Marvel Needs To Stop Introducing New Characters

The MCU has found a solid amount of success with its past two movies. While the box office hasn’t been as satisfying as the studio hoped for, Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps received great reviews from critics and audiences. Movies like The Fantastic Four: First Steps show that Marvel is going in the right direction with how they do introduction movies, but it also displays the issue with the last couple of phases of Marvel. Every year, the MCU has introduced a slew of new characters that are meant to be utilized throughout the Multiverse Saga, but Marvel has failed to make them involved in the connected universe

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While projects like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Ms. Marvel have been great introductions to new characters, Marvel needs to slow down on introducing characters and focus on building a universe again. There are so many great characters and actors in the MCU’s franchise, and to see so many of them underutilized is disheartening.

Marvel Needs to Include More Post-Endgame Characters in Their Projects

2021 saw an incredible number of MCU projects released. Disney+ released five MCU TV shows, including one animated project, in the span of a year, while there were four MCU movies released in the span of six months. TV shows like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have since seen characters carry over into different projects, but everything else has yet to have a continued story. Despite Loki being one of the highest-rated MCU television shows, almost none of the characters have carried over to different projects. The only character from that show that has appeared in another project is Kang, which we now know is a character we will likely never see again. While the TVA played a major role in Deadpool and Wolverine, none of the main cast has appeared in anything outside of a post-credit scene in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Loki isn’t the only project that has yet to see new characters implemented in other MCU projects. Despite being released over three years ago, Moon Knight has had no characters appear in anything outside of its show. With the talented Oscar Isaac at the forefront, it’s insane that Marvel hasn’t even attempted to include him in anything. The same goes for the Eternals. Even though they have a stacked cast of A-listers, including Angelina Jolie and now Harry Styles, the most that audiences have seen from Eternals is the giant celestial that grew from the ground at the end of the movie, and even that took four years to bring up. With the talented ensemble they have hired for their projects, it’s sad to see them underutilized.

The post-credit scenes of the recent set of Marvel projects are arguably the worst offenders in introducing characters and doing nothing with them for years. Movies like Thor: Love and Thunder teased the introduction of Clea and Hercules over three years ago, yet nothing has been seen of them since. In prior post-credit scenes, whatever is introduced usually appears in the next couple of movies, with examples including the Maximoff twins at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man. The MCU has since ended this trope, which has made the universe extremely overstuffed and convoluted, and something needs to change.

What Can Marvel Do to Fix Their Issues?

Given their handling of character introductions, it is clear they need to stop introducing new ones altogether. Instead, they should take the Thunderbolts* route, which is to take a group of minor supporting characters they’ve introduced in past projects and dedicate a project to exploring their traits and figuring out how they fit into the universe. Thunderbolts* was not only able to make minor supporting characters feel like A-listers, but they also successfully managed to rebuild the MCU by teasing what the future looks like. The Marvels is another example of the route they should take. Although the film didn’t have as strong a script as it should have, bringing together characters who were introduced in other projects was a great idea for a movie. Taking this route with their projects would be the perfect way to tie up loose ends and start making the universe feel cohesive again.

Too many recent MCU projects, ranging from spin-offs like Echo to Thor sequels, have stood too much on their own, and Marvel needs to shift away from that and start developing a fleshed-out universe again. While individual projects can be good, Marvel has become overly focused on them in recent years, and with Avengers: Doomsday coming out in a little over a year, it is time for the spin-offs, side projects, and new character introductions to stop in favor of building up to their next big event.

With an Avengers movie in close proximity, it is insane that Marvel is still continuing to push out projects that are looking to have no implications on the MCU timeline. Projects like Vision Quest and Wonder Man sound interesting at face value, as they will see the return of past MCU villains, but these should not be Marvel’s focus right now. Introducing new characters that will have no ramifications to the MCU when it is this close to a big event film is not a smart move on Marvel’s part, and if Marvel doesn’t do something about it, then their universe will fall apart.

What do you think? Comment below if you like the MCU’s current trajectory or if there’s something they need to change.