Marvel will never end. For some reason, that sounds like a threat to me.

He’s a lesson: if EVERY sentence is a “joke” NOTHING is a joke or funny

Bane has a massage for Kevin: "Victory has defeated you."

I like how the show Avatar the Last Airbender told everything that it needed to tell in only 3 seasons. Refreshing.

Jokes release tension If everything's a joke there's no tension There's no building of emotional stakes so everything feels flat

Kevin has a good point that you can tell a very wide variety of stories and have different genres when adapting comic book characters. The problem is that they don't really do that, do they?

Logan was a good example of a comic book movie that broke that mold.

Something that I really appreciate about The Batman (2022) is that it's in a different genre than most other superhero movies currently: detective noir. Logan as well is a good example of a superhero movie that breaks the modern mold. So it has and can still be done. They just choose not to.

That idea about having vastly different tones for their movies should have been implemented. Shang Chi for example, I would have loved to have seen a super grounded martial arts film, seemingly unconnected to everything else, until the end where the could have introduced or even just teased at how it connects to the MCU as a whole. Black widow being a dark spy flick is another one. This is all a pipe dream though. They're fundamentally averse to risk-taking of any kind.

The example of how to wrap up a franchise in the recent times: Breaking Bad universe. Which is funny that they managed to succeed in everything that Marvel and DC want to but fail to do so: Strong female protagonist, legendary gay character, representation done right, all the storyline were tightly written together, fan service that really serves the story and great endings.

Critical Drinker: "Do you seriously believe your own hype that much?" Kevin Fiege: *"I AM THE HYPE!!!"*

The irony is that the Marvel comics had also a bad received phase of gender swapping heroes that then obbligated Marvel to resuscitate the old heroes, so it is probable that after an other couple of bad phases the might bring back the original heroes with different actors.

The legend of the Drinker will never end

Superhero movies are not going to disappear. People aren't burnt out on Superheroes, they're burnt out on the kind of Superhero movies being put on screen.

It may never end, but it will never recapture the popularity that it had during the Infinity Saga

My wife and I have been bored waiting for some new seasons of shows, so we decided to rewatch the MCU. One of the more low-key, throw-away gags that makes me smile is when the album Disintegration starts playing during the Ant-Man and Yellowjacket fight in the briefcase. It’s dumb, but it always makes me chuckle.

Feige has been hailed as the genius behind the MCU’s success with Phases 1-3, but his reputation has been undergoing downward evaluation since then. I give credence to the opinion he was drafting on the creativity of others.

Really does feel like that we’re being waterboarded with more and more superhero content

There isn't superhero fatigue. There is Kevin Feige fatigue. And the rest of Hollywoke. People are tired of it all. Anyone who thinks they should take a BILLION+ dollar franchise and change the entire thing in a way that has been untested, probably shouldn't be in charge of anything important. Who honestly thought "hey let's take all of our current heroes and kick them in the nuts with a toxic female version that dresses similarly. That's a good idea!"?! I guess it must have been Feige and friends. Don't trust someone who is trying to hide their balding via a hat. That isn't someone honest with themselves. And apparently that person is too lazy to hire some hair restoration doctors even though they should have the money to easily cover such costs. I've seen plenty of people go from bald to a lot of hair. It really shouldn't be that difficult for Feige. It seems like a much better option than hiding under a hat for the rest of your life.

The drinkers liver will never end.

*The Expanse* is a perfect example of how you translate a book series to screen. There are a few changes simply for streamlining, but the show is 85% to 90% the books. Well paced, characters are smart but flawed, mistakes are made but dealt with in realistic ways… overall a solid 6 season series. The only reason they ended the show is because the last 2 books take place 20 years later.

kevin's pretty optimistic for a company whose animated films came second to dreamworks last year.

What Mauler says about seeing only a fraction of the comic stories adapted is the reason why I loved the cartoons so much. Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons from the 90s had the same look and feel as the comics and were able to tell soo many stories over all the seasons they made. If you're not a comic reader then things like that are the next best thing.

100 YEARS CRITICAL DRINKER, 99 MORE SEASONS, CRITICAL DRINKER 100 YEARS!!!!!

We're getting the kind of movies I thought they would entertain the masses with in '1984'. Like Drinker said, "Funny jokes, bright colors, over the top action." You've been entertained, brother. You're welcome.

Living in a time where history has been abolished, I really yearn for movies of human heroes, like Davy Crockett, Daniel Boon, Kit Carson, Paul Bunyan, and all the modern people who have been ignored so we can have cartoon fantasies hogging up screen time and relegating actual super humans who did actual brave things to obscurity.

Just like the comics, keep going and going. I was reading Grant Morrison's JLA from 1997 and they commented how people don't care as much when heroes die, because they keep coming back. Superman also had electric powers. Comcics are wild.

A lot of the characters they introduced in phase 4 are characters from the mid-2010s that have already been sidelined because their books didn't sell. Kamala Khan was mildly popular when she was introduced but has been relegated to limited series now because she has been relaunched several times and her books sell worse every time. She is probably the most successful of the lot. Riri Williams hasn't had her own ongoing since 2019. America Chavez hasn't had her own ongoing since Rivera's run which was such a disaster that Marvel published a mini-series just to retcon it out of existence. Marvel really wanted to make Carol Danvers their new flagship character and pushed her hard. She had one series after another with each one selling less than the previous one. They are still plugging away trying to make Carol Danvers happen without much success. They are determined to center the MCU around these characters that mostly flopped.

I spent phase 4 wondering when the stories would get good and bring in a connective thread like previous phases, next thing I knew, phase 4 was over

Just a note (that has probably been pointed out already) but the comics actually did do a "Professor Hulk" version of the Hulk where Banner and Hulk became unified (at this point, it's probably been more than a few times) but it was *SO* much better than what went on in the MCU.

What is being overlooked is how much RDJ was involved in establishing Tony Stark. They only had a basic outline and he worked with Jeff Bridges and Favreau to flesh out the majority of Iron Man. So now RDJ going forward took ownership of the character and was completely invested in crafting a good story.

Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy are the worst things to happen to Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, respectively

I rewatch Lord of the Rings several times per year too 🙋🏼‍♀️

One of the awkward causes of the contraction of available sources is something at least the Drinker and Mauler have spoken in favour of: killing the villains every time. Aside from the fact it’s a mainstay feature of the comics not to kill them (because they’ve be hunted by the authorities for it if they did) but sooooo many of the great stories only make sense in their original context as revenge plots. As it ism the best you can generally hope for is the Dark Knight Rises thing. “I’m Talia al’Gul, you killed my father.” “I didn’t know you existed…”

I think he's correct. Last few marvel films I went to watch, I felt like they'd never end. :-/

Genres within genres would enrich the Marvel franchise for sure, adapting each movie to a new niche would be great. I agree Drinker. I think Werewokf By Night pulled that off beautifully. Old school horror movie meets superhero genre. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they'll capitalize on that success.

Martin Scorsese was right about Marvel

And the Titanic is unsinkable

I remember feeling nothing in MoM when those characters died, even the one played by the actor reprising the role. I knew *these characters* and *that world* were completely disposable, which is *exactly* how the movie treated them. Thus, the stakes didn't really matter

I thought preview for Quantumania was pretty good... but since it pretty much gave me the whole story, I will just wait to go watch John Wick 4.

"80 years of Marvel comic book history". Yet they chose to skip most of that and go straight to the post 2014 intersectional garbage no one wants.

Pride comes before the fall

I got to say that the fact that the little platoon now has a moving avatar it’s so rad but slightly scary 😅

6:15 drinker goin IN on that off-camera sniff 😂💪

You WILL consoom product and you WILL get excited for next product

the MCU is like Mr Burns "you are here forever" sign

MICHAEL BARON makes a GREAT POINT! The public frequently make statements like "No other Actor could have played that role." But I ASSURE you, there are always MANY acting candidates who would have ALSO been great in a role, it just would have been 'different', and of course you'd never have known...

It really sucks because after those first Rami Spiderman movies and going into The Avengers I was SO EXCITED for the release of these films and now I just don’t care at all. I couldn’t even finish The Eternals, I made it about half an hour and it was just SO BORING. The Hulk and Spiderman were my favorites growing up and what they did to The Hulk even before Professor Hulk just pissed me off. They destroyed one of if not the most interesting character that they had, a character that lasted 50 years and was still intriguing and within 5 years they just destroyed him.

I mean Feige should be right on paper but the guy has turned a big medium into a standard mold and it’s getting old, especially since they’re not the ones innovating, x men series rightfully gets flack but Logan was a goddamn masterpiece and Marvel simply hasn’t experimented on that level.

yeah - the guy running walking dead said that, too, and the second he said it i was like, “well, bye bye WD.”

Part of the problem, which is mentioned at about 11:00 is that the films used to make you want to watch the next. Entertaining stories first (or at least they tried) and shared plot moving forward second. Now? The shared universe works against them. There might be one film you want to actually give a chance, but you know you are going to be lost unless you consume the products you have skipped over the last 2 years. Enough to put you off giving anything a chance.

Marvel movies start with good stories based on imitating other movies, and at the end they deviate to do their ridiculous aerial battles. Black Widow is a bad Bourne, Shang Chi is a bad Jackie Chan, Wandavision forgets it's a Sitcom and ends up with another aerial battle shooting lightning at each other.

This is why The Batman was a breath of fresh air

I remember when New Mutants was first teased as a horror movie and I genuinely thought it was an interesting way to take the superheroes in to new genres. But even with that they messed it up

"What'd you bring me?" -Bilbo Baggins

Every time Michael A. Baron speaks I hear Piglet from Winnie the Pooh.

You could make 1000 good Marvel movies AND have no fatigue, or 10+ bad movies AND be tired AND say ive had enough, AND their world building sucks, no cross movie events impact each other

Any genre can die off and many have. Westerns, Sword and Sandals, Pirate, and Slashers all dominated the multiplexes and box office, and all of them have died out to the point studios wouldn't touch them for years. They all died out for the same reasons people are warning about superheroes: too many and not different enough. Diversity in the story is the key, but Feige doesn't understand. One of the reasons The Batman was such a breath of fresh air was because it was a mystery story first. Batman didn't beat Riddler by punching him but by figuring things out. The Batman was the first in the franchise to focus on Bruce being a detective not just a fighter. The Netflix shows felt new and different with their focus on small-scale issues, but then they tried for the big Avengers-lite show The Defenders. Imagine a Daredevil movie that's more like A Few Good Men where Matt has to use his alter-ego to find the information to win a big case. Imagine a Black Widow movie like The Manchurian Candidate where Natasha has to find a mole. Imagine a Thor movie like Lord of the Rings where he has to stop some dark lord from taking over the Nine Realms. Instead, it's just jokes, meta-humor, and CGI battles that's everything and the kitchen sink. Early MCU movies felt different from each other, but the Guardians of the Galaxy came out and suddenly every Marvel movie copied that in tone. Thing is, Fox was moving that way. They had their X-Men film which were the standard superhero vs supervillain story (though Days of Future Past took it in new directions) while also giving us an Unforgiven-style Logan, Hangover-style Deadpool films, and The New Mutants was initially advertised as a psychological horror movie. Now it's DC giving us the variety with Taxi Driver-style Joker and Se7en-style The Batman. The MCU has been a cash-cow, but like anything going to the same well too often will dry it up.

7:37 Michael's doggos start arriving ^.^

Phase 4 needed to introduce the fantastic 4, Richard Rider (Nova), and expand the cosmic landscape of marvel leading into the annihilation wave story. OR they should have introduced FF, squadron Supreme and the Xmen, but in different universes. He'll, they could do an avengers movie now with a different cast and story and have it take place in a different universe.

It reminds me of that Simpsons song that’s kind of a takeoff of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, where they say “Have No Fears, We’ve Got Stories For Years”. Ironically, that was probably about 20 years ago now, right at the beginning of Zombie Simpsons. I’m just glad that the only two sectors of Marvel that I actually care about (X-Men and Spider-Man) have been largely unmolested, though I’m sure their time will come.

I never expected to see Mike Baron on Drinker's stream. So cool!!

On a related note: TV will never be a serious competitor for radio because people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn't time for it

So sad to see a franchise plummet as fast as Marvel has.

This is the song that doesn’t it end, it just goes in and on my friend….

Avengers: Infinity War was better than End Game, and here's why: Because the Avengers did all they could to win, and still lost. In a way, it is like a homage to the Empire Strikes Back. Back when ESB came out, people loved the movie, but they were shocked by the ending because it was so dark compared to Star Wars' ending. The Return of the Jedi did so well, because people wanted to see how it would end. I think Disney doesn't get it, which is why a cool bounty hunter, like the Mandalorian becomes a babysitter for their adorable money-maker, Grogu. They care about merchandise, not stories.

Fatigue is very real! I started burning out on the MCU before Endgame. The DCEU never really got off the ground. I grew up LOVING comics. But, I haven't cared about anything on film and TV for several years. What I have seen as of late is garbage.

Shits just warming up.

Remember Feige now rhymes with beige.

I’m on board with 99% with what’s discussed. A lot of great points. But, anyone who doesn’t think Chris Evens doesn’t have range should watch Snowpiercer.

It's extremely disingenuous of Feige to say Marvel has 80+ years of stories to tell on screen when they've proven that they're not only crap at curating the ones they already have done recently, they're also more than willing to completely ignore those 80+ years of stories in favor of making stuff up to appeal to an audience that doesn't pay. If they were actually faithful to those 80+ years of stories, the Thanos saga of movies would've found a way to justify his original comic book motivation of trying to literally court the personification of Death instead of "bringing balance to the universe," they wouldn't have killed Tony Stark during it, and they certainly wouldn't have killed T'Challa offscreen in the second Black Panther movie. More ridiculous storylines like Captain America as a werewolf (aka "Capwolf" in the 90s) could've been relegated to Halloween episodes of series like Loki or Falcon & The Winter Soldier or something, but they wouldn't have pulled the trigger on aging Steve Rogers out of action as early in the movie timeline as they did if they were genuinely faithful to telling "80+ years of stories." Insincerity abound at Disney.

I'm really nervous because Secret Wars coming out and Secret Wars is about the beyonder. I really hope they don't mess the beyonder up because he's such a powerful and great character. Worse scenario could be the beyonder is not even in secret Wars and it's actually Kang instead.

Disney is the Borg. Marvel has been assimilated.

An offhand comment Drinker made here is a real gem, the bit about "eating up screentime." When you get a feeling for film history you realize this is what a lot of movies are all about. And it's not always a bad thing. When you look at a lot of the very low budget giallo style films of the 70s, or even more action packed movies like Dirty Harry or early James Bond from around that time, the point of the films is one or two really explosive set pieces that they have the budget for, and the rest of it is trying to stretch out runtime so you have a feature film not a short. This can take the form of goose chase second act mysteries, vibey long takes, world building, romance, love scenes, dialogue scenes, or character work. Tarantino has made a career out of following this pattern, having a lot of snappy dialogue that nobody really cares about in between the intense action that you came for. This is what made the original blockbusters great, was the sense that you had to wade through all this bullshit to build anticipation for the big finale. Jaws is actually a terribly boring movie other than the third act, but that works because it builds suspense, and people will go back to watch it again and again. When that becomes concretized into a formula though, it's garbage. But if you atune yourself to this dilemma of filmmaking, you'll see it's all over your favorite movies. And if you can master it, it can really boost your own creations.

The sludge must flow ...and flow ...and flow and flow.

Marvel end with endgame, hint is in the title.

I think you should look back at the Writer's strike of 20 years ago. wHorrywood's treatment of writers caused most of them to just leave, for ever. That was the birth of "reality" TV, and the start of Directors and Producers thinking they could write.... with hideous results. So then they turned to the most sophisticated source they understood; Comic Books. Next will be Games. Its over, time to look at Indy films and foreign products, Hollywierd has vanished up it's own backside.

I work with corporate people. If you give them honest criticism of their product, they often shake their heads, give you what on surface looks like you are looking for and be done with you. If you point out that what they gave you is not enough because of a, b, or c, they will just dismiss you.

At the back area of Cast Connection (the past of Disney World where cast members and their families can buy discounted merchandise) they had shelves FILLED with America Chavez figurines lol

I'll never understand why they chose Robert Downey Jr., a man who went through addiction, to play Tony Stark, a man who went through addiction ... and didn't do the arc of Tony's alcoholism forcing him to give up being Iron Man, Rhodes taking up the mantle, and then Tony eventually reclaiming his life and his armor. It was so obvious to me that this is what they would do ... and then they only hinted at it. Weird.

He means Marvel will never end on a good note

Yes I Finally get to see The Drinker .. Drinking cheers mate 🍻

Remember when the characters would be like Bond and just get recast …. Now we’ve a dead Cap, IronMan and dead dead Black Panther and 50+ years of stories all looked over to get the 2010s when comics started to die.

Kevin Feige lived long enough to see himself become the villain. I remember when we all thought he was untouchable. He got a LOT of the credit for guiding the MCU through its first three phases. I'm sure if I go back and rewatch a bunch of those movies now, I will hate them. The last few years of nonsense have thrown everything that came before into a harsh new light.

Fiege clearly doesn't understand the history of Marvel comics. They've had to hit the reset button multiple times when the characters and plot became too convoluted and people stopped reading. His hubris will be their downfall.

For example, I’m big into the Silver Surfer, they won’t approach him as a philosophical-hero, only that Surfer fast/strong. And, won’t touch on the theological implications and ramifications of a mortal becoming essentially a demigod. Galactus and the Surfer’s story is too cerebral and deals with the greater ebb and flow of cosmic death and rebirth. Just an opinion though.

Nothings Ever Really Gone

The Werewolf by night 🌙 special was a good example. It was an old 60s style horror that was well done. If only they did a certain different style with the other Marvel IP.

It will go the same way the western did

Feige is right that comics have as much material as novels to adapt, problem is they skipped half a century of good material and went to the modern woke trash.

There'll never be fatigue for quality. Disney Marvel is making corporate garbage so they're losing fans. Simple.

I collected Daniel Clowes' Eightball comics in the early 90s and remember his prediction of garbage movies made of his stories. I recently watched Ghost World again (in which the author was editorially involved). Very enjoyable. Worth looking at some of the original frames, and how they translated into the screen.

Marvel ended after the Infinity saga.

It's dead, Jim.

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness being robbed of being a true horror movie is a good example of the tragedy of Marvel.

Even in comics, I have always hated multiverses. The only series I feel that does it "well" is something like Gundam, where they keep the different shows separate aside from video games. Even then they still keep the Original Universal Century running. I don't need to keep track of 52+ versions of Superman, all the different Reed Richards, Spidermen, etc...

This is why i liked anime, every one ends at some point

80 years worth of stories, yet they keep trying to force the recent woke garbage instead of actual old good ones.

Marvel actively forced too many movies that COULD break “the formula” into lockstep with the other movies. It’s not a case of too many lost opportunities, it’s a proven case of too many opportunities kneecapped by the corporation in fear of change.

This is the problem with corporate thinking: infinite money is never enough, there must also be infinite growth. There always has to be MORE infinite money than there was last quarter. Marvel *could* make their movies into different genres, but they never will. That would involve original, creative ideas, and the producers taking a financial risk, and the giant money machine is capable of neither.