10 Things I Hate About The Marvel Cinematic Universe

In 1987, a fourteen year old Kevin Feige saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Master Of The Universe - both of which had post-credits sequences. As a result, in those innocent pre-online-spoiler days, he would sit to the very end of every movie he ever saw to make sure he wasn’t missing out on more extra goodness… and now he wants to inflict that monumental irritation on everyone else.

Marvel Studios are usually credited with having a Plan with a capital P; with having sketched out, years ahead, the framework for this newborn shared universe. It’s to their credit that this forward thinking has worked so successfully: in only eight years, they’ve made the franchise a ten billion dollar success story at the box office, and made household names of several of their less mainstream superheroes.

The thing is, it’d be really nice if - just occasionally - you were able to watch a Marvel movie without wondering where it fits in the big master plan, what future films it’s helping to set up. The by now ubiquitous post-credits scene used to be a cute little Easter Egg for those who were still paying attention, tucked in just after the fanfare portion of the credits.

Now, it’s a required addition to every film, pored over and dissected frame by frame in online articles with no spoiler tags upon the cinema release of each and every movie. You can avoid reading reviews, but there’s no escaping discussion of the bloody post-credits scene and What It Means for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People were talking about Ant-Man in Civil War almost before the film's credits had spooled out, the mid-credits button in Doctor Strange spoils plot elements for Thor: Ragnarok, and the Infinity War looms over everything.

In fact, it seems there’s far more discussion of the future of the MCU than there is discussion of the films themselves... and it’s not just the fans. Kevin Feige et al seem to field more questions about films that may or may not be coming out in 2018 and 2019 than they do movies coming out this year.

It’s almost as though the shared universe aspect of the MCU exists to drive the storytelling and characters, and not the other way around. Which, of course, is exactly what’s happening. There’s money to be made in making even the minor MCU movies must-see viewing (try saying that seven times fast). It’s a shame. The MCU’s frantic desperation to keep its eyes on the road far ahead means it often misses what’s directly under its nose.

For example, after this year’s Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers are splintered. Stark and Cap are at loggerheads, Cap’s team have presumably gone deep underground… yet the next time we see most of these characters again will be in 2018 when they’re flung into the Infinity War. No one seems to be talking about what’s happening to them all in the interim. Is Captain America really going to stay a fugitive from justice for the next two years? He's not the Punisher.