Marvel Cinematic Universe: Every 2018 Project Ranked Worst To Best

And just like that, 2018 has ended, bringing yet another year to a close for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the franchise's tenth year of existence easily its biggest one ever. On the big screen, Black Panther, Ant-Man, and the Wasp got to shine in their own solo outings, while Thanos forever changed the franchise - and rocked pop culture - with a single snap of his fingers, catapulting Avengers: Infinity War into one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Meanwhile, over on the small screen, the MCU saw its highest output of television shows to date, taking audiences on further adventures with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC and Runaways on Hulu, catching us up with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Daredevil following the events of last year's The Defenders miniseries over at Netflix, and introducing Cloak and Dagger to the franchise on Freeform, with each series bringing their own unique voice to a loaded year of content.

With so much having gone down in 2018, it's no surprise that some projects turned out better than others. So before we start looking ahead to all to come in 2019, let's look back over everything the MCU gave us over the last year to sort out the cream of the crop, though be warned, as massive spoilers lay ahead for anyone who hasn't caught up on it all yet...

Back in 2015, the first season of Jessica Jones arrived to solid acclaim, shining as one of the MCU's brightest spots of the year thanks to a great story, a sense it was bringing something new to the table for the overall franchise, and its performances, particularly from Krysten Ritter and David Tennant. Three years on, it says a lot about both how great a year 2018 turned out to be and for how heavily the second season stumbled that Jessica's sophomore outing is so low on this list.

One of the biggest complaints the Netflix shows have faced over the years has been that 13 episodes often feel like too much of a narrative stretch, and perhaps no season to date has quite proven that as much as this one did. Whereas the first season had a pretty solid laser focus thanks to having Kilgrave as its villain, his absence here - save for a standout episode late in the season - left a void the show doesn't bother to fill, the end result being a hodgepodge of ideas that don't tend to mesh well with one another.

Interesting threads left over from the first season, like Will Simpson, are tied up too quickly to the point of feeling like a waste, replaced by threads that feel disjointed from what really matters (Jessica's story), such as Hogarth's ALS plotline, which only results in needlessly padding the whole season and stretching Jessica's arc with her mother out to the point it becomes exhausting. The cast is still solid, sure, but season two failed to reach the bar set by its predecessor, a disappointment that, hopefully, next year's third - and undoubtedly final - season can make up for.