10 Problems The MCU Desperately Needs To Fix

10. Its Gutless Approach To Diversity & Inclusion

It's honestly pretty surprising the MCU isn't given a harder time for its rather tepid approach to diversity.

For starters, it's a bit embarrassing that it's taken the franchise over a decade and 20 movies to get a female-led superhero film before cameras, all the more so as Captain Marvel is far more likely to be an outlier than an indication of more to come.

Even the DC Extended Universe, for its many faults, beat Marvel to the punch with Wonder Woman, and that's to say nothing of the fact that women in the MCU almost universally play second fiddle to their male counterparts, even Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow.

It's just not a feminist issue, though: several recent MCU movies have seen directors and cast members talk about certain characters being gay or bisexual - most prominently Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) in Thor: Ragnarok - but when this is never indicated in the movie itself, it just feels like cowardly lip service.

Are Disney so worried about a potentially vitriolic response to, gasp, a character being gay that they won't openly have a queer superhero? In 2018, in a time where Black Panther made $1.34 billion despite fear racists would tank its box office, should big business really be cowing to the whims of bigots?

Considering the MCU is the most lucrative movie property on the planet, representation is enormously important, and it's one area where the franchise feels shockingly lacking.