Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows.
With the MCU‘s success there must also come a few unintended flaws that may or may not be unfixable now. Marvel Studios’ game-changing idea to create a shared universe of record-breaking, interconnected movies is a unique achievement in pop culture. Never has a franchise grown so large, bringing the extensive lore from the colossal Marvel Comics universe to life on the big and the small screen.
It’s only natural for such a successful behemoth to have certain blemishes. While not intended by Marvel Studios, a few limitations, creative decisions, and unforeseen obstacles have led to problems that fail to do justice to the MCU’s source material. And unfortunately, it’s probably impossible or too impractical to correct many of them.
10The MCU’s Street-Level Characters Are Too Disconnected From The Rest Of The Franchise
A major disappointment of the MCU’s street-level stories is that they seem isolated from the larger Marvel universe. Though it’s logical for neighborhood vigilantes to focus on their local conflicts, it’s still odd that they never interact with the Avengers, that they never participate in NYC battles, and that they’re rarely acknowledged by other MCU characters. The Avengers, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man are all based in the same city, after all.
Granted, rights issues kept most street-level Marvel characters separate from the rest of the MCU for a long time. But at this point, events like the Void’s attack in Manhattan should directly affect characters like Daredevil and the Defenders, and Wilson Fisk’s mayorship should at least be mentioned in movies like Captain America: Brave New World. Hopefully, the bridge between larger-than-life superheroes and street-level vigilantes is reinforced in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which finally brings together the Punisher, Spider-Man, and Hulk.
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9The MCU Missed Its Chance To Depict A More Realistic Marvel Universe
The MCU doesn’t have to be a realistic franchise. The Marvel Comics multiverse isn’t remotely realistic anyway. That said, the MCU has repeatedly evaded the compelling implications that come with the dozens of superheroes, supervillains, and world-changing battles that take place over the course of less than two decades. Some of these scenarios are unique to the MCU, like the Battle of New York, the Blip, the Void’s takeover, and Arishem’s visit.
Entire movies and shows could be dedicated to the human drama that the MCU’s countless crises have caused in its fictional world, let alone its galaxy. Not only has the MCU overlooked these opportunities, but it has also trivialized its biggest events. Hawkeye reveals that the Avengers’ battles were made into a musical, and Thor: Love and Thunder features a Thanos-themed ice cream shop. Although exploring the world’s tragedies isn’t the MCU’s main goal, depicting human society as nonchalant to global threats reduces the franchise’s stakes.
8The Original Avengers Rarely Fought Together
The Avengers are famous enough to warrant in-universe musical shows and fan conventions, yet most of their time as a team is left off-screen. The original seven Avengers only fight together for the first time as a proper team in The Avengers‘ final battle, and the last time they do the same is at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, their very next team-up film. The rest of the original squad’s battles take place somewhere between Phase 1 and Phase 2.
As much as Marvel suggests a longer story in between movies, the MCU inevitably compresses many years’ worth of adventures into a few titles. This isn’t really Marvel Studios’ fault, though. It’s near to impossible to capture the extensive scope of the Marvel Comics universe, where the Avengers fight hundreds of battles almost every week, year after year. Still, the MCU’s original Avengers don’t really feel like a found family in retrospect.
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