What aspects of Phase 1 and so on, do you miss?

The sense of wonder when you realized that they were building something bigger than just a movie, or a series, and that it was good.

i miss how each movie had their own style, up until about guardians every movie became the same

now everything is grey with over designed costumes with color that casuals will call comic accurate, like no wolverines suit is not comic accurate it’s just yellow and blue, if they had literally made the og leather suit yellow and black it would be more accurate

in a way it felt more comic booky than it does now except for thunderbolts and f4, hopefully spider-man bnd will have its own swag to it

The fact that Iron Man was fighting insurgents in the Central Asia lent the whole affair a certain degree of verisimilitude missing from most of the rest of the franchise. It really felt like a heightened reality, like our world with a handful of science fiction and fantasy elements thrown in.

I miss how simple it was. Every movie set up the next one for the most part. I do think after secret wars we will get back to that in a sense

Every marvel subreddit wasn't just a karma-farm circlejerk

They used to hire great directors and let them cook

Honestly same, and I know exactly what you mean. The Nanotech was awesome, but they still never truly touched the feel of Ironman feeling like a moving physical mechanical suit again - from a lot of future moments it was just *there*, the grounded sense of wonder gone. It was pure cinematic from there.

I think Ironman and Spider-Man 1 and Spider-Man 2 (not even MCU) are the only ones that feel like they're happening "there." Maybe Captain America 1 as well.

So yeah - I too miss the "texture" of Phase 1. I'd also say I miss the scale of things, and how they seemed to take their time with the individual movies, and how Avengers felt like a *crossover* movie rather than a climatic bump in an already shared world.

The birth of each hero felt special, because they were special and unique in a world of ordinary people. Now there are too many special people, so the new heroes don't feel special anymore.

The visuals. Iron Man 1 still looks gorgeous.

Nothing. Phase 1 wasn’t that good

Phase 1? The more mature tone of those movies, for sure. I mean, it took from 2010 (Iron Man 2) to 2025 (thunderbolts) just to see a character drunk in a harmful way again. And yes, im intentionally overlooking comedic relief (Stan Lee in Ultron).

Plus the more practical effects and tactile look and feel of everything. Iron Man seemed real, his movements carried weight and force. Cap's shield actually flew like it had weight, thrown by a dude with unbelievable strength. When characters got hit enough, they bled.

Every time I rewatch Phase 1, I grow to appreciate them more and more.

I miss the newness of everything. It was the first time we got to see these heroes on the big screen and it was all amazing and well done. We're spoiled by it now and we can't ever experience it that way again.

I miss the original that didn’t feel like origins. Tony becoming Ironman felt special. The Guardians coming together as a team felt natural and not forced at all. Caps first movie was literally set in the 40’s. It was really well done and the stories mattered.

All the villains felt more real and had a similar vibe to defenders saga villains

Not that thanos or anyone like that are bad but low stakes villains like the terrorists, stane and red skull feel more menacing as human threars

Casting new actors as characters, laying the groundwork for those characters and sticking to them

Basically, confidence in the story they were telling without resorting to nostalgia to sell tickets. ^(not that I’m pointing any fingers at anything lol oops)

Phil Coulson.

I wish Jimmy Woo would become like the next version of him hopping from one feature to the next.

I miss musical themes for Tony and Deadpool. You know, Tony commandeering Widows mic and announcing himself to Germany with AC/DC and Wade, taking the hands outta the guns of the bad guys to Dolly Parton.

I miss the snark. But I guess we all outgrown sophomoric things.

What I really miss is the tension of a rampaging Hulk.

I know I’m not going to be alone in this but just to get it out of the way… no multiverse.

I’m sad to say this, but multiverse stuff has just made everything to messy and outside of a few exceptions and some fun cameos, not really added any significant depth to the MCU. Now the stakes are always either *too great* to be affecting, or nonexistent.

It’s such a minor thing, but characters seemed to have more pronounced limitations in the earlier films. For example, Iron Man couldn’t make a new suit appear out of his arse every five minutes; having to use a specific machine to get in and out of the suits placed constraints on what he could do and that was fun. I know Iron Man 3 is divisive, but seeing Iron Man having to problem-solve on the fly to save people falling from Air Force One was thrilling.

At the risk of sounding like a snob, it’s also fair to say that shooting on actual film did add a bit of visual pop that seemed to be lost in later films. I think they stopped around the time of Iron Man 3 and outside of a few exceptions, it has looked worse. Fantastic Four First Steps was (in my opinion) one of the better-looking recent ones.

I miss when everyone wasn’t pretending to be in a sitcom and get there one-liners in.

The character moments. Man people don’t like iron man 2 but that courtroom scene is top tier.

The more grounded in reality feel.

I don’t miss how copy and paste the plot was and how shallow they were

Not reliant on comedy so much

I miss when everyone was just excited to see these characters on screen for the first time in a meaningful way.

Now everyone is so critical and nitpicks everything.

I miss the intentional buildup. Some movies were just an asshole who was gonna blow up a city and a costumed guy stopping him.
So many movies now have to be multiversal, universe ending, epics and it’s get boring.

Phase 1: each project was its own thing. Had a definitive start and end with room to build on the story. Coming together for The Avengers worked seamlessly without having to fit pieces in weirdly.

Also each movie was a different genre almost and felt special

I thought it was really cool that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. storyline went right into Captain America Winter Soldier storyline. I wish they would have kept doing that.

I liked the groundedness of it, yeah, they’re superheroes, but it felt believable. Like an alternate Earth where superheroes were a real thing.

SHIELD being an organization that handled the day to day threats, the Avengers being a team that fought the big global, threat to humanity threats.

The Infinity Saga told a mostly coherent, character driven story, each main hero had a trilogy of movies, and even supporting ones like Black Widow and Hawkeye still had major plot lines.

The multiverse saga is missing that, there’s no SHIELD, there’s no regular people, no regular threat, everything is some sort of world-ending or multidimensional threat which gets old.

The best part of Civil War was Zemo, just a regular guy who studied the Avengers, utilized his resources, and actually achieved his goal, fracturing the Avengers, while also revealing the reason he did it was because his family was killed in Sokovia during Ultron, Civil War also showed the consequences of the Avengers’ actions and how the world reacted to it.

The interconnectedness of the Infinity Saga and the little details, to include people who defied HYDRA in Winter Soldier showing up on the Helicarrier in Ultron, was what made it special.

I don’t think we’ll ever get anything like it again. The multiverse saga is missing that little bit of magic and realism.

Thunderbolts* was the first marvel movie I was truly excited for, and it delivered.

The Doomsday trailers have seemed like a return to form, but we’ll see.

I miss getting to see a characters story unfold over a few years instead of a decade.

I liked the Shang-Chi movie. It was fun, he was a good character, and I like the actor. I was excited to see where his story would go. It’s been 5 years since. That’s just too long to maintain interest with nothing.

The fandom not being insufferable.

The anticipation of Infinity War

I want them to go back to building a world that feels real and not just real to people who start sentences with “but in the comics”. Meaning the bad guys in Spider-Man Homecoming who were selling alien tech were a big deal. Now skip forward to Iron Heart where any of her suits are just something that can happen on the universe and is not played as a “holy sh*t that’s so awesome” thing

Portrayal*

I miss people being positive about the franchise I love.

It’s so tiring for every new release to be met with (IMO) unfair criticism, and to be seen as less than the older stuff. It gets to the point where I feel I have to argue against how good the old stuff was, because people keep saying the new stuff is worse by comparison, and I don’t think it is.

The story of Secret Invasion was poorly executed, and didn’t go into anywhere near as much as the comics… but neither did Extremis.

I miss when they were actually interested in popularizing lesser known or less popular characters. Now if you’re not part of the greatest hits or if you don’t elevate yourself to that status in your first outing, you get thrown to the wayside nd stuck in an endless limbo of “we don’t quite know where to go next with this character”

No nanotech

Tony Stark being treated like the asshole he was.

Plot. Story. Writing.

The folks in them had a pre existing fan base. That brought both cachet and a known element to the role. Meaning you knew the delivery and acceptance was a lock. Not so in the later phases. I’m still trying to wrap my head around why they thought The Marvels would work.

The Paramount era sure felt more mature even though they avoided Demon in Bottle for Iron Man 2. I'll always be nostalgic for Phase-1, it was unique and like nothing that came before.

Phase 1 is the only one where the majority of films *weren't* end-of-the-world scenarios (phase 2 was 50/50):

* Phase 1 (6 films): Only Cap 1 (Red Skull's plane full o' nukes) & Avengers 1 (Loki's invasion) were end-of-the-world situations; the other 4 films were all lower stakes.
* Phase 2 (6 films): Thor 2 (Malekith trying to destroy light), GotG 1 (Ronan trying to asplode Xandar), & Avengers 2 (Ultron's meteor) were end-of-the-world; the other 3 films were lower stakes.
* Phase 3 (11 films): Only Cap 3 (Zemo's revenge), Homecoming (Vulture stealing stuff), Panther 1 (Killmonger starting a war), Ant-Man 2 (Ghost killing Janet, Burch stealing stuff), & Far From Home (Mysterio killing a few people & conning the world) were *lower* stakes; the other 6 films were end-of-the-world situations.
* Phase 4 (7 films): Only Black Widow (Dreykov continues the Red Room) & Panther 2 (Namor starting a war) were *lower* stakes; the other 5 films were end-of-the-world problems.
* Phase 5 (6 films): Only Guardians 3 (saving Rocket's life) & Cap 4 (Leader starting a war & creating Red Hulk) were *lower* stakes; the other 4 films were end-of-the-world situations.
* Phase 6 (4 films): Only Brand New Day even **can** be lower stakes (though it still might not be since we don't know the plot yet).

[Edited to fix a typo.]

Good writing, good storytelling, good character development. After phase 3, it’s been hit or miss.

Casting and direction.

I missed how almost every movie felt like it's own thing. I was too young to understand pop culture and films at the time but I bet not everyone was aware they're building a cinematic universe. Captain America was this period piece of the world war, Thor was medieval space fantasy, Iron Man is terrorism and politics. You can just enjoy these movies separately. Basically they had their own identity. Also no forced jokes. They were subtle, NOT TRYING TO BE FUNNY they just were.

I don't know how to explain it but a lot of scenes had this aura that it's a proper movie. Legitimately can't explain it but you can see for yourself by watching a scene from those three movies. (I recommend Captain America or Iron Man however because arguably I think Thor 1 was mid)

Non-nano tech.

Characters I actually cared about. With the current movies and tv shows not as much (except for Yelena, her father and Bob and the Fantastic Four) so I’ve lost a lot interest in the MCU in the past few years. Maybe the new Avengers movies will get me interested again.

I guess for me it would be the more “grounded” tone in terms of the concept of a superhero. Back then being a superhero wasnt really a common thing in-universe.

Captain america was really only the first superhero and he was assumed dead until 2011.
Hulk was just a freak accident who tried to stop some other bigger freakier accident from destroying more things.
Thor was a warrior God who was meant to protect the nine realms (which includes earth) but he never saw himself as a “superhero”. He just did his role as a warrior and thats it.
Tony was a billionaire weapons manufacturer who only decided to build a suit of armor to escape being held captive, and eventually it lead him down the path of being iron man
Natasha and clint were just agents who worked for SHIELD and were very close to Fury so they had his trust

It wasnt until the formation of the Avengers in new york that being a superhero, or even a superhero team was a properly understood concept. I especially loved the bit at the end of the movie where it showed the public’s reactions to the “Avengers” as it felt like something one of a kind to happen to that world. It made it feel like the world had changed and evolved into a new era with “superheroes” instead of just individuals with random abilities or technology.

Now with all the worldbuilding and lore expansion, it makes sense why there are so many other superheroes, but back then, it felt like a one of a kind special thing