8 Reasons Avengers: Age Of Ultron Is The Beginning Of The End For Marvel

4. The Easter Eggs Are Becoming Worthless

It's becoming increasingly clear that fans are reading considerably more significance into the overarching narrative of the MCU than the filmmakers are putting there. Heck, they've not even shied away from pointing that out; Joss Whedon showed a faint disregard for continuity when he discounted the entire TV branch by claiming Agent Coulson was still dead in the films and Kevin Feige admitted he hasn't even watched all of Daredevil.

But what about all those little hints that tie the world together? They show there's an intricate overarching narrative that's carefully constructed for fans to discover, right? Sadly (and this bit's really hard to write), no.

Since 2008, Easter eggs and sly foreshadowing have kept the geeks sweet, but recent reports that the Infinity Gauntlet seen way back in Thor isn't the same one seen in this film's mid-credits scene (destined for a prominent role in Avengers: Infinity War), throws the implied significance of them into doubt. That tease, the biggest in the MCU thus far, isn't actually tease, so there's really no point in reading into any of the so-called 'clues' any more.

It's no real coincidence that Age Of Ultron is noticeably light on that sort of Easter egg - rather than teases for far off projects, the in-jokes are either explicit set-up for later movies (Klaue and the Infinity Stones) or overt references to the comics - and, with the catatonic approach to the overarching narrative, there's not much outside of geek spectacle to make this an MCU experience.