10 Problems With The MCU On TV (And How To Solve Them)

Armchair quarterbacking the MCU on TV to pull it out of its losing streak.

MCU TV
ABC/Netflix

After nine years, there’s still a huge appetite for all things Marvel. Every movie since The Avengers in 2012 has been a comfortable-to-massive hit, and (some quibbling here and there aside), every film in the franchise has received middling-to-great reviews.

2013 also saw the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s incursion into television. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a slow start, but Marvel’s deal with Netflix saw 2015’s Daredevil and Jessica Jones take a more adult and grounded approach to the Marvel model, to huge success.

In a way, it’s all been downhill from there. While Daredevil’s second season received much the same acclaim as the first, last year’s Luke Cage saw dubious looks mingle with the applause for the first time.

Then, earlier this year, Iron Fist outright tanked, the first genuine critical misfire on the MCU’s books. August’s The Defenders - supposedly event television, the TV equivalent of the Avengers crossover smash - failed to live up to anyone’s expectations. The Inhumans, a multimedia crossover on ABC and IMAX, is so far meeting with howling derision.

With The Punisher and Runaways arriving in weeks, Cloak & Dagger and New Warriors in production and more in development, it’s time to look at how to fix the ongoing issues with the MCU on TV… before it’s too late.

10. There’s A Massive Corporate Disconnect

MCU TV
2016 Getty Images

Run by Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios was reassigned to Walt Disney Studios two years ago due to constant conflict with Ike Perlmutter, the CEO of Marvel Entertainment. Marvel Television, however, is run by Jeph Loeb, who still reports to Perlmutter.

Why is all this corporate chicanery important? Well, Feige’s blueprint for the MCU involved planning a long term release schedule. He instigated dovetailing crossover characters and storylines into ‘Phases’ years in advance. That model fostered the success of Marvel Studios.

You’d think it would be a no-brainer for the TV arm to do likewise. Instead, there’s no cohesive strategy evident at all, and an almost total lack of synergy. In terms of forward planning, Marvel Television has more in common with DC’s Expanded Universe than it does Marvel Studios.

The disconnect has a huge knock on effect on the product. Compared to the MCU feature films, consumer confidence in the TV shows is in the toilet. Agent Carter was cancelled. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been on the bubble for years. The Inhumans is practically dead on arrival.

Right now, only the Netflix family of street level heroes are experiencing anything close to the kind of success of their cinematic counterparts, and it’s no coincidence that they alone followed the same structure as Marvel Studios’ Phase One strategy.

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Contributor

Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.