Credit: Marvel StudiosMarvel Studios exists because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe created some amazing stories that brought fans flocking to see their movies. Still, that era has passed, and it’s time to make some serious changes.
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When Robert Downey Jr. was Tony Stark/Iron Man with Captain America (Chris Evans) and the original Avengers, it was clear that at one point, those heroes would have to retire. Despite having thousands of stories with those characters, Marvel simply couldn’t tell more than a handful before those characters had to leave the franchise, leaving fans wishing some of the untold stories had a way to fit in the MCU.
Iron Man really can’t help Ironheart learn what it means to be a superhero in the same way that he did in the comics. Without Downey, that mentor role will likely fall to someone else, and while that’s fine, it’s a pivotal change that fans don’t like to see. Another example is that there are plenty of comic stories where other super heroes like the X-Men or Fantastic Four would help. Still, since they haven’t been introduced, there’s no way to tell a story where Iron Man, Reed Richards, and Charles Xavier meet and discuss the best ways to save the world.
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The Multiverse Saga offers different ideas for what they could do, but it’s clear that if Iron Man returned from another universe, it probably wouldn’t be the Iron Man fans fell in love. Variety did report rumors of the original Avengers teaming up once again, but Kevin Feige has made it clear that the new Avengers team is what the studio is working on. With this in mind, the MCU is churning out a lot of stories in different projects while also adding dozens of heroes and villains into the MCU every year.
Over time, this has led Marvel down a dangerous road where some stories just can’t be told because of how the MCU’s content is structured. There’s not any time to make a second season of Moon Knight, probably before Avengers: Secret Wars (2027), which feels weird, but also terrible to think about when fans look at all the different characters who deserve more stories. Then, there’s the problem that some of the best stories just can’t include certain heroes like Black Widow or Hawkeye because of how the MCU handled those characters.
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Instead of focusing so much on adding more and more stories to the MCU, Marvel should try to publish some projects under a new banner that will still be in the MCU but won’t be set in the main timeline. Due to the Multiverse, Marvel can tell the stories that fans would love to see and not have those things impact the overall narrative they are trying to tell. Plenty of wacky and bizarre stories could be told in a way that would be fun and crazy.
These projects could be similar to What If?…., but instead of focusing on specific scenarios, they could just adapt certain comic book stories into live-action that generally wouldn’t get told. This new project could bring more fans into watching Marvel stories because it would be fresh air for fans who might have gotten tired of trying to keep up. These movies/series wouldn’t have sequels or require any knowledge beforehand, and it’s a tactic that DC is using with their franchise. They have Joaquin Phoenix starring as Joker and Matt Reeve’s Batman in their own separate worlds, but their stories don’t connect to the DCU happening. The same thing could happen with Marvel if Kevin Feige is brave enough to do it.
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