Marvel Movies: Is There Too Much Backstory?
I recently wrote a piece called “Deadpool And Wolverine - Watch (or Skip) These Movies And Shows First .” For an old-school comic book fan like myself, I’ve always enjoyed the way different stories would interlock and feed into each other in the comic books.
The gold standard of this was a DC “maxi-series” called “Crisis On Infinite Earths.” It was a 12-issue event from 1985-1986 that fed into nearly every DC title. (It also inspired a three-part animated film; the final segment was just released on July 16.)
It totally changed DC’s status quo, and there were consequences to what happened during the Crisis: some major characters died, including Flash and Supergirl. The fans loved it. The series assumed that the reader had a decent amount of prior knowledge of the characters and their storylines.
As I was writing “Deadpool And Wolverine – Watch (or Skip) These Movies And Shows First,” it occurred to me that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been in unchartered waters when it comes to movies: they’ve introduced tons of characters in their many films and TV shows, all of whom inhabit the same universe.
First off, we have the members of the Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Black Widow have had their own films; Hawkeye had a show on Disney+. Each of those have supporting casts. Then you have the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. All of these characters came together – amazingly well, incidentally – in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Since then, Shang-Chi and the Eternals have entered the MCU via their own films.
The MCU is also now incorporating properties that it inherited when Disney acquired Fox, including the X-Men (which includes both Wolverine and Deadpool) and the Fantastic Four, leading to all sorts of possibilities. (The first Fantastic Four film in the MCU is due in theaters in the summer of 2025.) They’re also incorporating at least some of the characters from the Netflix series of shows: Daredevil: Born Again will air on Disney+ starting in March of 2025 and will feature some of the same cast members as the three-season Netflix show, including Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle, aka the Punisher.
Also on the TV side, there’s been Wandavision (which spawned Agatha Harkness, who is ), Falcon and the Winter Solider (which feeds into next year's Captain America: Brave New World), Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. And there’s Loki, featuring the MCU’s most popular rogue.
Loki is the only series not involving Deadpool or Wolverine that I included in my aforementioned list: in the Deadpool/Wolverine trailers we see scenes with the TVA, or the Time Variance Authority (including Wunmi Mosaku’s character, a high-ranking member of the TVA). The Time Variance Authority works to preserve “the sacred timeline”; that’s the timeline that we’ve been watching in all of the MCU movies and shows. Deadpool is known for breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he noted that Marvel Studios needs the TVA in their writer’s rooms because things have gotten complicated.
In an interview over the weekend, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige touched on this. He told Phase Zero that you don’t need to watch every Marvel show and film. His advice was, simply, to just watch what you like. “It’s not all required viewing. People say, ‘superhero fatigue.’ I actually think it’s ‘having to do homework fatigue.’ These are all individual stories that are meant to be enjoyed as singular entities. The connectivity is a bonus and something that people like, and I like it and I think it’s one of the singular defining notions of the MCU.”
He’s right. Back in the day when I was a comic book reader, I knew that Daredevil was cleaning up Hell’s Kitchen by fighting thugs, while a few blocks downtown, Dr. Strange may have been saving earth from some supernatural threat. A few thousand miles away in space, the Guardians of the Galaxy may have been battling an interstellar threat. Despite all of that activity, you could just follow one comic book and not feel lost. If a guest star popped up, it would be easily explained. But I wonder if Feige thought that, for instance, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness could really be enjoyed as a singular entity. I don’t think that is the case for either film.
With a team-up movie, like an Avengers film, it makes sense that you want to line things up. You don’t want to contradict plot points that have been established, and it is always fun to throw in some Easter eggs for the die-hards, but as Feige says, you shouldn’t have to do homework to prep to see a movie. However, I would recommend that Marvel produces quick primers for their films that they post to social media, not behind a Disney+ paywall.
There are so many great stories in the Marvel Universe, and they can all be adapted to the MCU. The addition of the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and the Punisher opens up so many other interesting possibilities. There are incredible villains that we haven’t seen: Galactus, Magneto and Dr. Doom immediately come to mind. There are funny ones as well: Mole Man and Hammerhead and Arcade. There’s so much to play with, and a lot of fun to be had…and, obviously, money to be made for Disney. But it’s got to be fun, and it’s got to be based on great stories. If it feels like work, they’ll never have the excitement that they had in the years leading up to Endgame.
One of the other things about the DC Crisis series that was so great: it actually pruned down their multiverse and made things easier to understand for readers. It’s something that Feige might want to read; simplifying things a bit might help to bring in new fans to the MCU for years to come.
