In your opinion, what MCU projects had the most wasted potential?
- My first pick is "What If...?". In a multiverse of infinite possibilities, we ended up getting the same old same old. We could have gotten a nice, episodic, self-contained anthology series that had nothing to do with the rest of the MCU (as it was originally marketed as) but then they had to go and add a huge, connecting storyline. Not to mention the animation style could have been a bit better.
- And then there's Secret Invasion, which by all accounts was a complete mess. A lot of people say that this should have been the main story arc of Phases 4 to 6 instead of the multiverse. They could have slowly teased the presence of Skrulls invading Earth (perhaps by revealing that some of the Avengers were Skrulls all along?) and maybe used the plot of Secret Invasion as a feature film instead of a series.
30 points · 25 comments · view on lemmy.world 
25 Comments
IcedRaktajino@startrek.website · 16 pts · 283d
Considering Secret Invasion killed off my girl...
:::spoiler spoiler Maria Hill :::
...that, in and of itself, wasted a lot of potential. I thought for sure it was gonna be a fake out, but nope. It happened, and I'm still pissed off about it.
Microw@piefed.zip · 6 pts · 282d
Maria Hill as a character had so much potential after The Avengers and Age of Ultron... and then they never used her bar a few cameos in Agents of SHIELD. And it's not like the actress is unknown or unproven or anything
PhAzE@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 282d
Then went on the path of Roadie being fake and no fan cared at that point. It was just so poorly written.
edcasting@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 283d
Eh… one death doesn't waste the potential of an entire story, particularly when she's never been a very important character even on the source material.
IcedRaktajino@startrek.website · 3 pts · 282d
We got Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D because they killed off Coulson in The Avengers. Unfortunately, the T.A.H.I.T.I lab was destroyed, so there's probably not gonna be a Maria Hill series lol
edcasting@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 282d
There's no material to make a Maria Hill series that people would truly want to watch; the offbeat shield agent concept was already done by AoS itself. And she has no stories in the comics centered around her. Just because she's somewhat interesting doesn't mean she needs a series. Not that I'm condoning the decision to kill her character, but they really weren't doing anything with her.
Entheon@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 283d
I did enjoy that What If had a connecting storyline, but they leaned a little too hard into it. Season 1 was a decent balance for it, but 2 and 3 could have definitely been more episodic.
Erasmus@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 283d
jacksilver@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 282d
I agree with you regarding Dr. Strange 2. I don't know how you can have a whole series leading into a movie and yet still have such whiplash in character motivations.
Wandavision ends with Wanda seemingly coming to some self realization that she's done something horrible. Then somehow she's become a full physcotic killer by the start of DS2. Even with the little ending teaser showing her holding the "evil" book, it was just too jarring and forced.
wjrii@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 283d
Those two are good. I'd also add Black Panther 2 and Dr. Strange 2. Both were hyped, and both of them got saddled with "backdoor pilot" and stage-setting duties for multiple properties at the expense of their own narratives. Marvel's done that all the way back to the first post-credit Avengers stinger, but in those two cases it was a lot and really kneecapped two promising projects. Then of course BP got dealt a very rough hand with Chadwick Boseman's passing, but I'm not sure they played that hand very well, either.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · -7 pts · 283d
I feel like Chadwick Boseman should not have taken that role given its significance. He knew he had a hard to treat cancer.
snooggums@piefed.world · 8 pts · 283d
What a terrible sequence of words you wrote.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · -7 pts · 283d
Why? He was a great actor who deserves fame, but how many kids had their hearts broken when their superhero died?
abbotsbury@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 283d
Hey Holden you can't hide death from kids, they're gonna find out eventually
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 283d
Thor Love and Thunder by a mile.
What If? had a phenomenal season 1, even if it wasn't great after that.
Secret Invasion had potential. But it would have needed to be very careful to get the most out of it. I never really had high expectations from it.
Someone said Doctor Strange 2, but IMO it was everything I wanted out of a Doctor Strange movie. DS1 was more of a letdown.
Eternals should have been a show. But it was well made and had some top-notch CGI.
Thor 4 though was the most frustrating because it's so close to being an awesome movie. Just look at the deleted scene with Zeus. It's so much better than the orgy conversation. And Gorr was fucking awesome, I just wanted to see more of him. I want them to spend some money, patch it up, and re-release it. I would go to the theaters again for it if they did.
PhAzE@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 282d
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 282d
That's the bulk of what I'm talking about. The core of the movie is A+. Just give us more of that instead of the juvenile humor.
And toning down the humor would make anything left in funnier. Like, give me screaming goats once, then don't have it again
MerrySkeptic@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 283d
Secret Invasion is more of a whiff in my opinion because What If...takes place outside the main continuity anyway. The Secret Invasion trailers also looked really good, promising a slow burn spy thriller. It had so much going for it. Alas...
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 283d
Everything post Endgame has largely been a waste.
It's either "I got snapped and I'm sad" or "I didn't get snapped and I'm sad."
They had no over-arching plot the way they did originally, first with building the Avengers, then with Thanos and the Infinity stones.
When they tried to introduce a bigger plot, too late IMHO, Kang, it got smothered in the cradle first by starting in a movie nobody saw (Quantumania), crossing into a Disney+ show that, again, excellent, but nobody saw (Loki).
Then, of course, the actor problems.
They are just now trying to get back on track with Doom. Hope it's not too late.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 8 pts · 283d
I feel like the MCU needed to take a breather after endgame, where stakes weren't as big.
I feel like a major problem with the Snap, though, was that it wasn't something the world could relate to. The MCU Earth is now very different from our Earth to where it is hard to write resonant movies in that universe.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 283d
Taking a breather would have been fine if it felt like they were building up to something, but instead it felt like they lost all direction. 😟
The first batch of movies built to the Avengers, the next batch built to Thanos.
Even if you assume post Endgame was "The Multiverse" the number of properties that touched on it were minimal.
Phase 4 movies:
Black Widow - No Multiverse
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - No Multiverse
Eternals - No Multiverse
Spider-Man: No Way Home - Multiverse!
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - Multiverse!
Thor: Love and Thunder - No Multiverse
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - No Multiverse
Phase 4 Disney+:
WandaVision - No Multiverse
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - No Multiverse
Loki - Multiverse!
What If...? - Multiverse!
Hawkeye - No Multiverse
Moon Knight - No Multiverse
Ms. Marvel - No Multiverse
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - No Multiverse Werewolf by Night - No Multiverse
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special - No Multiverse
Phase 5 Movies:
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Multiverse!
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - No Multiverse
The Marvels - No Multiverse
Deadpool & Wolverine - Multiverse!
Captain America: Brave New World - No Multiverse
Thunderbolts* - No Multiverse
Phase 5 Disney+:
Secret Invasion - No Multiverse
Loki Season 2 - Multiverse!
What If...? Season 2 - Multiverse!
Echo - No Multiverse
Agatha All Along - No Multiverse
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - No Multiverse
Daredevil: Born Again - No Multiverse
Ironheart - No Multiverse
TheImpressiveX@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 283d
Interesting.
So, of the 31 post-Endgame projects, the multiverse is the main focus of a grand total of seven projects.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 283d
Yup. Granted, the BIGGEST one was (Deadpool and Wolverine), but still... that's a lot of production dollars spent going nowhere...
popcornpizza@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 283d
edcasting@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 283d
. The Thor series are really up there in terms of wasting great epic source material and acting talent. Ragnarok ended up being more sophomore humor than a reflective epic to fit, and let's not even talk about Thor: Love and Thunder. Even worse for the fact you know Chris Hemsworth has waited for a movie worthy of his character for so long, yet he keeps getting relegated to comedic relief.
Microw@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 282d
I mean, a lot of movies had more potential than what they turned out to be. I liked both Love and Thunder and Dr Strange 2, but those movies had the potential to be really really good if some decisions were taken differently.
Baggie@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 282d
We could have had taskmaster as a reoccurring villain. Imagine someone turning up that is steadily getting more powerful, starts bodying the heros, it could have been really compelling.
jacksilver@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 282d
While I think the movies are good, I think they should have had an older Spiderman. Not only has teen Spiderman been done so many times, but it would have made him a more obvious successor to IronMan and helped with the post endgame transition.