8 Problems With The MCU That Doctor Strange Doesn't Fix

2. The Planet Is Always Under Threat (But Always Survives)

Avengers Age Of Ultron
Marvel

You'd be forgiven if you let out a yawn upon discovering that Doctor Strange's villain followed in the footsteps of Ultron, Malekith, Ronan The Accuser, Hydra in The Winter Soldier and Loki in The Avengers by being the latest MCU antagonist who's threatening to cause widespread destruction, devastate a planet or take millions and millions of lives.

Come on. Does anybody watching really believe that they'll make good on their intentions?

If the stakes are consistently this high (as they tend to be) it makes the hero's plight completely unrelatable because you know for a fact that the villain can't possibly destroy the entire universe/planet - would Marvel really kill off their biggest heroes, 'end' their cinematic universe or choose not to make more sequels and more money? As a result, you don't care about anything that happens because you already know the outcome of the battle; everyone walks away with nary a scratch.

On the positive side, Marvel have previously shown that they can shake this formula up; Ant-Man's small-scale skirmish was a refreshing change of pace and Civil War's more personal, grounded struggle felt incredibly engaging - but these are few and far between.

Moving forward, it would be far better if the studio started to focus on making their conflicts more character-driven, like the latter two, instead of threatening destruction on such an unbelievable scale - this at least lends the climax some weight.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!