Marvel in panic mode, nostalgia is the answer

Marvel in panic mode, nostalgia is the answer

Woo, Marvel is back everyone! After several very middling entries, Thunderbolts is... apparently pretty good. After several years of middling entries, they might be back to making ok to pretty good films

Marvel aims: It's an OK time

It all feels eons away from when marvel rulled the world doesn't it? When every marvel film that came out was a banger, when they were able to introduce daft characters almost on a whim, and their big final big story harah was a nostalgia fueled victory lap of their best (and worst bits) almost rubbing people noses in the fact they could introduce time travel to revisit their greatest hits and make the best selling film of all time.

Avengers Endgame, picture from the dictionary

Yet, besides the profit, the geek cred, and the media powerhouse, it all feels a bit...meh. Now this take is the most milquetoast of them all, not a day goes by without someone announcing 'the death of Marvel, comic book films are dead or dying, that's it, pack up and go home everyone'. But now Marvel seems to struggle to make films and stories that people want to get hyped about.

But Ironheart yo! And brave new world references the eternals

It doesn't help that everything has split into 15 different directions. Tv shows, mini series, films, games. everything feeds into the overarching story. And while still maintaining that the films can be enjoyed as a sole involvement, the truth is there is a lot of homework to invest in, for example - the latest captain america you would need to have seen 7 films and 1 tv series, the thunderbolts 5 films and 1 series. the series becomes a slightly more daunting ( and exhausting task) when there are 36 film and 13 tv series before you have 'caught up' and can jump in.

The above doesn't even include the last phase, or the rest of the TV entries

So after trying everything they can think of - and nothing getting the traction that they want - crisis has apparently set in at marvel. Too many TV series, too many uninteresting characters, too much focus on issues considered to be controversial? who knows, The kang dynasty has fizzled out, the TV shows are basically bloated films chopped into weekly segments and the overall path of the series appears to have fallen by the wayside into more snark and in-jokes.

Yeah, half of the stuff here didn't happen. the rest was ok

Course correction is obviously the next strategy, and the answer is apparently to retreat back to what they know, nostalgia. So here come the X-men, the fantastic four, and the return of Robert Downey Jr, but in a different role. because that will not confuse the casuals watching. Only time will tell, but the same thing was tried with Star Wars, and making a series cookie cutter and bedded to tropes and nostalgia ends up making very sedate and boring media.

Come get your nostalgia slop!