I know there haven't been many (thank God) but what do you think have been Marvel Studios' biggest missteps with the films to date?

For me my top 2 are as follows:

* Delaying the release of the Black Widow movie for so long until AFTER Natasha dies in Endgame due to the power struggles between Feige and Perlmutter over creative direction.
* Diminishing Hulk overall as a character as soon as the Russos took over Avengers (the biggest thing I will give Joss Whedon credit for is that he knew what to do with Hulk and did it brilliantly in his two films).

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Commentaires

Atom74562025-09-26 08:26

Black widow releasing late will never be a valid complaint, release time has absolutely nothing to do with the movies writing. Come up with a complaint that's actually relevant.

"Diminishing hulk as a character" u mean giving him character development and not having him be the same one dimensional angry green monster for the 50th time in a row?

aposemantic2025-09-26 09:08

Do you know what missteps mean? They may pertain to writing but also the broader class of perceived errors, including those in production.

Flying_Mohawk2772025-09-26 09:19

I think they’re relevant.. rock on OP!

Atom74562025-09-26 09:29

They aren't

Flying_Mohawk2772025-09-26 09:30

They are

Atom74562025-09-26 09:33

No they aren't, cope, u can't even explain why u marvel hater

Atom74562025-09-26 09:37

Cant respond to it but I literally explained, cope 💀 buddy has no argument, and I'm literally supporting the MCU unlike u hater

Flying_Mohawk2772025-09-26 09:41

I did respond, cope. Friend has no argument. Why don’t you support the MCU?

Atom74562025-09-26 09:48

I just said that I(as in me) couldn't respond to it because it wasn't showing up🤦‍♂️ buddy can not read, why do u hate the MCU? Projecting isn't helping your case

TactileMist2025-09-26 11:26

Respectfully I disagree with you about Black Widow. I enjoyed the film, I thought Yelena was a great character, and the interplay between the two "sisters" was fantastic. But the ending, folding back into events from a few movies prior, was not satisfying as a result. It would have been more emotionally impactful had I watched it before I'd seen the events of Endgame play out.

Flying_Mohawk2772025-09-26 08:29

1) Skipping past the blip. I don’t understand why they decided to rush from it. It was the perfect time to explore your more grounded/ monster side of the MCU. DD, Punisher, Defenders, Thunderbolts, Blade… etc. Instead we basically act like it never happened and everything’s fine

2) I agree. Many people including myself don’t like how they have handled hulk characters

3) They went with Quantity over Quality. The Infinity Saga was so successful because it wasn’t rushed and we saw these characters grow over 12 years. Instead of doing something similar to that, they introduced dozens of new characters, many who will probably never be used again and others who’ve it’s been years since we’ve seen.

Atom74562025-09-26 09:41

1. Didnt act like it never happened, this was important to the overall story and world building
2. Because u don't understand and can't comprehend good writing, thats a you problem not a marvel problem
3. The quality is extremely good and a lot of the infinity saga was also bad. Y'all want to act like it was all good when it had tons of mid releases. Once again can be said about the infinity saga, come up with a real factual complaint.

sealed-human2025-09-26 10:44

Nice try K.E.V.I.N.

Pelican252025-09-26 11:24

Please define good writing for everyone then, since you evidently understand it so well.

Also factual complaints when discussing basically art is... Stupid? It's intrinsically subjective.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it is not factual.

dearskorpiomagazine2025-09-26 11:46

1.God damn that would have been so good narratively.

I actually don't mind the idea of chapters or phases that have an underlying arc and making the new phases a jumping on point for new fans, like comics.

2.i don't think the writers knew what to do with the hulk. They wanted some sort of progression and development for the character but chose poorly.

3. I think quantity over quality was definitely a problem but I'm genuinely not sure they had a good vision for what to do next after endgame. Like yeah projects were rushed. But the core ideas have never really grabbed me. I think they seriously underestimated how hard it is to pull off multiverse stuff and keep the audience gripped with that idea. Into the spiderverse wasn't just a fluke.

Your idea of the grounded/monster side is instantly more interesting to me, and probably easier to do.

Sharchomp2025-09-26 12:55

With the multiverse, they never established the stakes to make anyone care for any universe except the sacred timeline. If your big concluding story to this saga is the culmination of the multiverse (or at least a massive culling of most universes), it is important to establish universes that the audience can care about. Most people, including myself, have no attachment to any of these universes. Sure, I’d like deadpool’s supporting cast to make it alive, but I don’t care about anyone else within the universe. Same for the F4.

Multiverse stories are meant to expand the scale of stories told without treating it as a plot device. That to me is marvel’s big fumble

BigMax2025-09-26 14:52

The hard part about 1 is that it was HALF the people. So how do you do many of those stories, when you'd have to have at least some of the characters gone? Like, you can't do a Defenders one and say "wow, we wanted to do a defenders show, and we're SO lucky that NONE of them got blipped!"

Half the people are gone. That's a huge challenge for telling a lot of the stories.

PartyPoison982025-09-26 15:32

Realistically, removing half the population and then re-adding 5 years later would be such a society collapsing event that the only thing that makes sense is just to sidestep completely and move on.

SarcasticAzaleaRose2025-09-26 16:10

I really wish they had acknowledged the Blip more and how society reacted to it and started rebuilding from it only for five years later everyone was brought back. Because I feel like it would have been a really interesting topic to explore. Post-Endgame projects slightly touched upon it but nothing is really in depth.

But it’s easier to just act like everything worked out well for the most part instead of acknowledging how complex removing half the population then returning it would be. Because you’re right something like that would cause massive upheaval.

PartyPoison982025-09-26 16:16

It's odd because the stuff from FATWS seems essentially non canon after nothing else made reference to any real difficulties from the blip.

SarcasticAzaleaRose2025-09-26 16:30

It really does. Like I wasn’t expecting a superhero movie universe to dive into the complex psychological, political, economic, and sociological issues that would come from removing half the population. But I would have liked them to at least acknowledge it a bit more than they have. I do feel like that would an interesting conflict for the remaining heroes to have to confront. Because you know once the happiness from having everyone back wore off people would start questioning that decision and there had to be more unhappy groups than just the Flagsmashers.

Ironhorn2025-09-26 15:33

> Skipping past the blip

This but the Sokovia Accords.

There isn’t a single movie where the fact that the Avengers work for the UN is relevant, except Black Widow, and that was a prequel that came out after the Civil War had ended

Flying_Mohawk2772025-09-26 17:10

Agreed!

comehereyoudevillog2025-09-26 15:54

They went the DC route

GullibleGap99662025-09-26 15:56

A 12 year build up over that many movies had never been done before and may never again. That shouldnt be the standard everything they do gets compared against but it is. They were using a story from the comics too and dont have another one of that scale to work with.

To your point the idea they went with was that not much happened during the blip. Just a bunch of depression and staying home.

cmcsed92025-09-26 18:30

To be fair, the quantity over quality was Chapek’s fault, not Marvel’s.

ClarityEnjoyer2025-09-26 08:37

Not having a proper crossover in Phase 4. So many of the ideas and characters that people actually liked in Phase 4 still haven’t been followed up on. Thunderbolts in some ways felt like the first proper crossover to take advantage of the MCU since Endgame.

colderstates2025-09-26 08:43

Definitely this. Thunderbolts at the end of Phase 4, Young Avengers at the end of 5. Perfect surrogate Avengers films.

ClarityEnjoyer2025-09-26 08:55

Yeah, Thunderbolts’ whole vibe of “what do we do after the Avengers?” feels perfect for the phase after Endgame, rather than being released a whole six years later.

In fact, I think it could be watched at the end of Phase 4 without any issues. The cast is mostly comprised of Phase 4 characters, so it’d fit great as an ending to it. The only reference it has to anything after Phase 4 is one line mentioning Red Hulk, if I remember correctly.

MisterBumpingston2025-09-26 10:27

Now imagine if Thunderbolts was set during the blip. It would’ve made so much sense to have them as “what do we do without the Avengers?

Sharchomp2025-09-26 12:50

Yelena was blipped I believe so she couldn’t be featured during the blip

MisterBumpingston2025-09-26 13:14

She was, but imagine this decision to make Thunderbolts* was made before Hawkeye was made.

ubutterscotchpine2025-09-26 13:35

Then Hawkeye never would’ve been made.

MisterBumpingston2025-09-26 13:38

I mean, we’re being hypothetical so things could have been different. Thunderbolt* could have consisted of an entirely different team.

ubutterscotchpine2025-09-26 14:17

I’ll be honest, I think Yelena was a big part of the reason why the movie worked lol. Who could’ve you hypothetically have seen the team made of? I know comics are different, of course, but within the characters we already had post Endgame, were there others that could’ve carried the movie?

feartoad2025-09-26 12:51

But the avengers were around during the blip….

MisterBumpingston2025-09-26 13:19

True, but half were gone and they were demoralised. What if Valentina decided to fill in the power vacuum? Obviously Walker, Yelena, Alexei and Taskmaster would’ve needed to be introduced earlier or an entirely different team of characters are introduced.

DGSmith22025-09-26 13:46

To do what?

TwstdPrtzl2025-09-26 15:36

And honestly Brave New World should be watched earlier as well to better balance Cap’s appearances in the Mulitverse Saga. I feel like it and Thunderbolts* could be tacked on to the end of Phase 4 (or beginning of Phase 5) without any issues.

Bozlogic2025-09-27 05:03

The proper flow is adding Brave New World right after FATWS, during phase 4, and capping phase 4 with Thunderbolts.

ubutterscotchpine2025-09-26 13:34

No crossovers is it. This was the absolute biggest misstep. I feel like the closest we maybe got were the Guardians in Thor and Valkyrie in The Marvels??? Considering Natasha was in… what? Half a dozen non-Avengers films before Endgame? Even Clint was in several. It tied it together.

Also my own personal addition — absolutely and utterly dropping the ball on putting Kate Bishop in literally any movie since Hawkeye.

ChaoticCaptain1772025-09-26 16:24

Yeah Thunderbolts is the phase concluding crossover movie that phase 4 needed

GenGaara252025-09-26 16:38

Phase 4 still doesn't feel like it's ended to me, there was no finale to make me think that chapter is over. Now we're somehow in Phase 6. It just feels like one long Phase with nothing truly marking that transition.

DiskKey56832025-09-26 16:53

Completely agree with this. The fact that we haven't seen Shang Chi again is a waste.

mattbattmatt_yt2025-09-26 17:10

the fact shang chi has only shown up in non canonical spinoffs (what if / marvel zombies) really saddens me, was by far my favorite phase 4 marvel hero

SpiritGator2025-09-26 23:40

I hate being a contrarian but I'm going to do it...I like the fact that there wasn't an Avengers crossover at the end of Phase 4. It doubles down on the fact that there were no Avengers. Gives Captain America something to build and also lets the New Avengers gain traction. Now if you're saying that Brave New World should have happened earlier so that we can see where the Classic Avengers are at, I could listen to that but it works for the world building.

Phase 4 is about learning to live without the Avengers and what the world looks like without them. No actual team ups, just everyone dealing with the fall out from Endgame. Personally, I think it would be weird if only two years after Endgame, there was an Avengers level threat coming through again. Like, if I were a human, I would just give up. A lot of "Thanos was Right" sentiments being felt in Phase 4 - Coach in No Way Home, Bathroom stalls in Hawkeye & Mrs. Marvel.

How do you build the next two phases if there's already a crossover Avengers out there? There's no need for the Thunderbolts if Classic Avengers are already out there. Bucky just calls Sam up and they go to work. (And Bucky isn't in Congress either). If the Thunderbolts come at the end of Phase 4, where does that leave Sam et. al. Also, if either team is built, what are we doing with Kamala and the Kid Avengers? Does she need to start a team after the Marvels if the Avengers/New Avongers are already out there? The fact that there are no official avengers - save the New Avongerz - leaves a....void for there to be filled. Much like Civil War, the split between factions will make it easier for Dr. Doom to walk in like Thanos and take over.

Now...that being said, my biggest regret was how they handled Secret Invasion. I think the point was to set up the Marvels but because it was called "Secret Invasion", all of the Comic Book people who'd read Secret Invasion were expecting some big crossover...from a television show. Not the show's fault but that's where we landed. There was no way to include the skrulls in something small without the Comic Book people's imagination. The expectations of that and the budget crisis from the show led a mediocre show to being labeled as the "worst project Marvel has done". (No, it's not The Marvels incels...it's Inhumans).

Nonadventures2025-09-27 13:13

For all the hate it gets, the She-Hulk show was the best at doing the crossovers in Marvel Comics style. Not always some huge event, but just like “Daredevil is in town, Wong opened a portal for help” that kind of day to day stuff.

Murdock4Mayor2025-09-28 03:45

This 100%. It will never make any sense to me why the organizing principle of Phase 4 was not the reformation of the Avengers in a world destabilized by the return of half of Earth’s population — and a villain seeking to exploit that instability. Instead the organizing principle was multiverse nonsense.

Aglet_Green2025-09-26 08:41

Sweet Christmas, this question is very easy to answer: not having Michael Colter appear in an MCU movie yet.

teapots_at_ten_paces2025-09-26 10:50

More Luke Cage is the answer to many questions.

Scmods052025-09-26 08:43

Not recasting T’Challa. Chadwick was a tragedy but taking such a powerful and central character off the board will be looked back as a colossal mistake, though people will always be hesitant to say so for fear of appearing disrespectful.

Stunning_Passion_6142025-09-26 10:22

I honestly think it's crossed from being respectful to just outright weird. At the end of the day, Chadwick was a contractor they paid to play a character 3 times. To then have it in their heads that not only can we never have T'Challa again in live action. But they won't even cast a voice actor to play him in a fucking cartoon is just weird. He's just a mute in Marvel Zombies, because apprently if it's not Chadwick. There can never be another T'Challa

Able_Resident_12912025-09-26 11:05

I feel like they set up his son to be the next T'Challa at the end of Wakanda Forever? By the time they get around to using the character again he'll probably have aged into it

Scmods052025-09-26 11:15

But they’re going through all the work of introducing this secret son nobody knew about, messing around with timelines to age this kid up enough fast enough, and then they’ll have to re-establish all those pre-existing relationships when they could’ve just hired a new actor.

comehereyoudevillog2025-09-26 15:49

Considering they have a terrible RDJ impersonator, I don’t see why we can’t get one for him

Blackmore_Vale2025-09-26 17:13

What makes it weirder is that Chadwick’s family have said that they should recast black panther and it’s what he would’ve wanted. Plus other actors have died in the MCU and been recast.

KelVarnsen_20232025-09-26 12:37

Yea, not only did it make BP2 kind of weird but T'Challa would have been a great uniting leader for the post Endgame movies.

Ok-Health-72522025-09-26 15:54

If anything I'd say choosing to not recast Kang was an even bigger mistake since he was supposed to be the big bad in the next Avengers film and now they're pivoting that to Doom instead because of the issues with Majors. At least with T'Challa they were trying to be respectful to Chadwick's memory by not recasting him (despite Wakanda Forever being a massive gaping hole of a film without him there) so I get that.

ChaoticCaptain1772025-09-26 16:32

Chadwick's legacy as T'challa will always be iconic and loved but we gotta move on. But I also guess it's a double edged sword because a recast will make some people on edge

Captain_Cringe_2025-09-26 22:19

I've always hated this decision, and it only ages worse and worse with each passing year. I don't buy the "we want to respect Chadwick Boseman's legacy" argument at all. If anything, I feel like it's MORE disrespectful to intrinsically tie him to one single character when he is a real-life actor.

dplans4552025-09-27 03:59

They made T’Challa die of cancer too. I don't think they could have disrespected the character or Chadwick anymore than that.

bjwills72025-09-26 08:49

Not a film but pretty much everything about Secret Invasion. Killing Maria and the whole ending was the absolute worst part of the MCU. It's sad that Emilia Clarke keeps taking part in the worst endings to shows there are lol.

I hope they completely scrub that show and just pretend it never happened.

TheFightingImp2025-09-26 09:01

Emilia needs to fire her agent, because my god she has the worst luck and she does put in the hard yards in the roles.

bjwills72025-09-26 09:26

Yeah she's a great actress. I don't really think her agent can be blamed though.

GOT was so good for most of it's seasons and she got really famous for it when she was pretty unknown before hand. Also getting into the MCU could mean getting paid a lot, hard to say that it would be a flop until it actually happened.

moose_dad2025-09-26 14:54

Don't forget the awful terminator she played a very miscast Sarah Connor in

PalladiuM72025-09-26 16:05

I mean, out of the pool of actresses at the time, who would you cast as "the next Linda Hamilton"? Don't say Linda Hamilton because she wouldn't have worked in the time period of that movie unless they AIed her young face on MoCap and no one wanted that.

moose_dad2025-09-26 17:53

Wiki says Paramount wanted Bree Larson for the role but they were overruled by the director. I think Bree's stoic take no bs attitude would have been far better for the role compared to Emilia's overly expressive face.

PalladiuM72025-09-26 18:09

That... Is not something I had considered. Yeah she probably would've killed in that role.

MechanicOk48082025-09-26 19:41

Her agent keeps getting her into huge franchises - it just sucks that she keeps coming into those franchises in the worst possible projects

Atom74562025-09-26 09:30

No one cares about Maria hill

bjwills72025-09-26 09:31

Speak for yourself.

Atom74562025-09-26 09:32

No I wont, no one cares, yall are only saying this because it gives y'all something to hate on

bjwills72025-09-26 09:47

People were complaining about it the moment that episode released so "no one cares", is not true. It was a liked character that was killed off for no good reason.

Not even close to the worst part of the show though, are you seriously saying that you watched the final episode and thought it was good?

Atom74562025-09-26 09:51

Nope no one cares, not once have I heard someone say "I love Maria Hill" or even mention her name outside of secret invasion.

Show was amazing and y'all are just marvel haters 💀 yea I watched it and it was good, 2 super skrulls fighting and them finally making an effort to help the skrulls. Y'all hate everything and anything

bjwills72025-09-26 10:01

I love the MCU, I'm a fan of most projects and have the unpopular opinion that most of the post endgame content is great. Doesn't mean I can't be critical of the stuff I didn't like. I honestly don't understand how you could've liked secret invasion but you're entitled to your opinion.

>Nope no one cares, not once have I heard someone say "I love Maria Hill" or even mention her name outside of secret invasion.

Okay then you haven't been paying attention. Also I feel like you're not acknowledging the fact that this is all opinionated. If anything this thread is demonstrating that you're opinion isn't the popular one.

Stormik2025-09-26 12:55

As a HIMYM fan I liked Maria from the very first scene and since wished she got more screen time. I wouldn't say killing her was the "worst" part of the MCU but still pretty bad especially the way she was killed. She deserved better.

Falkor2025-09-26 12:11

Yeah secret invasion shoulda been the phase 4 avengers film

theSteakKnight2025-09-26 12:18

Secret Invasion had so much potential. I love that storyline so much and was so excited. I hope they adapt it to live action one day.

jamesy5052025-09-26 12:27

You mean different from the live action series that exists?

theSteakKnight2025-09-26 12:28

I want Marvel to forget that show happened so badly that I'm leading by example.

jamesy5052025-09-26 12:32

Thats fair enough, I doubt they will remake it though. But one can hope

theSteakKnight2025-09-26 12:36

Remake it? They made it a first time?

bjwills72025-09-26 13:00

What? You suggested that they forget it and re-adapt it. That's the same thing the person you're replying to is talking about.

theSteakKnight2025-09-26 14:03

I'm trying so hard to forget that show ever happened that I'm in denial. Help a brother out and play along with it.

YourInMySwamp2025-09-26 13:07

![gif](giphy|1hAxQTH0HEWS3L0oRF)

Edboy7962025-09-26 14:54

And killing off Ben Mendhelson

Ok-Health-72522025-09-26 16:09

I still for the life of me don't even understand the point to that show or where it even fits in the overall scope of the story. The storyline isn't even addressed at all in The Marvels when we next see Fury so it's almost like it didn't even happen.

Ironhorn2025-09-27 01:48

The real kicker / capstone of that whole show is Fury needing to come back to earth for the first scene (because the movies had established him as being in space) and then, in the final scene, he need to get back to space so he can be where he needs to be for The Marvels

It’s not necessarily the worst, but possibly the most obvious, example of the MCU just losing any cohesive direction.

Ok-Health-72522025-09-27 03:05

Killing Maria off in the first episode of that show pissed me off beyond belief. Especially with her already being an original casualty of the blip before. They bring her, Fury, and everyone else back just to immediately do THAT to her character the next time we see her? Good God.

I will give that show this much credit though. It's one of SLJ's better acting performances in recent memory as he feels less like he normally does in most of his projects (where it often feels like he's playing himself through the character) and more like he's playing a tortured soul version of Fury.

ChaoticCaptain1772025-09-26 16:27

Yeah Secret invasion should've been an avengers movie

TimelineKeeper2025-09-26 17:48

When Winter Soldier dropped, I had always wondered if keeping Fury alive was the right call. I get it, killing the character shuts all the doors for his possible return and stories with him in the future, and I had heard they'd planned on giving him his own show and I was all here for it, but now?

I actually think killing Fury in Winter Soldier would have been the right call.

He just hasn't done anything since Winter Soldier that you couldn't have handed off the Hill since then. Hell, some of it would have made *more* sense. Had Fury died, it would have raised the stakes in WS. In AoU, Hill could show up to remind the Avengers how much Fury believed in them (her version of the bloody cards owned by Coulson) and showing up in the rebuilt helicarrier shows how she's rebuilding what was destroyed. Fury/Jackson still could return for Captain Marvel, they don't do anything in Endgame. Hill could "break the glass" Fury left and summon Captain Marvel. Hill working to secretly rebuild SHIELD or just straight up spearheading SWORD as it's replacement would also track.

And then there's Secret Invasion. Imagine a story where Jackson came back as Fury because Hill suddenly discovered the Skrulls and how deep Fury had helped them infiltrate the system and the world and, with Hill, we're never really sure if it's *actually* Fury coming back or just a Skrull impersonating him.

I just think it would have, ultimately, been a much stronger choice to kill Fury in WS and Secret Invasion could have been so, SO much better for it. Such a shame

PrimeTheGreat2025-09-26 09:02

Not crossing over characters more often. Imagine if they had used each of future Thunderbolts as bad guys in Black Panther 2 and Captain America Brave New World instead of the Serpent Society and then with people invested in the characters more, making the Thunderbolts film.

They also should have recasted Kang with Giancarlo Esposito. They could have even used other Breaking Bad characters as a part of his backstory or army. Have him be the aged result of the Conqueror after surviving the device from Quantumania, and have him come from another Marvel universe like the 2005 Fantastic Four movies or even the new one.

Extra-Jump5082025-09-26 09:07

I'd say not following up or doing more with the recent popular characters like Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Kate Bishop.
Killing off villains too much or not adapting them as well as they could've like Ultron.
Letting cliffhanger endings/teases go unanswered for super long and just leaving them hanging.

EcksFountain1322025-09-26 13:57

Some of them were dropped. Not just Kang but the the whole Ten Rings plots.

PartyPoison982025-09-26 15:31

>I'd say not following up or doing more with the recent popular characters like Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Kate Bishop.

This more than anything. Marvel Zombies has been a great showcase of all the characters left untouched for too long, and the missed potential of using them and having them team up.

Ironhorn2025-09-26 15:49

> Letting cliffhanger endings/teases go unanswered for super long and just leaving them hanging.

In phases 1-3, the post credit scene almost always teased the next MCU movie that was going to come out. Like, the very next one. Iron Man 2 teased Thor teased Captain America teased Avengers, ect

The most notable exception that deviated was Doctor Strange, which teased a Doctor Strange 2 with Mordo as the villain which never ended up happening. Should have been a warning for them maybe, but it wasn’t

In Phases 4 & 5, not only did the post-credit scenes not tease the next movie, most of them teased things that weren’t even in production yet. Sometimes it’s not even clear what movie the scene is intending to tease (was Heracles supposed to make us excited for Thor 5 or Doomsday? What movie or TV show is Skaar supposed to make me excited for?)

Thankfully, both Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four have returned to the original model for post credit scenes. Hopefully they learnt their lesson now

IAMALRAD2025-09-26 19:24

Hercules was intended for eternals 2 which likely is never happening

Punky9212025-09-26 18:22

I think Marvel thought Shang Chi was going to be their Black Panther, but in China, and the financials, while awesome, fell short of expectations, and so we never got a sequel. Which sucks because I loved Shang Chi.

phatboyart2025-09-26 09:10

Antman having 3 films for some odd reason but Ruffalo’s Hulk not having even one.

Too much cross over with the initial Tv shows. They should be bonuses for the films, not essential.

thezedferret2025-09-26 09:33

Disney still don't have the distributon rights for hulk solo movies, so it's somewhat understandable.

Unitedfateful2025-09-26 09:14

For me outside of what everyone else has said, they have waited far too long to introduce mutants and the xmen

This phase could’ve focused on them as well as F4 leading into Dr doom.

SDLRob2025-09-26 09:26

Black widow movie being done at the wrong time completely, but we know why they couldn't do it at the right moment.

Nothing done during the blip is a big missed opportunity. A Ronin movie, for example, would have been very interesting seeing how certain characters handled the blip.

The fallout of SHIELD's disintegration could have been an interesting thing to explore. Agents of SHIELD explored it a bit, but a movie where Fury & the Avengers navigate various SHIELD splinter groups as they try and save as much of it as possible.... That would have been a MUCH better Fury focused vehicle than Secret Invasion.

abellapa2025-09-26 09:34

Not recasting Tchalla is up there

Pupniko2025-09-26 09:38

Trying to carry on main hero stories in TV shows, especially Captain America, but to a certain extent Captain Marvel too. Most people I know didn't watch the shows and it put them off the films too. Save TV for defenders style stuff or a separate story (eg the magic of Agatha and Ironheart works well as a series).

comehereyoudevillog2025-09-26 16:01

TV shows being required reading was bullshit, not only did it force marvel fans to get D+, the shows weren’t even good for the most part.

Chiron7232025-09-26 09:50

Having Ike Perlmutter in charge even temporarily. He held so much back because of his sexism and racism. He's the prime reason why the Black Widow and Black Panther movies were delayed.

Ok-Health-72522025-09-26 16:14

Perlmutter also deserves a significant amount of blame for the horrific Inhumans show that we got. He desperately wanted the Inhumans in the MCU (originally via the films) but got moved over to the TV side instead when Feige was given creative control over the films and a lot of politics behind the scenes fucked up Inhumans before it even came out.

ny15912025-09-26 09:51

I know a lot of people might disagree with me but this is just how i feel:

My main issue has been the way that iron heart is portrayed. I don’t like that she struggles with doing the right thing, and how the series left off with her apparently agreeing to sell herself to get her friend back. it’s just weak.

I mean she just finished vanquishing the hood and saw what Mephisto did to him, and she’s just going to jump in bed the same villain that she saw manipulate him?

Also some of the technology feasibility has been weak as the various movies and series have progressed after Endgame. Again to go back to iron heart, making the suit wind and solar powered was weak. the size of the battery required to store enough energy would have been like hanging huge ship anchor on an ant.

They could have given her the blueprints to a mark 1 arc reactor and had her modify it, had her figure out a lower energy potential miniaturized fusion reactor, figure out powering the suit using a hydrogen powered gel power cell, or any other combination of viable technologies. Powering the final suit with magic was ok but a little weird.

Also, rebuilding her suit out of her dad’s old car, while nostalgic, was horrible by tech standards, you can’t temper some thin ass sheet metal from an old car into nearly impenetrable armor, even with her force field tech it doesn’t pan out. They also don’t address the icing issue from iron man 1, where tony made his suits from a titanium and gold alloy to prevent it. The least they could have done was have a short cutscene showing Riri adding a composite coating or tempering armor and explain why it was reinforced, but we didn’t get anything even close iirc.

One thing i always loved about the mcu infinity saga is that they explained a great deal of that stuff and why it worked (ie GOTG tech, Antmans Pim Particles, Asgard tech, Spidey, etc) which made it more immersive and feasible in the mcu. Somewhere along the line i feel we lost that with many of the post endgame movies and series.

allaboutthewheels2025-09-26 09:53

So as a long time comic reader I always found the multiverse content less interesting / harder to follow (I was about 14) and the way it's been introduced into the MCU was badly done (quantumania and Dr S 2 were dreadful)

The biggest mistep is not giving fans what they want and the nose dive in overall quality. People were happy with the sequential nature of the universe but the last phase was disjointed nonsense with no payoff.

The last two films were decent but imo should have started the next phase.

Tudor_Cinema_Club2025-09-26 09:53

Honestly Thor's character arc got really fucked up. They had him as a serious character, who then experienced a complete loss of everything. Whole family dead, Asgard exploded, avengers team members dead, his girlfriend dead. But rather than making him a brooding hero struggling with finding a purpose to carry on they made him a fatso comic relief character. This then peaked into the schizophrenic pile of slop, love and thunder where it went from thor doing the splits in the opening fight scene and screaming goats to Jane foster dying of cancer?!

By this point Thor should be rune king Thor, ultra powerful, dark and pessimistic. Instead we've got single dad Thor, chipper as ever and barely aware of the unresolved trauma that's happened to him.

Virtual_Link_34102025-09-26 10:00

There's honestly too many to list off but the main one is they stopped caring about continuity and phase 4 5 6 we haven't even established a bad guy yet. Thanos was teased so early. We haven't even seen doom yet. Or if we have he was in the fantastic four movie im assuming in the post credit scene. Im actually gonna post this then go YouTube the post credit scene.

Gheekers2025-09-26 10:07

I dont like what they did with hulk. He has multiple personalities. The grey hulk/ Joe fixit should have been in end game. Not the diluted version we got to see.

Same with thor. They turned him into a joke figure.

Secret invasion was a shit show. The cree are far more advanced but could not get a place to call home but the asguardians got somewhere fairly easily and quickly

dabull00072025-09-26 10:19

Funny how you prefaced with there not having many missteps, but everyone has a different answer haha

comehereyoudevillog2025-09-26 15:57

Haven’t seen anyone mention the Marvels, Quantumania, or Love and Thunder. Which is insane. It’s easier to name the projects that didn’t suck in phase 4 and 5.

TonyMontana5462025-09-26 10:31

Introducing so many new characters

Hattkake2025-09-26 11:30

I feel that the whole multiverse thing was a misstep. Having infinite realities just means that there's no suspense since if it all goes wrong in one universe then you have an infinity of other universes so win or lose it doesn't matter.

Having "What if..." go from alternative stories to "Captain Carter and friends!" after just one season was a huge letdown.

shellexyz2025-09-26 23:39

We saw *one* universe being destroyed in DSMoM. And while we got a slick and sweet music fight, there’s no sense of tension or worry.

The fact that there are other universes, so it’s fine if this one gets destroyed, we just go to another one, doesn’t ruin the tension for me. I live in this universe, so I’m gonna pretty cross if it gets incursioned.

We don’t care about those other universes because no one we care about is in them.

Salnder122025-09-26 12:09

Giving Waiti complete control over love and thunder THEN demand the movie be shorter. The "waiti humor" doesn't remotely land making every joke cringe inducing and the only bright spot, Gor had most of his stuff cut out to hit the 2 hour run time chapek demanded.

ogrezilla2025-09-26 12:14

Over saturation. Too many series without being really clear if you do or do not need to watch them before the next movie.

ogrezilla2025-09-26 12:17

Handling of the Multiverse in general has been pretty sloppy in comparison to everything before it.

Soulwarfare422025-09-26 12:30

The direction of the Multiverse saga was a mess

1) Deciding on Kang as the villain for the Multiverse saga but not doing enough to build him up as threat. If you knew Kang was going to be the villain for Avengers, why have him be villain for Ant-Man 3 just to lose??

2) Not ending the phases with some kind of big crossover film. I don't mind if Avengers are no longer at the end of phases but you need something to replace it.

3) Too many Disney+ shows. Some of these shows being important made it more problematic because it started to make the MCU feel like homework. The shows should expand the universe but not be a must-watch.

4) Secret Invasion. A great concept wasted on a poorly written show.

5) Not recasting T'Challa. Now we lost a great character way too early and replaced by Shuri who is not as interesting

6) Black Widow should have came out before Endgame. It being the start of Multiverse saga is silly

7) Eternals should've been a show, not a movie

8) Too many terrible scripts being greenlit

icorrectpettydetails2025-09-26 16:10

Kang was actually planned as the villain for Ant-Man 3 *before* he became the saga villain; they liked his portrayal of Kang so much they decided to work him into more of the projects. He Who Remains was originally going to be an older version of Loki.

Justsin72025-09-26 12:32

Selling to Disney

taryvol2025-09-26 12:38

I think people have already covered Thor being made into a joke. I'd like to add that they plundered Jason Aaron's run on Thor for ideas to make Thor 3 and 4 and completely wasted them.

Not only that, but there are loads of incredible things from that run that we will never get to see.

Uncanny_Doom2025-09-26 12:45

Honestly it’s neither of these.

The biggest misstep for sure is not having a cohesive plan in The Multiverse Saga that involves tying many characters and films together the way the Infinity Saga did. You see tons of fans that skip out on stuff and generally feel like it isn’t worth watching if it doesn’t cross over with something else. I don’t personally agree with the sentiment but Marvel has kind of cultivated many to feel that way and then didn’t feed into it.

The other is just the general volume of movies and shows they increased to. I think most of the stuff they’ve dropped is fine, but it really is just the timing of it going along with the first point. I think you could also argue some of these shows would’ve been better as movies, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier which frankly has enough material there for two movie plots and would’ve been far more fitting than Brave New World’s story was for film. Movie viewers and series viewers are not the same and don’t always crossover the same way, so it really does seem like a mistake to put as much emphasis on series that the MCU has even though some of the best and most consistent things in the past five years have been shows.

QuiJon702025-09-26 12:51

I think using Altman as the on ramp for Kang was a mistake. I love Altman but to me he solo kind of fits more like a heist/con type movie then a leading a microscopic rebellion leader.

On a general note I think ignoring some of the stuff that worked well was a mistake. Both the Hawkeye show and ms marvel were great shows both should have a season 2 by now. As well as a Shang chi 2.

Another movie miss is for MoM I think rather then keep stringing us along and having Wanda kind of died and been so evil, she should have found a world like 616 where her and vision had their real children. She should have blown out he energy merging this world of mutants into our home universe thus introducing xmen.

ChBowling2025-09-26 13:51

The multiverse saga needs an anchor point, like Tony was in the infinity saga. The Infinity Saga had a ton of characters and character arcs within it, but the saga as a whole was Tony’s arc. Multiverse doesn’t have that because it flits around, showing us a character and then putting them on the shelf to gather dust for five years before we see them again, if we even see them again at all.

Punky9212025-09-26 18:27

Agreed. My vote would be for Steven Strange, Shang Chi, Bucky, or White Widow. But honestly? Good lord, just pick someone, anyone, and focus!

deemoorah2025-09-27 08:53

It was Strange even Feige claimed it's Strange back in February 2022 but somehow they quickly ditched that and put Strange in a limbo

Fanraeth22025-09-26 13:55

Introducing too many new characters in isolation from each other and waiting too long for crossovers. Not having a real plan after Endgame besides “Let’s do Kang, I guess?” and then panicking after Majors’ screwed them and jettisoning that in favor of a stunt casting for the next arc villain.

MrFlibblesPenguin2025-09-26 13:57

Fiege not stepping down or at least stepping back after Endgame, should've been a new cohesive vision for phase 4/5.
The need for smaller more grounded movies ( just imagine if they had done a John Wick with Punisher) with a MAX line with more adult themes ( kids that started watching at Ironman have grown up, you need to cater to that audience). Stop trying to fit every movie into the same quippy irreverent mould and if a director you've hired has a vision let them direct, multiverse of madness had maybe 5 minutes that felt like Rami behind the camera the rest felt like a typical marvel committee.

...and more bloody Wearwolf by night, I mean why they haven't pumped out Halloween specials every year is just poor decision making.

MCDevoG2025-09-26 14:08

Giving echo ancient indigenous powers was a choice. The best part of that show was her street level fighting daredevil.

crispy_attic2025-09-26 14:18

They killed T’Challa offscreen because the actor who portrayed him died. How many times have we seen a Black Panther “die” now? It seems like a sick joke at this point.

There has been very few black male heroes with actual superpowers in the MCU. How are they this far in and there are basically none right now? How many has there been?

t_huddleston2025-09-26 15:51

In the emotion of the moment I agreed with the decision to not recast T'Challa, as a way of honoring Chadwick Boseman. But now that we're some years past Boseman's tragic death, I've changed my mind. I think that it was a mistake to retire that character. Not just for MCU story reasons, but because T'Challa was important and inspirational to so many people who aren't used being able to see themselves on screen in that kind of role. I'd never dream of speaking for Boseman or his family but if it were me, I'd want to see that character that I made so memorable on screen, live on forever.

BartleBossy2025-09-26 18:02

> There has been very few black male heroes with actual superpowers in the MCU.

God I am *begging* for Blue Marvel

MachoManMal2025-09-26 14:33

Trying to move so quickly to the next big thing after Thanos. I wish we could have gotten more movies like the 3 Iron Man films. Movies about a character fighting his own, relatively unimportant villains, and about how the character develops and changes as a result.

GullibleGap99662025-09-26 16:05

The next big thing is doom who has had like 3 seconds of screen time.

Ok-Health-72522025-09-27 03:31

There's a reason why they cast RDJ to play him. Cause they were desperate for the next big villain to REALLY be a hit (especially after Kang fell through due to Majors).

Ambassador_of_Mercy2025-09-26 14:38

Biggest misstep genuinely I think was firing James Gunn. Fair enough the post endgame stuff has been hit or miss but i dont think its been as disastrous as people or saying... considering the competition was even worse.

But then you fire one of your most talented filmmakers and he goes off and rejuvenates public faith in DC with 2 films and a tv show of a z-list character? That's going to fuck them over so much more than any single mediocre film ever will

DJTLaC2025-09-26 15:04

Agreeing to do Blade after Mahershala Ali approached them.

Phase 4 and 5 have had their issues but I feel like this is one of the major things that has amplified confusion, expectations, and disappointment for fans. It's announced, it's delayed, it's changing writers or directors, it's delayed again, different people in the know have different things to say about it's production... it's felt like the biggest mess for people who pay attention.

That, and the fact that some of the worst or most critically panned projects (The Marvels, Eternals) have had the most interesting or exciting teases for the future and they either haven't led to anything (yet) or it's been too long of a wait to stay excited.

and the entirety of Love and Thunder except Natalie Portman returning as Jane.

THEbaddestOFtheASSES2025-09-26 15:17

\- Introducing the Multiverse. I said from day1 I wasn't sure this was a good direction to go in. It could get very confusing for the average viewer and bringing in variants could cheapened the impact of death. I decided to have faith and believe that they could make it work. Now I believe I was correct with my original fears.

\- They really should have had a few films after Endgame where the story really had elements that focused on the impact of the fallout from so many people coming back from the blip. Far From Home was very minimal. FATWS was better but the show was lacking overall.

t_huddleston2025-09-26 15:21

I agree it's been a mess, but I don't think it's necessarily all their fault. COVID did a number on their scheduling for years - suddenly everything was shut down, theaters were closed, production came to a halt, and by the time everything was back up and running, we found ourselves years beyond the window when we would have normally expected another Shang-Chi movie, for example.

The mantle of "MCU lead character" that had belonged to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers was clearly intended to pass to T'Challa, along with Spider-Man. We know what happened there, and it derailed their plans for Wakanda and the MCU as a whole - WF is a movie I like, and central to this current saga, but it carries a heavy load and it's tough for me to revisit that one. And the other potential leader, Sam Wilson, hasn't been given good enough material to really make audiences believe in him, as much as I love that character.

And of course Jonathan Majors' legal issues threw the whole Kang storyline into disarray. But this leads into the things that they could control. The whole Kang saga, as it unfolded, was a huge misstep - probably the biggest one the MCU has had so far. His introduction at the end of Loki S1 was intriguing, but not enough people followed that thread to Quantumania, and the people who did were presented with a pretty bad film and a weak portrayal of a villain who couldn't fill Thanos's shoes, and with that the whole main driver of the Multiverse saga went up in smoke. (Just my 2 cents - outside of Busiek's "Kang Dynasty," Kang is lame in the comics too; his whole backstory is nothing but confusion and headache-inducing retcons, and every time that dude appears I'm just waiting for him to go away again. He's Marvel's worst "classic" villain by far.)

And of course this leads to the desperation casting of RDJ as Doom. I'm sure if they had it all to do over again, they'd have launched FF sooner and built up Doom as a true force to be reckoned with instead of wasting everybody's time trying to make Kang happen. Now, they have to cram all of his story into Doomsday. We'll see how it goes. RDJ is a damn good actor and I have no doubt he can pull off the role, but I'm skeptical that they'll be able to write something that makes sense with the amount of runway they have.

doubledeus2025-09-26 15:57

Getting rid of SHIELD.

Ok-Health-72522025-09-27 07:24

I think Agents of SHIELD had a lot to do with that. Feige often went out of his way to try and prove some weird point that the show towards the end of its run was completely separate from the MCU and its own thing DESPITE the fact that Coulson literally debuted in the first Iron Man film (since Marvel Television was under Perlmutter's jurisdiction at the time and not his).

WallyOShay2025-09-26 15:58

Gorr the angry babysitter

thegreaterikku2025-09-26 16:00

To be fair, when it comes to the Hulk, Marvel doesn’t fully own the character the same way they don't own Spider-Man. That limits what they can do with him beyond smaller appearances. They also avoid making him overly powerful on screen, because audiences would question every choice (just like what happened with Captain Marvel). A god-like character can work in comics, but it’s much harder to translate effectively to film.

As for the biggest missteps, the current Phase. They all feels like filler until Doomsday and Secret Wars. Plus they had the perfect oppotunity to explore with the blip. They didn't.

They could have easily setup small stones about RDJ being Doom with how Tony Stark shaped the post-snap world by keeping the fve-year gap intact... which probably fucked up a lot of things just because he was selfish and wanted to keep his "daughter" alive.

S_L_Raymond2025-09-26 16:05

Making the TV series required viewing to follow the lore. Also, seemingly putting more effort into the series than the feature films.

CB_Chuckles2025-09-26 16:10

Biggest problem was flooding the market. Too many shows, too many movies, not enough time to properly create them. Quality suffers and superhero fatigue sets in. These days I avoid the MCU, other than an occasional rewatch of Iron Man or the Avengers.

Blackmore_Vale2025-09-26 17:16

One that’s not spoken about often is taking out shield so early in the MCU. It’s such a massive part of the comics and at some point everyone has worked for or with shield. But other than a couple of false starts nothing has replaced it. Yet in the early MCU it was everywhere. And like the infinity stones united the various films, making it feel like a real world.

Edited to add since it’s not been mentioned. Losing James Gunn to D.C. he was Fiege’s right hand man and led the cosmic side of things.

Grayx_28872025-09-26 17:18

How about fucking up the schedules with Spider-Man No Way Home and Doctor Strange 2 and dropping their original pitches, respectively. Not giving us Natasha Romanov's first solo movie in the middle of Phase Three by putting that movie in between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers Endgame and saving Carol Danvers' first movie for a much later date after the Infinity Saga. Not giving us the X-Men and the Fantastic Four at the beginning of Phase 4. Here's the real punch in the face, for you...

Not giving us Merhersha Ali's Blade in his own movie.

VolusVagabond2025-09-26 17:19

Biggest MCU Missteps?

* Not keeping Victoria Alonzo out of the writer's room, and then taking too long to fire her when it was obvious she was screwing up the MCU.
* Throwing out or degrading long-lived, successful characters, and trying to insert new-ish characters that have never been successful in their own right. I liked the Ms. Marvel show, and Iman Vellani is wonderful, but the character was never particularly mainstream.
* Underutilizing their own comic backlog when making new movies. They have this huge library of characters, and they keep trying to pigeonhole in these semi-original characters no one seems to particularly like. How many Iron man superfans did you know in the 2010s, and how many Cassie superfans do you know?

Those are the biggest.

akgiant2025-09-26 17:41

Chasing the high of the Phase 3 finale without properly adapting to the shift in streaming/theater landscape. Which to be clear has been great for fans, not so much for non-diehards.

They doubled down on shows to "win" an unwinnable streaming wars, and were willing to to sacrifice brands in order to do it. It created a flood of content that was just too much for general audiences. This caused them to take their eye off the ball of film which needed at LOT of attention to o navigate Covid and post Covid theater and audience needs.

The movie haven't been bad but they definitely aren't Endgame etc and the shows are a commitment far higher (especially with only an episode a week. So interest starts to falter.

The COVID/Streaming response from Disney really put a dent in otherwise pretty solid franchise armor. I'm hoping with the recent quality releases and some decent projects on the horizon that Marvel can rally back for general audiences.

BartleBossy2025-09-26 17:51

1. Smart Hulk (Unearned, loss of amazing character and dynamic)

2. No Blip-Phase (Too many untold stories, too much glossed over)

3. Secret Invasion without paranoia

4. 95% of Thor4

5. The way they handled Captain Marvel (amazing character and actress, poor direction/writing)

6. She-Hulk. Hostile, poor-feminist portrayal, non-legal.

7. BP2's fridging of Angela Bassett

8. Not embracing thematic and genre-specific films as the avenues for telling specific stories a la Werewolf By Night.

StoryArcher2025-09-26 17:57

A lot of the mistakes that Marvel has made stem from the same source - letting something other than the story drive the narrative.

Two big examples come to mind: The first was forcibly shoe-horning Captain Marvel into Endgame late in the process and then rushing her movie out because they were feeling pressure over the success of Wonder Woman and Marvel not yet having had a female-led movie. The other was the release of Eternals, a movie about a supergroup literally no one was asking for at a time when few people were going to the movies involving a team that they were in no way ready to integrate into the larger MCU, all so they could race and/or gender swap most of the characters (that nobody had ever heard of anyway) and wave their diversity banner. Even though the movie was solid (imo), it was a sign of things to come, where the story began taking a backseat to 'the narrative' and fans actually began to be attacked by the studio and its proxies for not being smart or progressive enough to want what they were being given.

All of this began a string of movie and show releases featuring more and more characters that few had ever heard of and no one particularly wanted solely because they checked the right boxes, all while they were sitting on the entire X-Men & Fantastic Four pantheon, and their internal continuity - the one thing that truly separated the MCU from all previous film franchises - had begun to fall apart.

Hopefully we're starting to see the pendulum swing the other way. The Russo brothers have earned my trust, even with Feige & Disney's meddling, and perhaps the next two Avengers movies will set things right. At the moment I have high hopes but low expectations.

dvolland2025-09-26 18:11

I love that you left Covid out of the Black Widow delay decision.

razeandsew2025-09-26 18:21

How poorly feige messes up 99% of Marvel

GaryBettmanSucks2025-09-26 18:24

I think they went to the well of "new better version who is also female" too many times, to be honest. Some have hit better than others, but we had America Chavez in Doctor strange, Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, Cassie in ant Man 3, Shuri in WF, Riri also in WF ... Plus the news that one version of Blade was going to be an older Blade training his daughter to take over. There was a stretch where this felt like the primary purpose of each new show and movie for whatever reason.

Cassie is the most egregious to me. In the MCU she was mainly there to humanize and motivate Scott. Plus they had Wasp right there!! But no we also needed Cassie to suddenly be better than Scott at everything.

StylishSloth2025-09-26 18:36

Their freestyle ‘filming with a rough plan instead of a script’ mentality works well for some directors (notably Favreau and the Russos) and doesn’t for many others.

Mix this with trying to appeal to test audiences and fixing everything in reshoots and editing has led to all kinds of weird pacing issues (Fantastic Four), tonal problems (Thunderbolts*), and movies that feel like unfinished or rushed storylines (Cap4).

They need to take a step back, fully plan out their future, and do all of the necessary pre-work and focus on making a great movie - instead of planning out the next phase’s arc and making a movie that ultimately only advertises and teases the future.

Sir__Will2025-09-26 18:40

They seemed to have a belief that Avengers movies needed to be as big as IW/Endgame going forward so they've ended up waiting way too long to put out another Avengers crossover.

Huckleberry_Sin2025-09-26 23:34

Haven’t been many? There have been a ton of mistakes since after Endgame. So much so that the MCU feels like what DCU used to feel like. Just irrelevant and shoddy.

didnt_bring_pants2025-09-27 04:12

Yeah, this sub seems to be mostly blind MCU super fans. I would say that most projects since end game have been a mis step, with a few good ones sprinkled in there.