00:00At the end of the year, Avengers Doomsday will be released, the beginning of the end of Marvel's
00:05multiverse saga, a somewhat troubled period for the House of Ideas' movie department.
00:09The critical and financial reception hasn't been what it was since Endgame, and it's caused a lot
00:14of discourse around the status of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the overall film industry,
00:18but I do find videos and think pieces like that tiresome, as it often repeats the same talking
00:22points without adding anything new, and doesn't talk about the recent Marvel projects and themes
00:27and motifs that have popped up recently within them, and that's what we're talking about today.
00:32But first, let's talk about the status of Marvel.
00:40Many things have been associated with Marvel's recent hit or miss reputation of the past couple
00:44of years, be it superhero fatigue, an audience agent out, or overexposure on streaming, but
00:50I believe it can be contributed to one thing, COVID. Yeah, COVID caused massive destruction
00:55to the film industry, with its effects still being felt today. Its destruction caused a production
00:59pause, and several films' releases being held back, sometimes for years. This affected the
01:04MCU, as it caused several productions to be staggered due to delays in production and release
01:09schedules.
01:09Then when things got back to normal, you have a deluge of productions coming out by the dozen,
01:14but then you get a new CEO who believes streaming is the way of the future, because everyone was
01:18stuck at home for a year, that caused a big bubble in streaming viewership, so he orders more new shows
01:23such stretches production thin, so certain projects get lost in the mix. Sorry, Blade.
01:27Then the CEO gets kicked out, so the old one comes back in, then a strike happens for good
01:31reasons, so production's stopped again, and else the guy you hide to be your new villain
01:34gets charged with assaults, so you dump him, and now you get your old big good guy as the
01:38next big bad guy, which is definitely a panic move, and not planned all along, and that you
01:43had to reveal early to get back on the positive news cycle. Like, all that gets lost in the
01:47discourse, and that's why I'm bringing it up here, because I've seen people talk in the
01:50abstract, and ignore all those reasons, and it gets put out of the way to talk about the
01:54actual thematic substance of the post-endgame phases.
02:01Right at the end of Endgame, Samuelson's given Captain America's Shield a passing of the
02:05torch moment, and a single of things to come, and throughout post-endgame projects, we've
02:09seen the introduction of Legacy Heroes to the MCU. Legacy Heroes are something that haven't
02:13been adapted much outside of the comics, mostly due to how both comics and films work. In comics,
02:17usually a character is replaced by a new character, taken up in Mansfield. Sometimes they stick,
02:21like to a transition from Mar-Vell to Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, or the Robins, or
02:25it's sometimes a brief period, like Jean-Paul Vallée was Batman in Nightfall, or Ben Reilly
02:30in the Clone Saga, and later they get their own identities. With film and TV adaptations,
02:34they sometimes stick with the most well-known one, and with the film's sometimes singular
02:38nature, they don't often get to pass that torch. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being
02:42a long, interconnected series of films, they now have a way to dabble with Legacy Heroes.
02:47The Marvel Cinematic Universe dabbled with this before. The Ant-Man films had Scott Lang take
02:51up Hank Pym's mantle, followed by Hope Van Dyne taking her mother's role in the sequel.
02:56But since Phase 4, we've had an explosion in Legacy Heroes. Here it introduced to the kids,
03:00who would be Wicked and Speedball in WandaVision, and now popping up in Michelle's two-sequel series,
03:05Agatha All Along and Vision Quest. Falcon and Winter Soldier had Isaiah Bradley make an appearance,
03:09doing a different version than Truth, red, white, and black. And Sam's our job was taken
03:13by Joaquin. We also got Kate Bishop Hawkeye in the Hawkeye show, and he's palling around
03:17with Miss Marvel. I made a video about her. Yelena Bellanova is the new Black Widow,
03:22and Shuri took the mantle of Black Panther, both taking the mantle after the death of their
03:25siblings. And so, hey, on TV sort of things, we were introduced to White Tiger, and now we
03:29have his niece who's taken up the mantle after his death. Kind of seems to think MCU might be
03:33in the transitionary period, doesn't it? As if it's slowly getting people used to the idea
03:37of other people taking these roles. But it's not just the new talent, we've also seen characters
03:41during these phases deal with their own respective legacies. Sam Wilson's Big League Projects
03:46was about the legacy of America and its effects on people at home and abroad. Secret Invasion
03:50was about Nick Fury tackling his past decisions of spy work and how it affected not just those
03:55around him, but the world at large. Wolverine's arc was him tackling his past actions as the
03:58worst Wolverine. Elsa Bloodstone, yeah, I'm making some deep cuts here. The Sites of the Fire,
04:02her family's history. Thunderbolts is basically a bunch of people dealing with their
04:06respective mistakes in their personal lives. Walker's failure at being a new Captain America,
04:10Red Guardian still wears Soviet colours, even Fontaine's past work comes back to bite her.
04:15Speaking of people involved in Thunderbolts, Black Widow has Natasha deal with the incident
04:18at Budapest and the lives ruined by the Black Widow program. Eternals is about the toll of a life
04:23long-lived and how they affected the world. Past Gamora tries to make up for a past with
04:27Thanos by working with the Ravagers and Guardians 3. Carol Danvers is past business of the Kree and
04:31leaving Monica Rambeau behind and forms the arc of the Marvels. Loki's all about a villain trying to make
04:36up for his past and future sins but also those around him when given a second chance.
04:40Look, you get the picture. A lot of post-endgame projects have been about characters dealing with
04:44their respective pasts and how they've been affected by the world at large, how to move on
04:47from that or to confront it. But let's go beyond the stories and go deeper.
04:55A recent trend in a lot of MCU projects that have been discussed is a topic of nostalgia. If you
05:00haven't noticed, we're in the era of reboots, remakes and re-adaptations of old properties
05:04from a variety of different eras. And the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now delving into
05:08that world as it's approaching 20 years old.
05:15This has been most prominent in products like Spider-Man No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness,
05:19WandaVision and Deadpool and Wolverine, with them having older versions of characters from
05:22prior adaptations pop up. We've also had characters and plot lines that have seemingly left hanging
05:27to pop right back. Trevor Stallary, the fake Mandarin popping up in Shang-Chi, what happened in Budapest in
05:31Black Widow, Abomination coming back in She-Hulk, The Leader in Captain America, Brave New World and
05:36so on. It seems the MCU has tied up a bunch of loose ends recently. Hmm. With a lot of
05:40callbacks,
05:41it seems the Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting a bit self-reflective, especially in regards to
05:44other movies. At its end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe eclips its own genre with many other
05:48superhero films and TV shows being compared to it, either in favourable or unfavourable terms. Look at how
05:53studios with their own Marvel properties try to do their own universes or Marvel characters,
05:58something that tries to do with Spider-Man-less universe with mixed results, or how the X-Men
06:01films try to make their own universe out of the characters, which didn't amount to much.
06:05Also, we've had older Marvel films made before the MCU kind of get forgotten, as the MCU version
06:10of Marvel's cast of characters became larger figures. It's kind of the general thesis behind
06:14Deadpool and Wolverine, a film. Some people call a parade of cameos without rhyme or reason,
06:18but I think there's an argument to be made that there's a matter narrative to the use of these
06:21characters. Elektra, while not the first in its genre, it was the first female superhero based on a
06:26Marvel character. Quotty notwithstanding to get a film, Blade was credited to bring the superhero
06:30genre back after the failure of Batman and Robin, but also got eclipsed by the first X-Men movie,
06:35which along with the success of the Spider-Man film in 2002 led the way to the MCU. The inclusion
06:39of Gambit also has been beyond an inside joke, because that film was announced as a spin-off in
06:43an attempt to make the X-Men version of a shared universe, but didn't come into fruition,
06:47apart from new movies due to Fox being sold to Disney. Deadpool and Wolverine acknowledges
06:50these versions of these characters, and despite their issues, since the first three Blade films,
06:54they were still part of forming the MCU in some way, and shouldn't be forgotten or banished to
06:58avoid by a big acronym to Empty. Subtle. Speaking of X-Men...
07:08Since Disney's acquisition of Fox around both rights to Fantastic Four and X-Men, a lot of chatter
07:12has been over when the X-Men are going to show up. We've had appearances of X-Men characters throughout
07:17the post-end games films, and in Doomsday we will have the X-Men show up, mainly the versions from
07:21the Fox
07:22film. Yeah, this has caused a lot of discourse on if this is just nostalgia baiting, and that
07:26Doomsday is just something made to appease fans who didn't like most of the post-end-game films.
07:30I'm kind of disagreeing on that front. I feel like the inclusion of the X-Men out of the Fantastic
07:34Four
07:34is a natural conclusion to the post-end-game self-reflective man narrative. If Deadpool and
07:38Wolverine was focused on Marvel's forgotten and less appreciated works, and Doomsday is heading
07:42towards its past, mainly Kevin Feige's past because he got his start working on the early X-Men movies,
07:46who line up seems to be pulled from the first two films. Again, say goodbye, or work through
07:51some things he wanted to do but couldn't, like the costumes being more colourful. That's kind of what
07:55my assumption is, glancing by the trailers. See also having the guy who was one of the series'
07:59big leads back as a villain seems like an interesting addition to the confronting your past theme.
08:04So those are my thoughts heading into Doomsday. Do you think I have a point? Do you disagree?
08:08Then write that down in the comments. Also, don't forget to like this video,
08:10and subscribe to this channel to get more stuff like this, or check out the past work I made.
08:16Do you think I'll be curious?
08:17You
