Marvel Cinematic Universe: Life after the Endgame.

It's been three years since Avengers: Endgame hit theaters and not only became the biggest Marvel film of all time, but the highest grossing film ever. It's not hard to understand why Endgame became the film ever, it's conception was over a decade in the making. Avengers: Endgame marked the end of the first generation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and though Marvel had great success with Spiderman: Far From Home just a mere month's time later, the impact of the eventual 2020 Pandemic would make it nearly 2 years before the MCU would grace the world with its net release.

So what exactly has been the state of the MCU since 2019's Endgame? In January of 2021, Marvel fans were greeted with the Disney Plus release of the MCU's WandaVision, a miniseries centered around the life of surviving Avenger, Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlett Witch since the events of Endgame. WandaVision would be the first in an Ensemble of Marvel shows on Disney Plus that immediately took place following Endgame and were meant to set up the next generation of the MCU including: WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and Hawkeye. Given the epic proportions on which Endgame ended, fans were very anxious to see what has been like for our favorite Marvel characters since their greatest battle to date and the outcome so far was: Wanda caused a lot of chaos due to a fictional world she created for herself, Sam Wilson aka The Falcon and Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier successfully held the torch passed to them by a retired Captain America by stopping a rogue group of super soldier induced terrorist bent on reshaping their environment back to what it was before the Endgame. Loki, the mischievous younger brother of Thor who escaped from the year 2012 with the infinity stone based Tesseract, goes on a quest with multiple universal variations of himself and meets the multiversal police known as the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye goes on a Christmas mission to help a young girl who's family is linked to a group of criminals related to his past.

The majority of the reception to all of these Disney Plus releases was positive, with many loving colorful sense of MCU personality still being just as alive and well as it was since Endgame but many also felt the MCU was starting to dwindle and did not have the same sting as before. The key to seeing if this claim was true would have to be measured in how well the MCU would do on a theatrical level with theaters now being open again to the mass public. The first theatrical MCU release would be July 2021's Black Widow centered around the life of Avengers spy Natasha Romanoff after the events of Captain America: Civil War, but before the events of Avenger: Infinity War. Though the reception to Black Widow was generally positive, it didn't have that spark with fans that was wanted being that it felt so long overdue and should have been created and released much earlier than it was.

With the skepticism towards the MCU growing, Black Widow would be followed up two months later by the September 2021's release of Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which would successfully introduce a new character arc of the MCU that was very appealing to fans and critics alike and fare very well at the box office. With the success of Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings it seemed like Marvel was starting to get back on the upswing again and with the Highly anticipated Eternals making it's way to theaters in November of 2021 it seemed the MCU was back in full effect. However, Eternals would garner a mixed reception from both fans and critics and did not fare as well financially with all its other MCU predecessors, many would label it the first misfire of the MCU.

With the less than highly favored reception of Eternals the criticism towards the MCU was higher than ever, thankfully the December 2021 release of Spider-Man: No Way Home would massively destroy skepticism from all doubters with beautifully collaged ensemble of every Spider-Man arc both in and outside of the MCU being perfectly forged together in a way that garnered universal acclaim from audiences and critics alike, bringing the MCU back to billion dollar success. With May 2022's release of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which has also become a largely successful and widespread critically acclaimed follow up to No Way Home, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has managed to reclaim it's top spot as theater filler it has always been. So if one were to ask you what is the state of the MCU's current life after Endgame, the answer would be: alive and well.