10 Ways The MCU Made Its Future Harder Than It Needed To Be

Summary

• The MCU's missteps, including the premature retirement of key characters like Captain America and Iron Man, have made it difficult to establish new flagship characters and maintain momentum.
• Marvel Studios introduced too many new characters in a short time span, leading to a bloated roster and difficulty in replacing beloved characters.
• The introduction of major characters in Disney+ series has made it feel like homework for those not invested, and their inclusion in future films may alienate audiences who didn't watch the series.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has some difficult challenges to overcome with its coming releases, and a few past mistakes make the franchise's future success harder than it needs to be. Marvel Studios has failed to maintain the momentum it had coming out of Avengers: Endgame, and the reasons why are varied. Phase 5 began with a rocky start at the poor critical reception of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and though this chunk of the Marvel Studios canon is still underway, it has a lot of heavy lifting to do and a lot of goodwill to earn back with its upcoming projects.
Much of Marvel's current issues can be traced back to key missteps that have gone on to hamstring the series, their effects perhaps not being fully felt until a decent amount of time has passed. Some of these missed opportunities show themselves as early as Phase 2, while others are more recent in the MCU's colossal catalog of films. The future of the MCU is more uncertain than ever, and these key missteps have made securing the franchise's place in the hearts and minds of audiences more difficult than it needed to be.
Your browser does not support the video tag. 10 Captain America And Iron Man Were Both Taken Out At Once Chris Evans' Steve Rogers and Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark were undeniable in their importance to the MCU. Being two of the earliest Avengers to begin building the universe from the ground up, the iconic personalities of these characters have done much of the heavy lifting for the franchise over the years. With such a long and storied run in the franchise, it was only a matter of time before the characters had to be retired, but their exit from the story could've been paced out much better.
Avengers: Endgame saw the end of both of the characters, Tony Stark sacrificing himself in order to use the Infinity Stones to save humanity and Steve Rogers disappearing into the past to finally give himself a shot at a normal life. These endings were a perfect, bittersweet note to go out on, but spacing them apart further could've helped give the series more time to establish new flagship characters. The MCU's struggles to replace either personality have not been easy or fast, and taking more time to space out the end of two of the series' most prominent and beloved characters might've helped increase the impact of their individual exits.
9 Marvel Introduced Too Many New Characters In A Short Time Span With Captain America and Iron Man out of the picture, a huge power vacuum for the new faces of the franchise was created. As the Infinity Saga drew to a close, the MCU got to work introducing a slew of new characters in a short time span, with films like Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals quickly introducing fresh blood into the MCU. But the speed at which Marvel Studios set out to pad out its already healthy roster of characters even further was ultimately to its own detriment.