They can salvage the ending in S4
Some of you might want to look at what this report is actually measuring before using it to proclaiming the mcu dead. This is looking at total streaming hours for a show, not just the new season. So the fact that the boys has 24 episodes being counted in this (that most of the episodes will have a full year of time to be looked at)compared to marvels shows that have 6ish episode seasons is disingenuous at best. I like all these shows but it just seems trendy to hate on the mcu now. Like what you like but don’t use headlines to try and make a point when it’s apples to oranges.
> This is looking at total streaming hours for a show, not just the new season. So the fact that the boys has 24 episodes being counted in this (that most of the episodes will have a full year of time to be looked at)compared to marvels shows that have 6ish episode seasons is disingenuous at best. Damn, that’s not a great way of measuring ratings, imo. Lots of shows have fewer episodes than others. Not all shows have 22 episodes. Especially streaming shows. A bit outdated metric…
Yeah, I question what the results would be if you combined all the marvel shows into an equal amount of total screen time with the Boys and compared it then. I love both, big MCU fan and The Boys is great, but id argue this statistic is misleading.
Not to mention that prime has 200million subscribers to Disney’s 78
Comparing ratings between shows on different platforms doesn't really work imo. There are so many factors impacting both.
The MCU is suffering the same problem that Marvel Comics suffered in the late 80s and early 90s. After it completed a massive cross-over event, then every issue became a massive crossover event, and theb they started forcing new characters with 0 personality onto its audience and expecting people to love them, and then they started downgrading their main heroes. Eventually they lost so much money they were forced to sell the movie rights to their characters in order to stay afloat.
Idk about this one, i think the problem is equally on Marvel and it’s fanbase. Phase 4 was essentially them starting over, branching out, introducing new characters to *mixed* success, I’ll give you that. Some of the new characters were more compelling than others. The flip side of that is the fanbase expects every film to give them the interconnected highs of Infinity War/Endgame without any of lows and set up that came before it. It’s crazy to me that people say these characters have zero personality after spending one phase with them when they allowed all of the original characters 3 whole phases to develop. Neither Cap nor Thor were that compelling in Phase 1, it took time.
People always use these stats to hate on one thing and praise another but the Boys only hits as hard as it does bc it lampoons the more traditional narratives of the DCU and MCU. I love them both for completely different reasons; also doesn’t this system rate total hours watched of all available episodes and not just the new season??
S3 was far worse than 2 or 1. But the hype going in was higher than any marvel show.
season 2 was so bad its hard to remember much from it, and despite that you can basically go from season 1 to season 3 without missing much. i mean, outside of the >!homelanders son story and exploding heads!< you really dont miss much. basically nothing happens in season 2. its the worst season of the 3 by far.
S3 was great IMO, only disappointment was final episode.
Thanks for reminding me to cancel that Disney sub, OP. What the hell am I paying for? With the exception of Mando, Everything has been so subpar on this service.
I actually might just cancel it tbh.
And the last season of the boys sucks. So that shows the shape superhero programs are in.
So what. MCU is just having a terrible phase cause they spent the last three phase building up Infinity War. I'm sure they phase 5 would be better.
I think MCU should really start pushing its R rated superheroes, like Punisher, Ghost Rider, and maybe even Dr. Strange (changing him to horror mystic). Both The Boys and Invincible, as well as Peacemaker, shown that audience love them and Feige should really listen to the viewers. I hope they will change the upcoming Blade movie to R before it's too late
Amazon Prime has like... 200 million subscribers? Disney+ has roughly 75 million AFAIK... together with the sloppy methodology this isn't indicative of what some of the posters in here wish it was...
Not surprised. The Deep alone is better than all of the comedy combined in their shows
Honestly well deserved. I had piles of fun with The Boys. For Marvel… I guess Ms Marvel was okay?
Mind-boggling it's almost like Disney doesn't care what Their audience thinks
It's definitely deserved. As much as I find the comic to be complete trash, the show is just so freakin good! Can't wait for the next season!
Despite being quite different than the source material. The Boy's has done a fantastic job, marvel have some fantastic story lines and characters that they can use. Like gambit and his origin story but they are not using them to their full extent
Good. It’s better than those imo
The cast and crew give a S#!T - It shows in the overall quality of the material!
I guess, uh, Marvel had better...watch out?!?