#230 – Maybe We Were Too Hard on the Multiverse Saga

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, coming to you with dental pains today. Got a big dentist visit tomorrow. Super teeth. I need some of them. Anyone know superheroes willing to give me their super teeth? Okay, that's a bad joke. I'm just letting you know because we're going to keep the topic a bit open today. Something I could just talk straight from the heart and kind of maybe hopefully get some feedback from you guys and emails or comments and whatnot. So the Multiverse saga. You've seen it in the title. Were we too hard on it in retrospect? When I say we, I mean the fans. I think if you listen to a lot of what I've covered on the Multiverse saga, which is a lot, if not most of it, aside from Secret Invasion, we'll get. We'll get to that. I think maybe the audiences had too high of expectations and not as big of an open, welcoming heart. They wanted what we had before, which was the original six Avengers and a more centered storyline, which. Hey, I am all aboard for that. Was it a little scattered? Yes. Was it horrible? Not. Not really, in my opinion. I have very fond memories, very nostalgic memories now of some of the even earlier projects like WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki. Are you gonna tell me that those three shows weren't peak? Falcon and the Winter Soldier gets its criticisms, but WandaVision, I mean, come on, that's one of the most highly praised Marvel Adventures ever. And that's the opening of the whole saga. And Loki is considered by even people who don't know the whole MCU maybe the best show of all time. It could be almost the best TV show, superhero show, or story of all time. And that is just the third thing out into the Multiverse saga that people get mad at. Black Widow that came out during Loki. I don't know. I don't know what people got mad at. All I remember is there's fans fighting the MCU and there's too big of a communication going both ways. I think Marvel hears criticism and they want to please the fans so bad, they kind of accidentally honed in on a subsection of fanboys and super critics. Instead of maybe going out of their way to get the full scope or just not having faith in their projects enough to. When they hear one criticism by the same criticism, kind of in an echo chamber of criticisms, they're going to keep adjusting and moving and changing and shifting as we go through the saga, which I Don't think is healthy for it. Was. Was healthy for it whatsoever. But Black Widow is a classic movie to me. I love that they placed it with right, you know, in between Civil War and Infinity War. So Black. Black Widow kind of has her movie that takes place in the Infinity Saga, you know, despite the post credit scene. And Marvel's what if was a huge risk. And I thought the first season was fantastic. The other seasons, I don't remember that well. Why? Well, because Marvel just put them all out the last two seasons all on Christmas, like one day at a time. Very interesting way to release episodes. And kind of hard to keep people or get people into it because they couldn't keep up. I don't know. All I know is one thing I loved what if. The first season was a classic. I was cheering, I was. I was laughing. I was all aboard. It was so much fan service for the. The Infinity Saga that I couldn't. I couldn't hit it. And the voice actors came back and everything. There was a lot of good work, good animation, fun storylines. I mean, that was a fantastic project. Maybe the criticism that this, that this saga had too many TV shows to keep up with to wonder, do I need to watch this to watch this and do I need to watch that to watch that? That's one thing I think Marvel could be a little bit better about making a guide, making a, like, not a PDF file, but like kind of like just a list of essentials and what connects. It's kind of like a family tree type thing. Marvel needs to put this out. And what order do you watch and what is completely relevant if you want to watch just the Avengers or you want to watch all that's relevant to the Multiverse saga itself. Because some of this series, like Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, which were fantastic, were on the ground show. So I. I see big fan bases in all of these sections. And the Eternals is another thing that bothers me because I love the Eternals. Not everybody loved it, but I don't think they should give up on things that not everybody loves. I think the full scope of the mcu, if you take a look backward and look at the Infinity Saga, there were plenty of things the fans were very much against and didn't like. Going all the way back to Iron Man 2 and Thor and Captain America. These weren't highly acclaimed super movies. They're nostalgia movies now. And they're the base of this whole world that we love. We didn't know Iron man was going to branch off into this. Many, like Ventures and movies. And honestly, it's exciting when you think about it. It's. It's one of the biggest culmination of superheroes ever. And the biggest mistake this saga made was not putting an Avengers movie out before Avengers Doomsday, which was why I'm a little worried about Avengers Doomsday. And if you liked Ms. Marvel, then you go into the Marvels, and then there's that subdivision of fans who just don't like anything about Brie Larson. And again, in retrospect, not a terrible movie. Okay? The part where they're. They go to a planet that everybody sings a little bit out of this world. A little wacky, maybe a little bit too much. But that's one of the few things that I thought didn't. Didn't work for that movie. I thought the chemistry between the ladies was fun. I think it was a fun ride. Honestly, I would have. I would watch it again. I. I should watch it again soon. And a big reason the fans didn't stay together and united was because we had no Avengers to reunite. Criticism is too much project, too much output, not enough heart. I disagree. There just needed to be more handling of the interconnectivity of all these projects right from the gate. And, you know, we get up to a single point in this saga, let's just say Multiverse of Madness or even, I don't know, where could we stop it? Wakanda Forever would be a really good point because that's the end of Phase four. So what movie could we have had after Wakanda Forever event? Avengers Secret Invasion. That is something that Screen Crush has brought up multiple times. Ryan Arie from Screencast has been on the show on our 100th episode and our 201st episode. And I'm a big fan of him and their speculation over there. It's been said many times, I probably said it a couple times on this podcast, that I think the saga would have really benefited to unite the new heroes. Shang Chi. Did I not bring him up yet? Did we forget about Shang Chi? Marvel? Where is he? Why didn't we get a sequel for him? Like, he's almost like the Iron man of this franchise. Everybody loves Shangi. We don't get any more. And I could watch that movie three times over and still find new things that I like about it. I mean, good gosh, the action, the story elements, the. The story elements, that's vague, but I mean, the story elements including family and friendship and also just being incredibly badass martial artists, cameos. And I. I Just gotta say Shangchi, that did him wrong. And that's about the time that they kept shifting their motives and changing the future plans and not, you know, write what's right in front of them instead of thinking all the way to the end. And they had this whole thing leaning in with Kang that was going to unite everyone. And that honestly, it's something that fell out of their hands. It was out of their control. They had to fire him. And that really put us in a weird direction because they didn't know what to do. Well, okay, apparently Robert Downey Jr. Was gonna come out and be Dr. Doom, maybe as a surprise cameo during Secret wars or Kang Dynasty. Maybe the person who came and ended the Kang Dynasty. And at the end of that movie, you know, if there was all that going on, we would have been into all the spectacle and we would have just been completely floored by seeing RDJ as Dr. Doom as a reveal. You know, that didn't happen. And they didn't make any Avengers movies. And they kept putting out projects and the projects intertwined, like with Spider man, no Way Home and Doctor Strange. It's kind of cool that we get those stories, kind of united those characters together. We had a lot of mini team ups like Thor with the Guardians of the Galaxy at the beginning of that movie and she Hulk, attorney at law, actually bringing in Bruce, the Hulk and trying to bring the Hulk to the mainstream a little bit more. We don't have our own Hulk movie yet. We know we're going to get some of the Hulk, Spider Man, Brand New Day, which I think is going to knock our socks off. I have a lot of excitement and just pure, just positive energy about that movie. I just got a good feeling it's going to be good projects like Werewolf by Night, a lot of friends of mine like that. It was like cl. Highly acclaimed. You could watch it in black and white or color. Just like Spider noir. I think the color version came out a year later or something. And then Wakanda Forever. Another smack in the like to the outfield home run movie. I mean, was any of this perfect? No. Was the Infinity Saga perfect? No. You know what they did, though? They went back in time to Thor, Dark World in Endgame. They took that risk and they made something of it. They made it one of Thor's best scenes ever. They made it a part of acknowledging every messy and every solid decision that was made. I thought it was very brave for them to go back to Thor Dark World. I think it would be very brave for them to make an eternal sequel. I think it would be very obvious for them to have made a Shang Chi secret, if not Phase six. Last year, when those other three movies came out, we needed Shang Chi, we needed that sequel. We needed more continuity. We needed a new center hero. And that's the problem. We don't know who the main Iron Man, Tony Stark is of this saga. And that's where I think it gets really hard for fans to say, okay, this is the best thing ever. Like, that's what Marvel wants us to say. And it was scattered, and that's the problem that. That it had. But because it was scattered, we need to put the pieces together. Not that we should have to, but we do. We put the pieces together. And what do we have? Well, we have the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanding in five directions. The comic books were like that. I don't read the comic books, but I know that each hero has their own story going on at different corners, different universes. And the Avengers is the culmination. We didn't have the Avengers culminate. This is my fifth time saying that, because that's the biggest mistake that Marvel made. And I'm still going to defend the movies that they made and the, you know, projects that they made that honestly still stand with me and bring happiness and the best out of me and comfort watches and great morals and just. I don't know. I loved what we got over the last few years. The Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special. I mean, we didn't have money holiday specials. James Gunn came in and gave that to us. Was it hilarious? Yes. Was it lighthearted? Yes. Am I going to keep asking myself questions and answering them? Yes. Ant man and the Wasp Quantumania really took a beating. It took a beating from the fans that, you know, don't even regurgitate. Don't even regurgitate that Kang got killed by ants. I mean, I don't want to hear it anymore. It was an awesome movie. Could the visual. Asking you. Asking myself questions again. Could the visual effects have been a little bit more worked on? Sure. Was the movie horrible? No. No. Paul Rudd is awesome as Ant Man. I had a hell of a ride after a horrible year, coming back into the theaters to see Ant man in the Wasp. Quantumania was sick. And you know what? If they weren't able to have Jonathan Majors back, it was good to see him in a movie to kind of culminate what happened in Loki and. Oh, I just. I don't know why we had to be so hard and critical and I don't know we want the best fans want the best. Fans aren't complaining because they want to hurt the franchise. Fans are complaining because they're worried about the franchise, just like I am. And everyone's entitled to an opinion. And obviously I. I'm not going to argue with you if you think everything sucks. I'm just gonna say I disagree. Secret evasion was the worst thing Marvel ever did. And that wasn't at fault of Samuel L. Jackson. It was terrible. I don't even know where to begin with it. I've tried to think of rewatching it to cover it, because I was in an off period when it came out, and I don't want to. I don't want to watch it again. I remember it was awful. And that's the kind of project that was wasted. The title, wasted. What did I say? Secret Invasion was a big story in the comics. They had all the setup. They. They had an alien infiltration on Earth undercover and the Avengers weren't there to fight it. It was Nick Fury, Fury alone. And everything was underplayed. And they tried to do something with roadie where they retconned him into being a scroll all the way from Civil War, which literally infiltrates the relationship between Tony Stark and roadie all the way up and through Tony's death in Endgame. Bad idea. I'm not going to rip on this show anymore. I will admit mistakes were made mainly in that show and my idea for it being a freaking Avengers movie. I'm going to say for the 10th time, get in my mind, imagine that world. And I'm talking this intensely because I damn do. I love my mcu. And no, I'm not going to go through the whole saga and tell you why everything sucked and why everything wasn't connected enough, even though that was the main problem. And I don't know if anyone super realizes that Loki season two was just phenomenal, right? I mean, if you are a fan of the Infinity Saga and then you watch Loki after end game, you can watch Infinity Saga, Loki Seasons one, season two, and probably go see Doomsday. The way they're talking about it, they're gonna bring in all the new heroes, ideally from the saga, but it's gonna be a pickup of the story where we left off at end game. Echo was totally. People took a dump on that show. Not as bad as people said it was. I enjoyed my ride watching Echo. Deadpool and Wolverine was a summer blockbuster. The Marvel Cinematic Universe freaking needed. And I need not glaze that poem Wolverine any more than I already have on this show and any more than all of us do. No disagreements there. That was a sick movie. One thing I'm a little confused about is the anchor beings and there's one anchor being. I mean, that's something that probably has to be expanded on to make a little more sense to me. Agatha. All along on tv, people freaking loved Agatha and was continuing the story of WandaVision, which we will get another show later this year called Vision Quest. It will be a trilogy of series about Wanda's family and different characters from the kind of other end of the MCU which we haven't really seen yet, which is, you know, supernatural witch abilities. I don't know. I freaking like that. I. I remember covering Agatha all along, week to week. And it was time and time again an awesome show. The Animated Series, Friendly neighborhood Spider Man. I thought that was phenomenal. They got another season coming this year. Captain America, Brave New World. Mistakes were made, right? Mistakes were made. If they were brave enough to not include the red Hulk in all the advertising and their fight at the end become the main part of the trailer. I hate when movies do that. The insecurity of Marvel not keeping that, I don't know, Red Hulk under wraps is the way Red Hulk would have worked. Not going into the movie knowing there's going to be a fight between Captain America and Red Hulk. That's all we were waiting for the whole movie. And then by the time we got it, it wasn't good enough because we had high expectations and it was in the trailer. Let things be a surprise. Let the small group of people come see Brave New World without knowing Red Hulk is in it. And let's see how it stands on its own with a smaller audience. That smaller audience leaves the theater that weekend. They're freaking out because something huge happened and it was the Red Hulk, finally. But that couldn't happen because we needed to be babied into going into that movie. I wish we didn't. And I thought it was a fun ride. I'll be honest, I haven't rewatched it maybe one time since it came out. And the thing is, it's not my favorite thing, but it wasn't horrible. Daredevil Born Again came back last year and it really kicked ass. I mean, it got the whole fan base on board. People want more. Daredevil always. Thunderbolts sold bad at the box office. Kind of an awkward promotion with the Thunderbolts and the New Avengers title. But as a fan of the MCU for years, I thought that was badass. When they ripped off the title and gave us what that star meant always at the end of Thunderbolts asterisk, it meant there was going to be a name change or something. And it was the New Avengers, which is leading to a main storyline in Avengers Doomsday. So it seemed like around this point they started to finally kind of start prepping for the bigger battle that's to come, which is Avengers Doomsday. And Fantastic Four came out just a hell of a ride. I have great memories going to see these in theaters with friends. Mostly tj, you know, he's my Marvel movie going buddy and we've seen a lot of the last few together. And I gotta say, that run of movies they had last year was probably one of the most insanely solid outings for Marvel, including the TV shows that were coming along along with it. Eyes of Wakanda is maybe one of the few MCU things I haven't seen. I'm not super interested in Wakanda. I was super interested in Chadwick Boseman as King t' Challa and Black Panther. It's not that I don't like Shuri. It's not that I don't think Wakanda is cool. It's like I want to see what they're going to end up doing with Black Panther without leaving a stain on Chadwick Boseman's legacy. Because I think we need a Black Panther. We need more stories with that character. He really connected. Chadwick Boseman was maybe one of the main parts of that, but he really connected with a lot of bigger audiences. It opened up horizons for Marvel. Marvel Zombies. Viciously underrated. Wonder man completely. Almost just given to us on one day to binge watch the whole thing. Put it out week to week. Let me cover it for all six to eight episodes. Week to week. We're. We'd be having some fun because Wonder man was an underdog show that succeeded at being a fantastic show. And then we're kind of coming up to present day, right? Daredevil Born Again Season two. Maybe the best series of all the Marvel series, which I've said about a few other series. Punisher One Last Kill. A cool project. Too short. Skipping the full movie. Put it in theaters or even on Disney plus make it a little longer. But it still was great. And now we're going into a brand new day. Vision Quest, Doomsday, Secret Wars, Secret Doctor Strange movie in between Doomsday and Secret wars still go out. Listen to my episode about that. So it's a ways back, but I still feel that they should and hopefully will do that if they're smart. Am I gonna go back to asking myself questions that I'm gonna answer myself? Yes. Am I gonna do that right now? Yes. I may not have gone down every single staple or every single outing, every movie in this episode, but I wanted to lay it down in a quick rant because I'm in pain. And the best thing I could do right now is let my mind wander just. And wonder what went wrong. I have an episode I've been teasing for far too long where I'm gonna be defending she Hulk. I don't want that to be a super glaze fest. I mean, I. I know not everybody loves she Hulk, but I think when it came out, and I heard it statistically was the most watched, highly rated Marvel TV show, it connected with general audiences. Want to know what that means? More fans entering the franchise. We can't all have it all. She Hulk worked for me. The audience reaction to that show was harsh. It was a fun show. Maybe not enough crime fighting, but it was an origin story. Just because she had her powers from episode one didn't mean she was ready to fully be she Hulk. I felt like she was finally ready to be an actual superhero in the episode with Daredevil. Ribbit and Rip It. That is when kind of like this hero, she Hulk was born, in my opinion. And people argue about she Hulk. I understand, you know, everyone, like I said, has an opinion, but I'm arguing for the multiverse saga more than I'm fighting against it. Why? Because I think that if we opened our hearts and opened our eyes a little bit more and let our brains open, the idea that maybe not all this sucked that bad. We can even enjoy Avengers Doomsday a little bit more. And I hope they don't abandon half of the characters they introduce us to, like moon knight and Ms. Marvel. And I don't know how many other characters did they introduce Wonder man, like these. These are characters like Shang Chi, who deserves time on screen and more character building. The main deal, the main problem was there wasn't a sequel, a set of movies aside from Spider man that had an ongoing story in there. Like, we had full trilogies for all of the main Avengers. I mean, the top three Avengers, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America trilogies. And the one saga, we needed more Chung Chi movies. I'll say that again. This is not an organized episode. This is a rant. This is not prepared. This is me sitting down with you at the table having a casual yet One way conversation about why I think the MCU has it all resting on Doomsday's shoulders. And I have a feeling the movie's going to be great. But I have a bigger feeling that it'll come with mixed reactions and responses and the general audience is going to have the say. Is it going to make no sense? Is it going to come together like Infinity War did with Thanos? Thanos, People say he was there the whole time. Well, he was a looming threat. We got to kind of check in on him from time to time. That doesn't mean RDJ is Dr. Doom can't come in and wreck the playing field and set the expectations in the first five to 10 minutes of that movie. Joe and Anthony Russo are working their hearts out on this, and they know what Marvel fans love and what Marvel fans want. And I think that they're probably making a masterpiece in Avengers Doomsday. And I'm not afraid to say that here. Thank you for listening to me today. I really loved talking about this saga because I don't know, I don't hate them. See you. I. I genuinely get excited when there's a new project, even like, let's say, Wonder man, when I don't know what to expect from it at all. And I always know that Marvel's gonna have done something right with that project. Even in Secret Invasion, okay, Samuel Jackson gave a hell of a performance, and it wasn't his fault that the show was bad. If it wasn't him, and if he wasn't in it, it would have been worse. I mean, let's just say that I don't mean to rip a hole into something that's kind of hypocritical of me, but I'm just being honest. I think that's the thing people use as a escape for saying the whole damn series of movies was bad. I mean, come on, there we were getting catered to. And if you love the shows, you loved Thunderbolts, and if you loved the Infinity Saga, you probably should have loved Spider man and Doctor Strange. There's something for everybody here. Guardians 3 was one of just great standalone movies on its own. One of the best. Maybe better than the previous two, it could be argued. I love the first two, though. I still love the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I hope you do too. I hope as fans we can all kind of get on the same page and go into Doomsday having a blast instead of getting ready to criticize something that we don't even know what it's going to be about. Yet this has been Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Thank you for listening. Please join our Discord server. It's in the the notes of the show. Come talk. I'd love to hear your opinions. I'd love to hear what you think worked about the Marvel in Multiverse saga. And I love to Hear you on marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com. if you don't want to go to Discord, send us an email and we'll read it on the show. And all opinions are welcome. As long as it's just not a poop fest and like you know, putting it, putting things down just for the sake of it. I think I, you know, maybe I'll be called a hypocrite for this episode because I'm saying so many good things and I'm a yes man and I don't put it's not like I don't hold my standards high, it's just that I don't nitpick things and enjoy them for the ride that they're that they genuinely are. Please rate the show, give us a comment on Apple and a five star rating and a thumbs up. Wherever else you are, I know you're out there listening and I appreciate it. We want to get the sh out to many more people and fans alike and I love doing this. I never going to stop until next time. Avengers disassemble.