Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has been the king of the big screen for 15 years, but translating that success to television and back has been a difficult hurdle for the franchise to clear. After Avengers: Endgame, Marvel wisely chose to explore new frontiers, using shows on Disney+ to introduce new heroes and continue the journeys of surviving Avengers. With most of that table setting finally out of the way, Marvel’s most promising characters are headlining blockbuster affairs once more.
The problem is that not every Marvel fan is tuning into something like Ms. Marvel or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which impairs attempts to continue those stories within the larger MCU. For all the effort the studio has put into its small-screen stories, the reception of these shows has been middling at best. It can be argued that Marvel has spread itself too thin with too many lackluster additions to the catalog. It would be unwise to count the franchise out, though: Marvel plans to come back in a major way in 2025, and its most talked-about movie could retroactively fix years of misfires.
