There is no denying that the MCU is currently declining. At first glance, one might think they’re rushing out mediocre movies for money or making up for the quantity of missed movies due to COVID. Whether or not these factors are true, Marvel is clearly not producing movies with a well thought-out plan. It’s simple: there is no continuity established between the new movies, and they lack purpose.
While it wasn’t obvious to the audience at the time, we can see in hindsight that Marvel had a clear, thought-out storyline ever since the release of Iron Man 2 way back in 2010. In Iron Man 2, there were very subtle hints towards the Infinity Saga, such as the drawing of the tesseract in Howard Stark’s notebook.
Most of the infinity stones weren’t blatantly introduced; they are referred to as the Aether (reality stone), Loki’s Scepter (mind stone), the Tesseract (space stone), the Orb (power stone), and the Eye of Agamotto (time stone). While at first they are all introduced individually and it might not be obvious that they are connected to each other, we are subconsciously aware of their whereabouts and importance. This demonstrates the great foresight that Marvel had, as they were able to sprinkle clues and hint at bits and pieces of information without us even noticing.
There are other movies that contribute elements crucial to the Infinity Saga. For example, Black Panther was introduced in Captain America: Civil War, and he later got his own solo movie that introduced Wakanda and its technology and resources (namely Vibranium). Though Ant-Man was initially seen as a backseat character, he ultimately proved to be a crucial part of the story due to his introduction of the Quantum Realm, which was very important in the final films of the Infinity Saga.
These movies are both important in the bigger picture because the Quantum Realm allows for time travel in Endgame, and the Battle of Wakanda is the climax of Infinity War. Even though these examples don’t pertain to infinity stones, they are still important since they make appearances during the peak of the Infinity Saga.
Now, phase four of the MCU isn’t showing any clear connections between movies, and they seem to lack a coherent purpose. In the beginning, there were glimpses of planning. For example, in Loki, we are introduced to the TVA and Kang who set up the premise of the multiverse, which is the focus of the next few phases. But over the course of the next few movies released, Marvel started to deviate from the framework they established because they released a number of standalone, character-featuring films that didn’t add anything to the multiverse.
The first movie to start off phase four was Black Widow, which had been hyped up for a long time, but when it finally came out, it wasn’t very well received because its placement was so bizarre. Black Widow’s story was already finished, and because of that, the movie didn’t have any significance in the long run. Another example is in Thor: Love and Thunder, which didn’t add any significance to the multiverse and only focused on Gorr, Thor, and Jane. Finally, The Eternals was a completely independent movie, since it focuses solely on the origin of the eternals and introduced the concept of celestials (although too late).
For all these movies mentioned, not only do they have nothing to do with each other, but they also have nothing to do with the multiverse, which is supposed to be the main focus of this phase. The movies themselves aren’t satisfying because the status quo didn’t change by the end of each, and they are also meaningless in the larger universe that they exist in.
Recently, Marvel has also featured a number of fan-favorite characters, with the goal of drawing back more attention to the franchise. For example, in Doctor Strange the Multiverse of Madness, the Illuminati from another universe is featured, introducing famous characters like Captain Carter, Reed Richards, Professor X, Black Bolt, and Maria Rambeau. However, these characters didn’t serve any true purpose because they all died brutally with less than 20 minutes of screentime.
That doesn’t mean that all fanservice is bad. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s portrayals of Spider-Man help the development of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, who will go on to be a key player in the MCU. The characters in Multiverse of Madness were inconsequential and didn’t change the story, while the characters in No Way Home inspired him to be the best version of himself, and they also got to make up for their past failures.
If Marvel takes the time to take it slow and plan out a more coherent story between movies, they can redeem themselves from the mediocrity of the past phase. Another thing that Marvel has to realize is when certain story arcs are over, or else their movies will become redundant and lack progress in the larger picture. The multiverse, celestials, the TVA, and the new supervillain Kang are all very good concepts, and if they are connected in future movies, they could make a very compelling story.