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The MCU Should Focus on Personal Stories After Endgame

Not All Conflicts Are to Save the World

By CKPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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As a superhero fan since childhood, I would have never thought superhero films would become as popular as they are today. Superhero films have gone from occasional movies for a niche audience to enjoy having consistently successful releases several times a year. No franchise embodies this more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I have found the MCU movies repetitive at times but consistently enjoyable. With Avengers Endgame looking like it will be the biggest film in the franchise yet, I’d like to see Marvel take a break from Avengers and crossovers in the next batch of films.

My Take on Crossovers

I am not completely against crossovers, in fact, I think some of the series best moments have come from characters from separate solo films interacting with each other. However, if you look to comic books it seems to me that crossovers comics and crossover series are special because they're somewhat rare. So I feel that when there are too many in the MCU they do not feel as meaningful. I’m not concerned with little cameos or post credit scenes but when heroes are constantly teaming up or fighting it loses a bit of its magic for me. By my count, none of the four films between Avengers 1 and Avengers 2 have major characters crossing over while four of seven films between Avengers 2 and Avengers 3 do. For these moments to hold more weight in the future, I would like to see crossovers used more sparingly.

Another issue I have with crossovers is they seem to limit the types of stories being told. Admittedly, this isn’t much of an issue with small crossovers, but more so with the Avengers titles and Civil War.Narratively speaking, putting a bunch of heroes in one film seems to leave less time for plot development and must justify involving all these heroes with a large scale threat. Again, this isn’t inherently problematic but for the sake of variety, I don’t think every conflict must be one where the whole world is at stake. The Thanos portrayed in Infinity War is great but at some point, Marvel will unveil a bigger threat to try and top him but I hope they wait long enough so that it doesn’t feel like a rehash of Thanos. In the meantime, I’d like to see Marvel keep their heroes separate more often and explore more personal stories. This could be done with any character but certain ones come to mind as clear choices.

Iron Man

Due to speculations on contracts and overall tone of the Endgame trailer, some people are questioning if Iron Man will be part of the MCU past Endgame. However if he is, he’d be a likely candidate to tell a personal story about in the future. Starks’ troubles with alcohol was touched upon in Iron Man 2 and could be revisited in a fourth Iron Man or with a retired Iron Man appearing in another hero’s film. After all, the comic arc "Demon in a Bottle" focused on Tony’s alcoholism and is highly regarded and the traumatic events of Infinity War could push Tony into a dangerous mental state. Another easy play to make things feel personal is to have an old foe return and Tony Stark has three obvious ones to go with. Iron Monger, Justin Hammer or The real Mandarin could return as it’s been over half a decade since the last solo Iron Man.

Hulk

Speaking of a long time ago, it’s been ten years and 18 MCU films since the last dedicated Hulk movie. Despite the first film staring Edward Norton, it’s been long enough that Marvel could release one with Mark Ruffalo without it being weird. If Marvel was wanting to make more character driven films to complement their larger blockbuster films they could explore the psyche of the Hulk. Infinity War already hinted at some issues Banner was having turning in to the Hulk and whatever that’s leading up to in Endgame could be further explored in a solo Hulk movie. In the comics, there are multiple versions of Hulk in alternate timelines or within Bruce Banner’s own mind. If the events of Endgame could make Bruce become isolated he would likely have to fight to keep his personas like joe fix-it, Maestro, and Devil Hulk from emerging. They could also revisit the version of the leader that was established in the first Hulk but it seems like Marvel is pretending that movie never existed.

Spider-Man

The best thing about Spider-Man is that he has to balance being a regular person and saving the day, so obviously he’s a good choice for a character-driven MCU outing. However, Spider-Man Far From Home is set to feature Mysterio so it will likely be focused on action and visuals. Nevertheless, we finally have a Spider-Man actor young enough to really seem like he belongs in high school or at least university. If Far From Home doesn’t tackle student drama we can hope a future installment will. This version of Mysterio is supposedly a new take on the villain so it’s possible he’ll have a compelling relationship with Spider-Man. If not, Scorpion was established in Homecoming and Spider-Man has one of the best collection of villains of any superhero. Even if one of his greatest rivals is legally tied to his own franchise.

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About the Creator

CK

Glad to have a place to write my thoughts down

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