With a little less than a year until the highly anticipated release of “Avengers: Doomsday” and a month after the release of the official teaser trailers (yes, there’s more than one), there is no doubt the remaining Marvel fans are excited. With the stacked cast that includes practically every era of Marvel, ranging from the newer “Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Thunderbolts” to some of the older films like the “X-Men” movies, it seems like Marvel may be back on the rise from their recent slump in movie and show production, or are they?
The last Avengers movie produced was “Avengers: Endgame,” and I don’t think there’s much I have to say about that film: second top-grossing movie of all time, an epic yet depressing ending to a phase that seemed legendary in superhero cinema. They tried to start anew, and I can’t say it was for the best.
In the six years since “Endgame,” Marvel has released 14 movies and 16 shows, not including “Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special.” While Marvel kept a good movie and show run after the release, like “Loki,” “Moon Knight” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” I think the most memorable things are the flops.
For example, some bad CGI in “Thor: Love and Thunder” was practically the most memorable part of it, other than Thor bestowing his power on a bunch of children to defeat the bad guy in the end, which I can say was cool. Then there was She-Hulk twerking in the show “She-Hulk,” and more recently Riri Williams, the main protagonist of the “Iron Heart” show, saying that Tony Stark wouldn’t have been Iron Man if he weren’t a billionaire, which got a lot of backlash on the internet. From what I’ve seen, these instances have been the most memorable parts of the six years of respective content and have turned people away from the franchise as a whole.
Honestly, even I have fallen into that trap. A good amount of the “newer” Marvel movies I haven’t watched, despite my room being practically full of old Marvel posters and doo-dads. Purely based on what I’ve heard, I don’t even know if it’s worth it to watch some of these movies like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” or “Eternals,” but I know for “Doomsday” I need to catch up on watching them or I will be completely lost.
A good chunk of what Marvel has produced since “Avengers: Endgame” hasn’t really stood out, either. Before Endgame, I don’t think there was a movie that wasn’t good. From the perfect balance of fight scenes and comedy, they embodied what a superhero movie should be. Now we have forced jokes, stories that aren’t as exciting and the changing of classic characters to fit the plots of new Marvel movies.
At one point, I wondered when the end of Marvel was coming. Really, “Endgame” could have been the end of the epic run of Marvel movies. No one wishes for the death of Marvel, but no one wants to let go of their dying pet, either. To end on a high note is better than to keep the thing alive and let it get worse and worse.
However, take this statement lightly. More recently, there was the back-to-back release of “Thunderbolts” and “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and from those two movies alone I saw a hint of old Marvel coming to life way more than in “Captain America: Brave New World,” a strangely paced and villain-ridden movie that spoiled its biggest secret in the trailers.
There have been occasional hit movies even before the more recent Marvel releases. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” was an amazing continuation of the series despite all of the characters splitting up at the end. We also had “Shang-Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings,” which brought some really amazing fight scenes back to the Marvel table. Even “Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness” I thought was good, despite that one moment of bad CGI at the very end of the movie. And “Deadpool & Wolverine” doesn’t need any words to contribute to its Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman awesomeness.
With these films in mind, I have enough hope to believe “Avengers: Doomsday” will be good after the more recent movie releases. At the same time, the “meh” quality a lot of the shows have had and a few of the movies as well worries me. But then the trailers were released, and they put me even more on edge.
The first one I saw was the teaser that Captain America was coming back in Doomsday. At first glance, this is another situation of Marvel forgetting their past movies and throwing in a character they know the fans love. For context, at the end of Endgame, Captain America went back in the time-traveling machine to return all of the infinity stones at the exact moment they were taken. Instead of coming right back, he decided to live out his life with his true love, Peggy Carter. When he comes back, he is very clearly an old man, and he gave up his shield to Sam Wilson – the Falcon, at the time, which inspired another show “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” – so what sense does this make?
Well, in the trailer, it shows Captain America holding what I assume to be his baby boy. At the end of the trailer, it says that Steve Rogers will be returning in Doomsday. While that is Captain America’s name, what I’m thinking is that his son was named after him, and his son could be returning instead. It would make a lot more sense unless they decided to go back in time and take Steve from his loving family to defeat Robert Downey Jr.’s second form.
The next trailer depicted Thor with his new daughter, whom he adopted at the end of “Thor: Love and Thunder” and him asking for strength from his father so he can return to her with valor. She’s kind of a demon child in a way, but she can fight, from what little I remember of the movie.
The tone of this trailer is very serious, as all of them are, but this one is deeper. It seems like an end, considering Thor is asking for strength for one last battle. Obviously, on paper, it implies that he wants to be in a more thunder-less life with his daughter, but with how this trailer is made, I don’t think he’s living past Doomsday. Not in any way am I wishing for this to happen, but it’s just an interpretation.
The next one was with Shuri and King M’Baku of Wakanda meeting with Ben Grimm – the Thing – in a desert environment. It also shows Namor, a character introduced in “Wakanda Forever,” which was an interesting shout-out. The fact that the Fantastic Four were going to be in Doomsday was known considering the post-credit scene of their movie, “Fantastic Four: First Steps” and it would have been weird to not see the group of Wakandan characters after the release of the film “Wakanda Forever,” but the fact that these two groups are meeting together is probably going to be one of the bigger plot points of the film.
The last one, and the most “jarring,” I should say, is the teasing of X-Men characters, those being Dr. Xavier, Magneto and Cyclops, who has good looking CGI lasers coming out of his eyes that inspires hope for those who gave up on the recent works of Marvel. Considering these movies have had no place in the Marvel timeline and came out in the 2000s and early 2010s, it’s a big deal for hardcore fans of the franchise. Other than Deadpool and Wolverine, there hasn’t been a lot of mention of the X-Men since their run back in the day.
These trailers are inspiring curiosity among many people, not just Marvel fans. Why are the Fantastic Four meeting with Wakandans? What place do the X-Men have, and why now? And where are all of these other characters we know? There are dozens not mentioned in these trailers, although I completely understand these are probably the biggest ones and there’s a whole year until the film comes out. In recent post-credit scenes, there are confirmations of characters in Doomsday, like the Thunderbolts and Sam Wilson as Captain America, but there are so many other characters we know and love that haven’t been mentioned, which makes sense. Considering the possibility of over two dozen main characters, spoiling all of them ruins a bit of the fun for when it releases.
All in all, “Doomsday” is Marvel’s biggest chance for redemption. If the movie does well, then they have revived the franchise and sparked the love for Marvel back into so many of their lost fans. If they don’t, then I don’t think there is much hope for keeping the franchise alive. With the newer movies receiving better feedback than the truckload of those that came before it, it’s like they’re riding the attention train. They just need to put in enough coal to keep the engine running.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
