April 26th, 2019.  It felt as if the movie-viewing world was abuzz with excitement as Avengers: Endgame launched in theaters.  Casual viewers and hardcore fans of the Marvel Universe were on the edge of their seats in anticipation to see how the beloved superheroes would take down the tyrannical titan Thanos.  Endgame was so hot that it broke the box office records with ticket sales reaching $2.798  billion.  Each of the characters became household names, and fans waited in anticipation for Marvel’s next big project. 

Fast forward to 2022, and it seems that Marvel has lost its momentum. 

While still massive hits, Marvel’s most recent endeavors have received extreme fan backlash, making many viewers question their loyalty to the series.  But what could cause such a sudden decline in Marvel’s popularity?

A slew of complaints litter the online forums where fans have taken to protesting their dissatisfaction with the newest Marvel projects. The most common critiques seem to be the sheer amount of new content, excessive amount of forced humor, over-reliance on cameos, and poor CGI quality. Although still fun and action-packed, the most recent Marvel films have been utterly forgettable, obnoxiously humorous, and shallow husks of their predecessors.  

Besides Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spiderman: No Way Home, admittedly fantastic movies, the vast majority of Marvel films since 2019 have garnered a negative fan reception.  For instance, the most recent release, Thor: Love and Thunder was highly disapproved of by fans for its non-stop, forced humor that undercuts and overshadows the serious moments in the movie.  It makes what could have been an astounding movie a nonstop stream of half-hearted gags.  Many of the recent Marvel movies have adopted this overly witty and pedestrian style of dialogue.  

The big screen isn’t Marvel’s only medium of storytelling.  As a part of Disney, Marvel streams its movies and original series on the home TV pay format of Disney Plus.  The new shows possess the same cinematic quality of their movie counterparts and the same critical fan reception.

Other than Wandavision, Loki, and Moon Knight, every single series in Marvel’s Disney Plus entourage has been considered a failure by a majority of fans.  Unlike the movies that release once or twice a year, these shows release just about every month.  The amount of content itself has become sickening to fans.  It’s made being a casual Marvel fan nearly impossible, as there’s too much content to watch each year. 

In addition, many of the shows feel like a drag to watch.  Series such as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ms. Marvel,  and Hawkeye are painfully average and forgettable.  The plots are bland, CGI is mediocre, the villains don’t work, and the oversaturated, out-of-place humor from the movies glares through the serious moments.  

Easily, the most scrutinized of the recent Marvel projects is She-Hulk, which seems to encapsulate the worst aspects of Marvel.  She-Hulk is Marvel’s most recent Disney Plus endeavor, with its final episode releasing Thursday, October 13th.  The show is a legal comedy, as if Marvel needed more shallow jokes.  Almost every single episode contains a cameo from an iconic Marvel hero, such as The Incredible Hulk, Wong, and Daredevil.  Many fans have stated that they only watch She-Hulk  for the fun cameos, not for the show itself.  Also, the CGI for She-Hulk is simply atrocious, perhaps due in part to the rushed and overworked CGI team. 

When it comes to streaming, perhaps Marvel should learn from their smaller superhero cousins. The recent Amazon Prime series’,The Boys, and Invincible are darker, more cynical takes on the superhero genre.  They both focus on what happens when a superhero uses his or her powers for personal gain rather than the greater good.  The Boys and Invincible show that viewers are not necessarily tired of the superhero genre as a whole, but rather the over-saturated, rushed, extremely comedic style of modern Marvel movies.

No amount of ill-placed humor or poor CGI will stop Marvel from being a titan in the entertainment industry, and it’s unlikely that we, the fans will stop watching the series entirely.  However, as Marvel continues to push out more and more sub-par content, one must begin to wonder, how much is too much of a good thing?