Marvel Cinematic Universe: Every 2017 Project Ranked Worst To Best

With this week's airing of Runaway's latest episode, 2017 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has officially come to a close. It's been a huge year for the MCU, which saw the release of three films for the first time in a single year and the airing of six television shows across ABC, Netflix, and Hulu, all adding up to the single biggest year of content yet for the juggernaut franchise.

From the long-awaited team-up of the Defenders to solo outings for the Punisher and Spider-Man to further adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor, and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., not to mention everything in between, it's been one wild ride of a year, the franchise's increase in output delivering easily the worst-received MCU content to date and some of its absolute best.

Before we start looking ahead at everything to come in 2018, let's take the time to look back over 2017 to sort out the good, great, and downright awesome from the bad, breaking down what did and didn't work (and why).

For those of you who aren't entirely caught up yet, though, be warned, as this article contains massive spoilers for every piece of MCU content from the past year...

After nearly a decade of nothing but successes, the MCU finally had its first outright bomb this year with the first - and likely last - season of Inhumans, which featured the introduction of the Royal Family, a collection of comic book characters that includes Black Bolt, Medusa, and Maximus. After a relatively misguided attempt at launching the show through IMAX with the screening of its first two episodes in September, the rest of the season ran its course on ABC to its lackluster end in November.

For the very, very few things the series did well, like the friendship between Karnak and Gorgon, it managed to do so much worse. Whether it was squandering actors like Anson Mount and Iwan Rheon, showcasing its cringeworthy production value, or wasting an unbelievable amount of time on pointless subplots like Karnak's time with pot farmers or Hope's utterly mind-numbing love story - if that's what you want to call it - with a random human, criticizing the show turned out to be more fun than actually watching it.

Perhaps its biggest sin, though, was how much it shied away from being what it could've been. At every step, it seemed almost ashamed of its own potential. From shaving Medusa almost immediately to sidelining the more comic booky characters like Triton and Lockjaw, the show constantly turned away from embracing its comic book roots and going all out, managing to do more damage to the Royal Family than Maximus himself in making their big debut dead on arrival.