You can't kill off your characters without killing your brand.

Endgame seems like a million years ago. It was an event. Watching it with a crowd that was laughing and roaring was really something. I wonder if we will see anything like it again

I really feel like the MCU should've ended with Endgame. A threat against the entire universe itself, how exactly do you top that especially when it requires bringing in every character from all the past films. Answer you can't. Nothing they make in the future will top Endgame and based on how things have been going so far it's painfully clear this is the truth.

I seriously checked out after Endgame. I remember seeing their lineup of films many years back when Avengers was called Infinity War part 1. They were supposed to take a break after phase 3 but no they unfortunately kept it going.

“When Tony Stark finally got his hands on the Infinity Stones and snapped his fingers, I think he ended more than just Thanos and the Infinity Saga.” You hit the nail on the head, sir!

The MCU began and ended with Tony Stark saying "I am Ironman. "

Considering what's being done with the remaining core Avengers, Ironman and Captain America's exit could be considered a mercy. They managed to escape being "deconstructed".

For me, nothing happened after Endgame. I've seen nothing Marvel since then due to that. I watched just over a decade's worth of films end perfectly (apart from the "girl power" catwalk scene mid battle!). As soon as the end credit music faded out and I heard the faint, throwback clanging sound of Tony Stark forging the Mark I armor in the cave during 2008's Iron Man, that was it. Done. Finished. Similarly, nothing happened after Terminator 2 and 2016's Ghostbusters doesn't exist

Spider-Man: No Way Home was the only property from phase 4 that I regularly rewatch. That’s was because it was a continuation of where Far From Home left off and it completed the character arcs from all of the previous Spider-Man movies. It was Spider-Man‘s personal Endgame. Other than that, nothing from phase four has kept my interest in the current MCU. Even Wandavision and Hawkeye, shows I quite enjoyed, didn’t leave the impression that the Infinity Saga left.

I think Mauler described Endgame best in saying that it limped over the finish line, and in my opinion the MCU has since had its arms, legs and head cut off

End game felt really formulaic and underwhelming, but it was a fitting climax for the MCU, I haven't seen another since and I don't know why their continuing instead of starting something new

It's remarkable to me that Dave stated almost exactly what I've been thinking over the past few years.

It should have ended with "Infinity War" Thanos should have kept snapping. It would save us from the jackpot were all in right now. Peace, and keep up the great work, Dave Cullen, you're literally the first R P content creator I found, thanks to the infamous actress who played Captain Marvel.

I really miss Stan Lee and his Marvel.

As usual you articulate with deadly accuracy good sir!

Thank you Dave, I appreciate the overview. I was never able to catch up with all of these Marvel stories; I pretty much gave up television and pop culture in the '80s. Thanks for helping an old guy figure it out. I don't think that Hollywood has the capacity to hire competent writers, it's like a lot of failing organizations: the wrong people hiring the wrong people.

Marvel was like a beautiful lake slowly filling up, individual pools gradually joining into one lovely and deep vista. Then after Endgame it broke the dsm and spilled out in every direction, chaotically tearing up the landscape and forming bogs and shallow ponds all over the place.

Galactus is really the only way to top Thanos at this point.

Marvel got greedy. Fast food content = new series/movie every minute vs. High end dining = one or two really developed productions of good movies.

I read comics as a kid and loved Marvel. I saw every single MCU film from Phases 1, 2, & 3 in the Theater. It was the dream of every comicbook reader to see what amounted to an entire comic book series on the big screen, and the MCU pulled it off amazingly. But, then things went to crap. I haven't paid to see ANY of the Disney Plus shows, and have only paid to see Spiderman NWH & Doctor Strange 2 in the theater. And I sadly think those will be the last MCU films I'll spend the time & money to see in an actual theater. The content they are putting out now apparently Was Not Made For Me. And I doubt anything can change that. It was a great ride while it lasted.

Yep! They should have just taken a 'pause' after Endgame (which covid made easy). THEN Rebooted/ReCAST any parts with actors starting to 'age out' too old, and START OVER, but lead with Fantastic Four, X-Men & Spidey this time! They could have avoided this whole multiverse mess, and difficulty of dealing with the 'snap' 5 year gap...

Well summarized. Endgame just brought everything to such an epic conclusion that everything that follows just seems trite and pointless.

Gamora: What did it cost? Thanos: Everything…

To be honest, I already lost interest somewhere between Phase 2 and Phase 3 - simply because of over-saturation of the market. This wasn’t always the case. As a kid, I couldn’t wait for the next superhero movie to come out - until suddenly, there were too many to keep up with, too many to even recall in which order to watch them. A similar thing is happening to Magic: The Gathering right now, who have been trying to make their game more Marvel-like for years, with their Gatewatch essentially being a fantasy version of the Avengers. Also, Tony Stark should never have been Spider-Man’s mentor. Spider-Man has always been a solo character, and the mentor he had was Uncle Ben. Iron Man giving him all of this technical equipment doesn’t just undermine Uncle Ben as Spider-Man’s actual mentor, but also undermines Peter Parker’s own ingenuity as a scientist and inventor. Finally, wokeness was already in the Marvel comics while the movies were still going strong - and it crept into the movies already before Endgame. Not just with Captain Marvel, but also with Ant-Man and the Wasp. And it has been CGI bluster for a long time, with or without wokeness. The MCU started with dedicated movies to build up the individual characters - that was when it was at its strongest. The more characters you threw into an Avengers movie, the less time you had to flesh out the individual characters. Infinity War was “Kitchen Sink: The Movie”, and the most interesting character in it was Thanos - not anyone of the heroes.

Its time to start giving Feige the grief we give to DC/Warners

I think we just need a break from these for a few years. These movie studios need to try some new material from the ground up and just Marvel settle and marinate for a while. Will they actually do this? Unlikely…

I feel like it’s much easier than everyone thinks to create an idea that will succeed endgame. The fact is that marvel still has their source for all these mcu movies. The comics. They’re abundant, rich with plot and have even crazier climaxes than the final battle of endgame. All they have to do is adapt them on screen with a minimal amount of allegory and political nonsense.

Endgame was truly the climax for the MCU. We should of all known it would be downhill from there regardless of whether THE MESSAGE was injected in it or not.

The avengers had one woman. The new one has one guy.

For me, I am just MCU'd out. I had watched it from Iron Man to End Game and it felt like a nice end cap to the whole thing. I just don't have interest or a desire to reinvest another 10 years for more of the same. To me it ran its course, was completed, and now I want to move on to something else.

The MCU ended when the Hulk's mythos was destroyed in "Ragnarock", in "Infinity War", and in "Endgame." I cannot believe that the MCU utterly failed to establish the two immutable Hulk laws: 1. "The madder Hulk gets the stronger Hulk gets!", and 2. "Hulk is the strongest one there is!" I cannot believe that the MCU voluntarily destroyed the greatest Marvel story arc. Specifically, "Planet Hulk", and "World War Hulk." Got seppuku? P.S., the final two nails in the MCU's coffin came when: 1. the Hulk became Andrew Golota (i.e., in "Infinity War"), and 2. She Hulk episode 1 was written (AHEM!).

Here's the thing. The MCU could have been viable for decades. After all, the comics that inspired it have. But...the comics and the company that bought Marvel has surrendered to Wokeness, and the "talent" they hire to write this stuff do not measure up to the artists who created this and gave it life. And the company, when not preening about THE MESSAGE, obviously are more concerned about churning out "product" than producing quality art and entertainment. Got streaming services to fill, dontcha know?

Iron Man still holds up to this day. I love that movie and RDJ will always be Tony Stark.

What did the MCU lose after Endgame? Its mind? Coherent storytelling? Quality control? Its sense of reason?

I was the one of those who had hopes that MCU can continue after Endgame but... was I wrorng!!! RIP MCU(after Infinity Saga)

The problems are as follows. Too focussed on modern politics. too focussed on monetary income. But in my opinion, it is too slapstick and relies on one liner quips, taking any feeling of real consequence or seriousness out of the MCU. A better approach now would to go a bit more serious, looking at the world/universe after Thanos and wondering why bad things are still happening and if it is hopeless to fight for good. Focussing on the heroes that do what they do despite things not getting better and people turning on them.

They need to dig deeper into the comic books. There are so many more interesting stories and characters to be retold in movie form. I would love to see someone pick up some more of the UK 2000AD stories too. I'm sad that the second Judge Dredd movie did not create enough buzz as Carl Urban was IMHO the perfect Dredd. An ABC Warriors or Strontium Dogs or Robo Hunter or Rogue Trooper movie would be awesome! Heck they could even do a Meltdown Man movie for the furries.

After Endgame, Marvel should have just taken what characters were still standing and gone back to basics, small self contained films with the odd nod to other films to continue connecting them, a bit like the idea behind 2012 Dredd where the film was portrayed as just a day in the life of Judge Dredd

I’ve made more important decisions in my life than checking out after Endgame. But I’ve seldom made such a monumental change in taste that’s had such immediate vindication-as soon as I saw how stupid Wandavision was, I was really, really glad I stopped caring.

Why did Endgame make it seem like the gauntlet could only work via snapping? In Infinity War Thanos just did it to flex, but now it’s being treated like it’s only activation method

I haven't watched a Marvel film since End Game. It kind of had a finality to it. Everything they built up to had come to pass so what's left? A bunch of characters people care little about getting their own films.

Nobody could explain this situation better than you, Dave. Thank you.

Spiderman(2002), Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith, Avengers(2012), Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame were literally events when those movies were released in theaters.

Did you know it wasn’t always going to be Tony who snapped? Apparently that was a controversial decision and there was talk of Steve being the one to do it

I think the idea is that the audience will sit through any content offered to them in the next two phases while trusting that it will eventually pay off in another giants crossover event. What they're missing is that nobody felt like they were sitting through anything in phases one or two: most viewers enjoyed all the movies they were watching and they felt like they had value in and of themselves even if they had never led to anything else.

Honestly, beyond the politics, I think they have a real problem with good villains. Each villian in the first set of phases was like a mini boss, but we got hints of thanos behind it. But now? Who's the villain? idk...and it's not clear that Marvel knows either. TBH I haven't watched anything past endgame, Just seen reviews. I was looking forward to black panther 2, thinking it would be a wholesome simple film with a smaller scope because BP1 sort of side skirted the central MCU storyline. But I guess not now...

Endgame was quite honestly the end of the magic MCU era that we all loved. It has never been the same since. I don’t even fully blame it on “wokeness” (although that’s part of it). It just seems that they are so fixated on quantity. They used to only release a few movies per year and the connections were subtle, which made the reward of Infinity War and Engame so great. Now it’s overtly forcing all these connections, and movies and shows come out every month. It’s just lost the specialness it once had.

In conclusion, the marvel saga from iron man to endgame was a masterpiece... But it had an end, we need to move on to creating new stories.

They could fix the MCU with 3 words. "Galactus is nigh"

Took the words right out of my mouth. I've been wondering for a long time since Endgame; what villain can do worse than destroying half the universe and what hero can do better than saving it? Now that we've seen the stakes get as high as they possibly can what do we have left?

Excellent essay, sir; thank you. I grew up with the early-1970s Marvel (I was a card-carrying member of FOOM--the "Friends of old Marvel" fan club), but right around the end of Jim Starlin's first Thanos storyline (in Captain Marvel, with the cosmic cube--a.k.a. the tesseract), I sort of lost interest. They defeated the Evil God--where can you go from that? Back to bank robbers? Snooze... Teen interests like girls and beer had entered my life; the only comics I followed were the maximum Stoner Art ones for me, like anything Kirby did, Conan (especially Barry Windsor-Smith), and the incredibly trippy Warlock series Starlin helmed (where it was nice to see Thanos return, but it was still secondary to Starlin's visual splendor). As an adult, it was joyous to see visual approximations of Kirby, Ditko, Gene Colan, Gil Kane, etc.'s work up on screen--and as upbeat, heroic, and iconic as I remembered from my childhood--and as trippy from my later teen years, Dr. Strange should be on some Top Ten Psychedelic Movies lists by now. Heck, sometimes how they streamlined a character in the MCU improved their origin (Thor, IMHO; and I'm glad they stuck with Cap's 1960s optimism rather than his 1970s moodiness). Personally, I think they should have "ended" with Infinity War--and left it at that (The Smile? Best ending ever.). But I knew they couldn't, and the teaser of Captain Marvel thrilled me at first (I was, though, unfamiliar with the comics version of Carol Danvers--so no disrespect to that character; I just don't know them--the cinematic Carol Danvers? Others have said it better. ) I thought I was going to get my preadolescent hero Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree Empire exiled to Earth, suffering in the Negative Zone, only called to Earth when Rick Jones is in danger.... And I was more than willing to accept if that character had been gender-bent: O.G. Mar-Vell was BESET with doubts and pain (Yon-Rogg killed Una!); there was no reason these "flaws" could have been incorporated into a female character. To quote a great comic legend, Nuff said. But I'm a Mets fan, so am used to saying, "Next time." And Endgame was adequate for me (I usually hate time-travel stories like this, and this only was tolerable due to humor--which was a bad sign....). As others elsewhere have mentioned, the MCU should've taken a break and waited a few years. Then, restarted with something smallish and stand-alone, then gone super-weird (like a hallucinogenic Warlock flick), then kicked into a next phase.... Thank you for letting me rant; looking forward to your next one!

I always knew they would never recapture the magic once the Infinity Saga ended. That kind of lightning can only be captured in a bottle once. But I never anticipated the collapse to be *THIS* exrteme.

I still don't see why Stark had to snap. He didn't need to do anything universal scale. He had the power of all the other stones which could decimate Thanos'forces.

People who still enjoy the MCU content are just happy to consoom content. This comes from someone who ate the MCU up during the first 3 phases but was also aware of how all of the comics had gone far left work and thus turned to shit. Once they burnt through their legacy characters, I knew they would be left struggling.

Honest Trailers illustrated the MCU in such a good way, saying Phase 1 was the introductory phase, Phase 2 was the gritty risk taking phase, 3 was the fun phase, and 4 will be puking its guts out wondering what went wrong, if you don't see the analogy then I'm not gonna explain any further lol

The only pre-endgame movies I missed were Captain Marvel (because I ain't watching that garbage) and Antman & The Wasp (I hear I didn't miss much except for why Antman wasn't there for the blip). Now I refuse to watch any of these movies or shows. I've heard nothing but bad things except for No Way Home, which I might watch some day. But a lot of people like me went from devoted fan to complete apathy. Nice work Marvel.

It lost its villains, it lost its purpose, and it lost its heroes. They killed their cash cow, they hacked it up to make steaks, and now they're trying to sell us the knee joints in a watery stew.

I completely agree with this video. They can't match Infinity War and Endgame. But what they can do is give us something completely different. Give us the X-men. Give us a coherent multiverse timeline. Give us Dr. Doom. There are so many brilliant Marvel comics that could be adapted to Live action. Instead of building up to these giant Avenger style movies, they should focus on singular events (something like House of M or Apocalypse or a story focused around Genosia or Latveria). There's a ton of potential in this franchise but the formula itself needs to change

Aside from Transformers, my only brush with comics during my 80s childhood was the Secret Wars comic and toyline. Captain America and Iron Man were the two hero toys I had and Doc Oc and Dr Doom were the baddies. So I've grown up loving those characters and it helped having 3 Captain America movies in the 80s and 90s, and cartoon appearances too. So despite the bandwagon that everyone likes to jump on, those characters were no unknown Z list Marvel characters as I as a normie loved both of them. So really they were the reason I loved the MCU and are part of the reason I'm not interested in their future films or shows. It doesn't help that all originality seems to have gone from the MCU, the writing is awful, the projects are now being made not for the audience but as some sort of therapy for those who are making them.

The snap marked the beginning of the woke age.

I'm glad you're back pumping out more videos. It seems to me like you took a little break or perhaps the all-powerful KZfaq algorithm wasn't showing me your videos LOL. But it's good to have you back I think I have agreed with pretty much everything you said throughout the years.

As you were listing off the 7 movies and 7 serials in Phase 4, it struck me how out of all that, only 1 movie (No Way Home) and 1 series (Wandavision) were generally considered "good or decent". For the most part, the others were "meh or bad" (though Hawkeye and Moon Knight had their moments). Quite a huge step down.

MCU was born with Tony And it died with him

It’s not “the MCU before Endgame” and “after Endgame”, it’s the MCU and the M-SHE-U.

Hate to tell ya, but every generation looks back and realizes they had the best thing around. Movies, cartoons, toys, videogames, etc.

The Blip is the biggest narrative mistake they made .As much fun as Endgame was lets be honest the Thanos they defeat is not the one that cleaned their clocks in the previous movie .

And not sure if I really noticed before. But WHAT was BLACK WIDOW going to do with that LITTLE HANDGUN she loads during the 'Avenger circle shot' when they were surrounded by ALIENS flying around on vehicles that shoot LASERS!?!?!

The only MCU movies I liked were the iron man trilogy so now that iron man is gone I haven’t touched it

The end started before endgame with the butchering of the Captain Marvel character. there was so much more to her than the shallow, terrible version we see in the MCU. she's worthy of being a favorite hero, if handled correctly. the MCU shat hard on her character and butchered it, portraying her as Super Karen.

I consider the last 2 Spider-Man movies as the after credits scene equivalent to the infinity saga. To me it shows that while the big threat is gone there will always be somebody around to protect the people.

So if Deadpool is phase 6 that means the entirety of phase 5 will be within the span of a year that's way to much content

The series died for me before Endgame as I was secretly hoping Thanos would win. And I only really liked Ironman, the rest of the cast meant nothing.

If MCU was an engine, then by phase 3 you started to hear strong noises and knockings from inside of it. It was still running well, but it was clear that something was wrong. Some movies were of highest quality, others not so much. And by Phase 4 bits and pieces started to fly. If Phase 3 ranged from mediocre to amazing, then Phase 4 was mediocre to really bad. Even "No Way Home" was maybe 7/10, with a lot of questionable choices in terms of writing and narrative. Media that i liked the most in it was probably "I Am Groot" and it was not even a show. Black Widow was 5/10, mostly because it was completely out of place, plus it was already infected with progressivism. Shang-Chi was pinnacle of mediocrity, 4/10 at the most. It was not really that deep or interesting. I liked first third of the movie, then it became a slog. Eternal...seriously!?!? No Way Home had a lot of weird choices that did not fit that great, 7/10. Multiverse of Madness was a tranwreck narratively speaking. So many utterly moronic choice. It has plenty of good moments, but that all they were, good moments in a sea of mediocrity and shit. 4/10 Love and Thunder - same as MoM, some good moments, but overall it felt very forced, like trying to fit square peg into round hole. Jokes either did not land or went for too long. Whole storyline felt disjointed, with next to zero chemistry between characters. While Bale was the best thing about it, he overplayed his role quite often as well. How exactly character that turned "evil" because his daughter died, by something he perceived as negligence of his god, then takes a whole bunch of children hostage, clearly is not bluffing and is willing to sacrifice them for his goals. And then he flips 180 again and wishes for his daughter back?!!? Like what to fuck, where is logic in all of it!?!? All shows were trash, poorly written, with clear political agendas and messaging.

Iron Man has been my favourite for 30 years, mostly because of the Avengers arcade game. Cap, Vision, Hawkeye... and Iron Man!

I can't understand why the Secret Invasion plot was wasted on a TV series instead of becoming the next big story arc. It could have been a perfect slow-burn, with mounting paranoia and mystery, and the fate of the world would again hang in the balance.

Was it just a coincidence that Thanos snapped his fingers and the entire universe lost half its population one year before the global cabal snapped it's fingers to reduce earth population for Sustainability?

Frankly, Endgame kind sucked, it was meh at best, they had a few good movies and some decent ones before it, but we're definitely never gonna see a good Marvel movie anytime soon, not until the wokeness BS dies down.

This is a problem any series or franchise faces - keeping it engaging. It's not just the superhero genre but any sort of entertainment that's episodic in nature - be that books, comic books, TV episodes or movies. The heroes have to have a worthy villain / problem to solve / situation to get out of. It has to be a bit more than their skills can handle such that they have to rise to the occasion to succeed. That creates the character development which keeps those characters engaging. It also however, leaves the characters stronger at episode's end than at its start. Thus, the same villain / situation / problem won't be as satisfying to be presented with again. Yes, you can have a regular villain who is the nemesis for the heroes but they have to eventually best him permanently for the tales to truly be engaging over the long term. That means that the characters have to face new and ever more powerful antagonists and situations. So, the threat goes from small and personal - Peter Parker learning how to handle the bullies in his high school - to bigger ones. Such as Peter learning to handle villains using super-tech to steal from banks, to bigger ones than that. And eventually the heroes wind up saving the entire universe with but a snap of their fingers. The problem there is what do you do once you've gotten to that grand a level? This is why Doyle got excruciatingly tired of writing yet more Sherlock Holmes tales. He'd run that character as far as he could. He'd defeated the arch villain and anything further was just shallow repetitions. This is why the comic book superhero tales go through frequent "reimaginings" or "reboots." Superman can only save the entire universe before it gets dull when he does it yet again. Thus, in the MCU they'd kept it all truly entertaining and engaging until, finally, there was nowhere left for the characters to go. They really had saved the entire universe. The tale, in all its different chapters and characters from each, was well and fully told. There really was no more ground to cover or story to be unfolded. Plus, the audiences had gotten that emotional payoff they'd long been promised and wanted. They too were well and truly done. Everything else in the superhero genre is not just picking over an already picked over feast with nothing but crumbs left. Not even any actual scraps, really. Oh, there'll be some entertainment amongst the minor characters who were introduced too late in the series and who's story arcs weren't thus filled out or completed as the credits rolled for Endgame. But precisely because the main characters loom so large in their tales, these other characters simply can't have the same draw or investment by the audiences. So, yes, with Robert Downey Jr.'s snap, the genre was effectively exhausted and done. For now. It'll come back some years from now when enough time has passed that there won't be the immediate comparisons to the MCU in its glory days. And when audiences are once again thirsting for new superhero entertainment. But that's the thing, it'll have to be NEW superhero entertainment and not just a "Iron Man Lite" sort of thing. So, it's gonna be a while...

Honestly I think everyone had experienced 'superhero fatigue' and just burned out from the sheer volume of Marvel films they'd seen in the last 10 years. Endgame was a welcomed finale and most people were happy to check out. Not only does Phase 4 have no direction, you now have to watch every Marvel TV show just for the next film to make any sense. It's become a chore, not an enjoyable escape.

The MCU ended with the snap… no the first one… it should have stopped there, and for me… it has

I watched half of episode 5 of Her-Hulk. It was decent ... with the humor on the level of an ordinary sitcom. But this level shouldn't be in a show about a major Marvel character. Also, she isn't green when she's angry, but in the next scene sitting by her desk WORKING she's green. What's the logic?

Endgame's ending was misery porn for a faux emotional send off when it should've been a triumphant, punch the air victory with all the heroes riding off into the sunset. They had to get rid of RDJ because he costs money.

It is easy to forget that the first several Marvel movies did *not* have planetary or universal stakes. They were about things like Stark's control over his company and technology, the Hulk's control of himself, winning a war. A lot of focus was on building characters and the world, not just building up threats (to be knocked down by the end of the movie). The television shows have the smaller scale and greater time to work, yet most of them fail to feel compelling, or like they're creating a greater whole. We're told to care rather than made to care.

Christ Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life ✝️

I got every movie on DVD from Iron Man to Endgame. I really enjoyed to collect the movies. But Marvel died for me with Tony. 😢 Mildy said, i don't like Disney/WB and Agenda Films.

Endgame was the climax of the entire MCU. It will never reach that level again because many Millennials were in high school, college or young adults when Iron Man (2008) came out and matured with the MCU. The first Avengers came out in 2012. Those were very different times.

Marvel has NOT FOUND A REPLACED FOR RDJ'S IRONMAN YET, and I don't think they ever will. It's been all downhill after the snap.

The Tony Stark snap is now a meme which has become synonymous with switching off the MARVEL bulb of ideas.

Tony Stark snapped all the enthusiasm out of future phases.

It wasn't impossible for the mcu to pick itself up after endgame. There were plenty of story lines and themes they could've explored. For example, after the snap, there could've been a theme of loss and letting go of the past, with all of the deaths around, and hope for the future. However the priorities of the mcu shifted and, whatever the priorities are, the writing quality just wasn't enough to uphold any theme at all, never mind in the franchise but even in their own movie. The writing wasn't mature enough to properly explore the nuances of character to the same degree we had pre endgame either. Overall, it was an opportunity squandered by a lack of talent and drive.

Infinity war was the pinnacle Doesn't seem possible to top that build to cliffhanger, even endgame couldn't match its feel

I'd argue that the MsheU started capitan Marvel's appearance. We started to see the character assassination in Endgame of the main male heroes.

I remember how angry I was with multi-verse of madness, I've been reading doctor strange comics since middle school and seeing how they ruined my boy strange and then killed him off again in the comics I'm officially done with Marvel.

Nothing lasts forever, on to new things.

I would argue that Infinity War ended it and Endgame was the beginning OF the end. It established that a) writing no longer matters as they decided that Infinity War painted them into a corner which they couldn't escape. So they used the time travel trope to "undo" everything. Then b) it went MSHEU - Captain Marvel and other women will save us all.

Good Story Writing. Decent CGI. Character Development. Credibility. Likability. Ability to sell tickets. Respect. The Fans. Money. Marketing. Hype for sequel's. Hype for T.V shows. To name a few, the list goes on.

When Tony Stark snapped his fingers the MCU lost half of its viewers!! That’s called IRONY! 🤣🤣🤣

For phase 4, they really should've gone for a much more grounded and individual approach. This way, by the end of phase 4 and 5, you weren't focused on the universe ending, but characters actually dying, or evil overthrowing the universe, with the last handful of movies being dedicated to some form of enslavement upon the universe, rather than its destruction.

The MCU formula has not changed since day 1, lets have 2-3 big set-piece fights. BUT in phase 1-3 the took the lows between the set-pieces and used them for character development. Starting with phase 4 it seems that they upped the set-pieces to 4-5 a movie and cut out the character development between them, and that's when they lost their heart. In avengers, you see Bruce and Nat have a bonding moment which made the stakes in the following set-piece feel grander when the HULK going after Nat, then the action ends and you wonder, will she forgive Bruce, will Bruce forgive himself? That's what we lost.

The only exception since Endgame has been No Way home which was an awesome movie, although Far From Home was technically after Endgame, it doesn't feel like it is a "post Endgame" movie maybe because it came out so quickly after Endgame and it was still in the same phase, so I don't count it.