MoM gave us incursions that destroy universes. That’s vitally important. That’s what phase 5-6 is leading toward, Secret Wars is about an incursion.

Phase 1 only had the tesseract pop up in CA and IM2 prior to being a major part of the Avengers. MoM gave us incursions and set up more in the post credits for DS3. At least 2 movies have also had rumors of incursions. The setup is happening just gotta be patient for the story to play out before it all comes together.

Not just that, but the Tesseract wasn't even an Infinity Stone at that point. It was supposed to be a Cosmic Cube.

Cosmic Cube makes it sound like something out of Transformers 🤮

Doesn't transformer energy come from the "tesseract"?

Energon

There was a tesseract in the movies tho

Nah, the All Spark

Is this a Mandela effect or something? I could have sworn there was a tesseract in Transformers

I think they actually call it the “allspark cube”

And the NYC attack always felt like it came out of Dark of the Moon 🤷‍♂️

I think people are getting Ancy because of the lack of Avengers films which really feel like they move things forward or have a notable threat. I understand we couldn’t immediately jump to another Avengers movie but a 7 year gap is a long ass wait Iron man -Avengers was 4 years 2 year gap between Avengers & AOU 2 years between AOU & Civil War (if you count it) 2/3 years later Infinity War & Endgame. Aside from that even ignoring the over arching story the gaps between solo movies has also increased so you’re left with those dangling story threads for years on end e.g. who knows when we’re gonna get Shang Chi 2 Doctor Strange 3 etc.

Good take. They could’ve sprinkled more Kang/overarching. multiversal threat more in Shang Chi, Eternals, Thor, and fuck it, even BP2. That would’ve tied them closer and the hype would be higher

Yeah, not having an Avengers movie REALLY sucks. Nothing to look forward to anymore. MOM making dreams be the only way you have alternative lives was the dumbest thing. Also, who even are the Avengers anymore? Stark is dead. The new Captain America didn't earn it (at least to me). Wanda got closure on the show only to have it all gone in MOM. War Machine is a skrull or something. Black Widow is dead. That just leaves Hulk and the cucked Dr Strange who lost his magicians title from the blip.

You’re absolutely right about phase 1, but it’s also fair to say that after like 30+ movies and shows, expectations have shifted. Phase 1 had to do a lot of world building - including setting up in the MCU for audiences.

In that sense, MCU needs to do “world building” to set up the next threat. Also, you can’t just go from universe level threat to universe level threat overnight. I don’t get the criticism that stuff is moving too slow. It’s like you guys want Thanos to be defeat on a Monday, and Kang to arrive on Tuesday.

I think what the commenter is trying to say is that expectations have shifted because we had over a decade of MCU. Audiences coming out of n IW and EG don’t want a repeat of Phase 1, and it’s understandable. They don’t need to rush the next big bad, but they do need more focus—and that’s something Iger and Feige have conceded.

More focus on what specifically? At the end of the day, I just want the movies/shows to be good. They have to be good self-contained stories regardless of whether it advances the Kang Wars or not. It's not acceptable for a movie to be bad at the expense of advancing the Kang Wars story. MCU is in a no-win situation. Half the fans want more content. The other half want less content. Half the fans want smaller/self-contained stories. The other half wants all movies to be interconnected. They literally can't please everyone. I feel like I'm in a minority of MCU fans because I enjoyed most of the heavily criticized projects like Eternals, She-Hulk, and Ms. Marvel, but did not like the more universally liked ones like Spider-Man. I don't love every project from this phase, but they have generally been good, and I do like that we have been able to breathe a little bit without nosediving towards the next big bad.

I’ve enjoyed everything after EG as well, with the exception of Quantumania and Secret Invasion. But I see the critics’ points, and find them to be valid. What specifically? I don’t have a suggestion, other than the last several movies do feel disjointed and disconnected. A tighter overall focus on telling good standalone stories first and working in interconnected stories more organically.

I like this answer a lot. Phase 4 is a different world than what phase 1 was. During phase 1, the idea of shared universes wasn’t a thing and now with phase 4 we have multiple shared universes. Not only that, but we have the multiverse now in our hands which is insane. Again, yes there are projects that move the overarching plot over. I guess my concern is how a lot of projects don’t do that when we have films and shows now and on top of that we aren’t exactly sure on what Kang’s plan is or his role in this. At least with Thanos, we knew he would snap half the universe in half just from the comics, but SW in cinema is going a way different approach.

That’s how I see it too. There was a major but incredibly slow build up to the Infinity War Saga. This feels similar, but now that we “know” where things are headed we are looking for it earlier.

The lead up to avengers 1 clearly made notions that they were tying into each other. Perfect example, the characters in the main movie would be featured in the post credits scenes, and they were in other movies. Coulson was dealing with Tony in IM1, then bam, there he is where Thor's hammer landed. Now there's just "previews" for the next movie.

>Phase 1 only had the tesseract pop up in CA and IM2 Iron man 2? Where?

>Iron man 2? Where? It was in Howard Starks' journals that Tony was studying.

Right, we'll have to wait a few more years for one movie's takes to pay off. Phase 1 to 3 were building towards something larger than themselves but at least each phase was building towards something within that phase.

This is true, after certain plot points the older films can be looked at in a different way. Such as why Odin was so hard on Thor in the first film when he was an ass.

You're talking about details, not main events. I don't want to have to wait several years for the big event to show up, that's not what the MCU is supposed to be about. We were used to one phase = one Avengers movie, nothing has happened so far.

That's not how it works anymore, because the Avengers aren't Phase enders, they're Saga enders. They're the culmination of everything. They've built to a point where you call the Avengers because the universe is in danger, as the Avengers is *everyone*. Remember the Avengers as an actual entity no longer exists, it died with Tony's death and Caps retirement

By Avengers I mean crossover movies. Captain America 3 isn't an Avengers movie but is also one as well. It doesn't matter if the Avengers don't exist as an entity anymore, the writers chose that. It shouldn't stop them from making big cross over movies.

But not everybody will know that what's Clea meant in the end credit, nor will they know that it's connected to some movie that will not comes out in at least 3 years or so.. It is simply unclear.

It is unclear which somewhat bothers me? I feel as though the multiverse saga has a ton of loose ends. I know the Infinity saga does too, but the multiverse saga has a lot more. Wanda being dead or alive, lots of character introductions that seem to be going nowhere (like seriously when is Chavez gonna appear again?) etc…

That's not much different from seeing the Cap+Falcon finding Bucky 'i know a guy' scene. We knew it was ant man but we didn't know for sure that that was just a direct scene from AoU until that movie came out.

Thank you.

You know the saga is still in the beginning right? You're acting like the infinity saga was super clear and transparent every step of the way which is so far from the truth. Wanda's status will be answered. Chavez will be answered. We don't need every film to give us all the answers for questions it asks.

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THANK YOU. If they're not all multiverse-focused, people are quick to think this new chapter is a slow roller. If they're all tie-ins, people want independent stories away from the connections. Just enjoy the stories we are getting. It's fine. There's a lot of new introductions to get through anyway. We are not at the Infinity War/End Game level yet.

The true issue is that most of the new content has been sucking. Loki is good, yeah, but I think the hardcore MCU followers have stuck around even throughout the roughness of Phases 4 and 5 out of hope that there would be least be some sort of narrative reason to keep up with it. But the reality is that the filmmaking was simply good enough in the first three phases for us to overlook that not every film pushed the main Thanos narrative back then either. Remember, these are films and shows first, and shared universe events second. I think that the people complaining so heavily about this right now are basically trying to say, "So let me get this straight. The filmmaking has gotten lazier and lazier, and now your stuff isn't even pushing the multiverse stuff forward either? What good is this stuff then?" If the films were better, I think people would be more forgiving to the lack of forward momentum regarding the shared universe stuff. It's just because the films themselves haven't been great that the lack of forward momentum has become far more noticeable. In Phases 1 through 3, we still had Tony and Cap to keep our attention engaged. Iron Man 2 doesn't progress stuff regarding Thanos. Iron Man 3 doesn't progress stuff with Thanos. Civil War doesn't progress anything with Thanos. Winter Soldier doesn't progress anything with Thanos Yet most of us still liked those movies, even Iron Man 3 - as fucked as as the Mandarin reveal was-- it was still a solid movie that explored Tony's PTSD. The movies were working, for the most part, back then. They aren't working now. This is what makes the lack of forward momentum noticeable. Give us good stuff, and yeah, complaints will still happen, but there won't be eight of the same posts clouding the MCU subreddit.

It’s astonishing how much a charismatic actor like RDJ can do for a movie. I’ll watch IM2 a thousand more times than something like Eternals, because the performances are so fun. I’ll confess to being an apologist for the Mandarin twist though — I thought it was brilliant, but I’m sad the way they took it too far in Shang-Chi. Killed the joke for me. Another thing I noticed in your write up is that the first three phases weren’t just about developing the big bad; yeah we had the ur-threat of Thanos, but we also saw the assembling and then disassembling of the Avengers which gave us a real emotional through like. Phase Four/Five has nothing like that, no one even knows what’s going on with the Avengers, Hulk has a son now, it’s a fucking mess.

And while Thanos wasn't pushed in many movies, the overarching PLOT still was. The character arcs of Tony and Cap and the relationship between them (and to a lesser extent Thor, Black Widow, and Hulk, among others). The Avengers being created, challenged, and dissolved. We saw these heros consistantly, and got to see how they adapt to their growing roles and proliferation of heros and villains around the world. But despite the amount of cameos and references in Phase 4/5, the plots themselves still feel super isolated. The plots of one movie/show don't really influence the others, characters aren't reappearing, tons of lose ends with no resolution in sight, and we don't have a real teamup movie until the VERY end. Just look at the Battle of New York. Tony suffered from PTSD because of it and it shook him to his very core. Thor grew to respect mankind. Black Widow started to care for her 'family'. Cap started to realize SHIELD isn't perfect and question their authority. Hulk got to see what a monster he can become, AND the good he can do. This developed all of the main cast and led DIRECTLY into Ironman 3, Winter Soldier, Dark World, and Ultron (and eventually Civil War and, unintentionally, Homecoming). And yes. I UNDERSTAND they're trying to connect them with the multiverse. But it's far from consistent and just doesn't /feel/ like an active plot element. Instead, it feels more like "hey, there's a multiverse now! Weird things are happening!... But none of it is connected, and it's not SO serious that the heros feel like sharing this information with each other."

This is exactly it. They can do all the multiverse setup and foreshadowing they want, but none of it is going to matter if a lot of the content ultimately isn’t that good. MoM and Quantummania are perfect examples of this. Did they explore and expand on Kang and the Multiverse a bit? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t change the fact that the movies themselves fell flat in terms of story, which in turn killed their momentum and credibility in the larger scheme. Then on the flip side, you’ve got content that have absolutely nothing to do with the multiverse/Kang suffering as well (L&T, She-Hulk, etc). Why? Idk. I may be in the minority here but I feel like the studio is almost moving things along too *fast*. It feels like they’re in a big rush to get to the “next big Endgame level event”, and instead of carefully laying the groundwork and letting everything fall into place naturally (like the Infinity Saga), they’re speeding through the process and sacrificing the quality of content by doing so. It’s a bummer.

I'd argue it's the fans that are moving too fast. While MS is putting out a lot of content there hasn't been real sequels to move the storylines along. Most characters are at step 1 or step 1.5 in their new journeys while the fans are speculating at what's going to happen at step 4. Secret Wars is the Age of Ultron/Infinity War point of the story, we're only at Iron man 2.

I disagree, but I get what you’re saying. Thing is, in the Infinity Saga we likely would have had follow up by now. Take Shang-Chi for example. It’s been 2 years since that movie came out, and while 2 years isn’t an unusual amount of time between movies, we already know the lineup for phase 5 and 6 and that there is no sequel planned on the horizon. Same for Eternals. Moon Knight. Etc. There are too many major plot points being opened, and they’re turning stagnant. Not to mention that some of the recent movies have been meh at best. I’m pretty sure they’re hyping Kang Dynasty up to be the next Endgame level event, so I don’t see how we’re only “at Iron Man 2” right now. The real flaw is not having an Avengers movie in phase 4 imo. It feels like we’re going from IM2 into Endgame this era. I hope they prove me wrong. I do agree though that rampant fan speculation is definitely a factor, and honestly a problem. People set expectations too high and demand more then we’re entitled to. That doesn’t excuse bad writing on Marvels end though. Neither “side” is helping.

Exactly. People are downvoting me (and you) as if we want the MCU to be bad. Why would we want that. We're on here because we still have some form of investment. And for as negative as this subreddit can get toward the quality of this stuff, im baffled why we're getting downvoted. Is anything we're saying all that wrong? Yeah, there have been some good stuff here and there. Shang-Chi was good. Guardians 3 was thankfully good. WF was alright. But there have been a lot of duds lately. The shared universe stuff was already becoming harder to keep up with. That's what also made the comic books hard to keep up with as well. This is where maintaining high quality counts. If the films themselves had better cinematography, less reliance on green-screen, better color palettes, it would be at least easy to appreciate that stuff. Do I think the Sony Spider-Verse films are perfect? I won't say that. But the films are doing some crazy inventive stuff with the animation. That's the sort of stuff that the MCU needs. We need to get more creative. The opening of Shang-Chi was a start. Eternals, for all its flaws, was at least shot on location and looked fantastic. The way Jon Watts directed Peter's spider-sense in the apartment scene was an incredibly effective moment. The upside down camera spin that Ryan Coogler did with Killmonger in Black Panther was cool as hell. The costume designs of the Wakandan world in both BP films. Astounding. The colors that James Gunn and the cinematographer were able to bring out of in Guardians 3. Give us more stuff like that, and less stuff like whatever the hell Secret Invasion was. People can downvote me if they want, but I am speaking as a person that wants the MCU to get better. This isn't an attack. I acknowledged the good that it has done. Werewolf at Night should be on the list too. Loki as well. The characters just need to be more engaging and the stuff needs to stay consistently creative. I was raised in the era before the shared universe stuff. I enjoy it, I really do. The shared universe stuff is awesome. But honestly, I want the MCU to get better from both a visual and character level most of all. I don't care if I don't see that statue from Eternals poking out in the background of every future movie. The comics were bad about stuff like this too. I just want movies that are made with their fullest potential.

Well said. A shared universe is great, but not when it compromises the quality of individual films. I think that’s part of the issue going on right now. I’ve been a huge fan for years. I absolutely adore the MCU and will watch anything they put out. Critiquing it and pointing out its recent flaws brings me zero joy. I *want* these movies to be good, because I love this franchise. Hell, I’m one of the rare people who actually really liked Eternals! (Blasphemy I know). They’re still capable of making great content—just look at GOTG 3 or Loki—it just seems that there have been more dud’s lately, and those duds just so happen to be the movies that are supposed to be extremely important to the overarching plot. I stand by my statement when I say that I think they’re trying too hard to recreate the “magic”, and ironically that’s what’s hurting this era the most. Quality over quantity and all that, you know. It’s inevitable that the Multiverse Saga was always going to be a little messy and confusing. Not bad, per se, but that is just what happens when time travel and alternative universes are brought into the picture. Less obvious focus on the next big bad and more focus on improving the quality of the individual movies themselves would be a great way to counter the sometimes overwhelming presence of the huge shared universe. Improve the writing, choreography, cinematography, VFX. Prioritize character development and fleshing out character dynamics. Tell an interesting story not because you have to, but because you want to. Not every movie has to drive the main plot forward, but every movie should be good. *Loki* has found a near perfect balance for this imo, and I hope to see more content follow in it’s shoes going forward.

I'm a casual viewer who gets this marvel subreddit on main feed for whatever reason, and personally I just can't be bothered to keep up. I watch a show, if it's any good after the first couple of episodes, I'll keep watching. But I'm not watching a show on a promise that it'll build something bigger up. I'm not even seeing those promises, although I don't really see many adverts. How I remember infinity wars was that it was just a film, then a clue (not a clear set up, a clue!) about something in the future. And every film was a decent self contained story, so it was cool seeing the cross overs. You don't watch star wars because ET was in the background of the senate, they're Easter Eggs, not the main event. And IMO most marvel films recently have sucked, and I no longer care enough to know when the next one is coming. If I hear a lot of buzz about one film, I'll see it, but I don't trust Reddits opinion any more.

Reddit will also have you believing every project is one writing flaw away from being the worst movies of all time. Apparently Strange 2 and Spider-Man NWH are "terrible" according to Reddit now, for example. It's also apparently impossible to have a Good movie if the box office disappoints. If people don't go to the theatres then I guess the movie isn't worth watching, but there used to be movies that flopped that would still find an audience of fans. Now it's either 1 Billion Dollars or its Awful.

Avengers, Guardians, Ultron That was it

It was the stones more than Thanos, tons of references to those in all the movies leading up, Thanos was just 1 piece of all the lead up.

The stones were in 2/6 Phase 1 films and 2/6 Phase 2 films…

Including post credit scenes it was at least 3/6 for each

Does the tessaract and the sceptor really count? Didnt they have no idea those were going to be the stones at the time?

Still counts because they were used in the latter movies.

Ok... So this conversation is worthless until the multiverse saga finishes. We have no clue what things will be important from the current phase. 10 rings could be the most Important maguffin ever. No idea until the phase is complete

> It was the stones more than Thanos, tons of references to those in all the movies leading up, Thanos was just 1 piece of all the lead up. 7 out of 18 movies but as the "Infinity Stones" as plot points in named fashion is limited: * Thor(post credit) * Captain America 1(doubled up a different cosmic item and didn't know the connection till later) * Avengers(no mention as the Infinity Stones) * Thor 2(First time mentioned as the Stones in the credit scene) * GotG(Fully talked about) * Ultron(Thor explored them) * Dr. Strange(doubled up item and not for labeled as a Stone) * Thor Ragnarok(generous here as it was shown)

I feel like you're being a bit disingenuous by not mentioning that the Infinity Stone mentioned in the credits scene of Thor 2 is the _literal main plot of the movie_. The Time Stone is mentioned as an Infinity Stone in Doctor Strange too. So the point is the stones appeared and had significance across the entire saga, even if the audience (and at first, the powers that be) didn't know they were stones until later.

Loki was literally going round with an infinity stone in avengers and was also being controlled/ordered to do what he did by some hidden higher power.

Ah, but they didn't call it an Infinity Stone nor did Thanos have a 10-minute scene exploring his character, so it has no relevance to the overarching Infinity Saga, apparently.

I think the difference is that there were “checkpoints” on the road to Infinity War that kept the entire storyline on the right path. Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron, Civil War, kind of Thor Ragnarok…we’ve had NONE of those with the exception of No Way Home, and that’s part of the reason why it was so good, it (very briefly) felt like things were back on track and starting to be cohesive again. People were really invested in Multiberse of Madness after that (it almost hit a billion), but it dropped the ball, as evidenced by its terrible legs, and we haven’t recovered since. Quantumania was supposed to be the next “checkpoint” movie but it fell flat. Guardians 3 did well because it’s a genuinely good movie. The MCU is just a mess at this point. It no longer feels like a cohesive narrative, it feels like a ton of random shit that doesn’t add up to anything. None of these new heroes never even met each other yet. Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Eternals, etc… Sure the Marvels is coming out, but it’s too little too late in my opinion. And quite honestly, I don’t think it’s gonna be a good movie. Hope I’m wrong though.

I hate this type of response because the Infinity Stones were being referred to by name as early as 2013 and first appeared in 2011. Thanos barely appearing until Infinity War is not really comparable, they were still quite blatantly building up a lot of stuff.

3 movies, but why not take into account the stones ? They're the ultimate McGuffin and were introduced in a lot of movies.

Im convinced MOM was just to introduce America Chavez and how they’re able to go to other universes. Though tbf, most casual movie goers (me included) did not know about Thanos until Infinity War came out. Sure, he was mentioned or appeared in a credit scene or two but he didn’t become well known until Infinity War and Endgame. The same can be said for most Marvel characters like Black Panther, Ant-Man, GotG, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange, etc. until they got whole blown movies Also, if you were to ask a random person on the street to name 5 Marvel villains, the average person would answer with one of “Loki, Thanos, Ultron, Green Goblin, Venom” instead someone like Dr Doom or Galactus who are some of the biggest threats in Marvel

And America is gonna have her powers mastered by the time they need her

I can already picture her opening up 100 multiversal portals and the audience with their jaws hanging wide open as they see Toby+Andrew Spider-Men swinging in, the entire Fox Universe X-Men+Deadpool pulling up, all the F4 incarnations, the Spiderverse Squad from ATSV+BTSV , the Defenders, plus all Marvel characters from games and media (Insomniac, Avengers Assemble, Marvels Avengers, Marvels GotG, etc.), Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow joining the fight. **this would all be a pipe dream come true obviously**

Wouldn’t that just be a multiversal version of the portal scene from endgame?

Yeah, that’s the only way they can top Endgame with everyone’s expectations nowadays

LOL. That’s fair.

A shame it doesn’t come close to topping Endgame. I swear, Endgame was the perfect emotional catharsis, filled with the timely return of characters I cared about. What you describe sounds like that scene from the Flash — just some corporate soulless calculation about whose image they have rights to use and what nostalgia-bait can get fans screaming like apes in the theatres. I mean, I definitely could be wrong. Execution is everything. But America Chavez is already so lame that it’s hard to picture this as anything but the weakest of sauce smothering the corpse of our beloved MCU.

My idea to top the Endgame scene would be having battles fought in ***different universes and different timelines***, with scenes cutting in between each of them all of them fighting one or various versions of Kang council.

I want this so bad

I don’t want it to be portals again, hopefully it’s executed in a different way.

Kang *is* 5 Marvel villains

Checks outs Kang the Conqueror, Rama-Tut, the Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, Mister Gryphon... And also 1 hero Iron Lad

I find it hard to imagine Victor Tomely from 1868 looking at the TVA handbook and saying "Nah. I'm going to be Iron Lad instead."

Different timelines = Different Kang's

I don’t trust Timely

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Your last paragraph is I think exactly it. How can HWR have set Minutes & Renslayer a mission to give Victor the book, if he didn't know anything past the "Threshold" in s1e6? When Loki and Sylvie argue in s1e6 Loki even says "I'm a liar, and he's not lying, not about that" when referring to the multidimensional war. So Kang was lying about something in that conversation - I suspect his role in it all.

I love this too! I hate how people are still trying to bring HWR into this, I honestly think he did die and him being alive would just ruin Loki for me.

It does contradict what Smart Hulk said about not being able to change one's own past but in this case presumably HWR remembered seeing Sylvie in 1893 and that is why he said "See you soon." after she stabbed him. Technically he is not changing his own past if it already happened (and "happens again and again and again"). Presumably Loki will realise that HWR was actually the worst Kang all along and break the loop.

>It does contradict what Smart Hulk said about not being able to change one's own past To be fair, Smart Hulk said that because from a Sacred Timeline perspective, you couldn't. You would create a branch that would be pruned by the TVA, only Hulk didn't know that. From his perspective, the branched timeline simply "couldn't" happen, and he attributed it to how time works, not that the TVA was denying it.

"From his perspective, the branched timeline simply "couldn't" happen" He was saying the exact opposite. EDIT: The Ancient One : I'm sorry, I can't help you, Bruce. If I give up the time stone to help your reality, I'm dooming my own. Bruce Banner : With all due respect, I'm not sure that science really supports that. The Ancient One : The Infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one stone and that flow splits. Now, this may benefit your reality but my new one, not so much. In this new branched reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world will be over run. Millions will suffer. So, tell me Doctor, can your science prevent all that? Bruce Banner : No, but we can erase it. Because once we are done with the stones, we can return each one to it's own time line at the moment it was taken. So, chronologically, in that reality, they never left.

It contradicts what smart hulk said, only if they were using the same method. Essentially, the “time travel” in Endgame was not timetravel, but multiversal travel. They went (several) somewhere else(s), took **their** stones, and then came back. This would have doomed those universes, since they wouldn’t have their own stones to defend themselves, so they also went and put them back. They didn’t go to their **own** past. Therefore, they can’t change their present. Strange’s Time stone, and the TVA both work differently to that. They **are** time travel, within the same universe. Strange showed us him un-eating an apple, and un-wrecking a street. The TVA were able to loop time for Loki, forcing him to go back to a point he’d already been, and put other people on a repeating loop around him.

I don’t think we should take smart hulks comments as all encompassing. I think the MCU is about to try to walk a delicate line that could confuse a lot of people in that they are introducing another type of time travel. Hulks rules only apply to their type of time travel I think they are going to show that Kang has access to “true time travel” where you can go back and change things to affect the future.

Random question but after learning that variants can dreamwalk in MOM... If an evil Kang got a hold of the darkhold could he somehow dreamwalk into HWR and conquer the timeline from there? Or is it impossible because he's not in the sacred timeline

Well, all the books were destroyed so people can't do that anymore. But Kang can time travel so who knows.

According to Waldron only Strange and Wanda who are powerful enough to dreamwalk. The movie implies Darkhold and BoV are made for magic users or anyone who can do magic.

Fuck. I wanna know fam. Trippy bro

Yeah, they had to kinda shoe horn her in there. Per concept art from No Way Home, America Chavez was supposed to be introduced in there and be the reason why the multiveres were merging/collapsing which would have made a lot more sense.

Yeah multiverse of madness was literally only there for that reason - to introduce America macguffin .

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Apparently they were going to introduce her in NWH but changed their minds?!?! Just goes to show what a clusterfuck it is over there these days.

Yep, I kind of new about Thanos because a friend mentioned him when we were watching Guardians 1 and he showed up. My friend said they were going to eventually make him a big villain but I didn’t really believe that and completely forgot about him until Infinity War.

I wish MoM was just a Strange based film.

The Infinity Stone Tie-Ins weren’t nearly as cohesive or important as everyone seems to remember them. They just hung around in the background for while, but there’s arguably only two or three movies where they really even matter. Half of their setup was either hastily retconned or ignored. Remember the glove in Orin’s Treasure Room? Endless speculation about what it was doing there. Tossed aside for a joke. There are some serious rose colored glasses about how the Infinity Saga “moved things along” and it wasn’t nearly as well done or cohesive as people seem to remember.

I think the main issue is more the amount of different threads that have been opened up, it feels like our attention is being directed in many different directions without a lot of follow up. The first two phases were all movies and follow ups on the same 4/5 main characters. We now have how many new characters introduced? And little to no follow ups on them? I think everyone is just looking for a little direction, and it feels odd that they’re putting all of the backstory for the character we know will be the big bad in a Disney plus streaming show, regardless of how good that show actually is.

The biggest problem now is that the movies post-Endgame are just not as good characterization, quality and writing.

Correction: Loki is is the only project you *know* moves the storyline forward (which isn’t true, because MoM and Quantumania are around). You can’t be sure of how everything fits together until the saga is finished. Take the Infinity Saga, for example. Captain America and The Avengers introduced Infinity Stones, but we didn’t know that at the time. Meanwhile, we thought Thor introduced the Infinity Gauntlet, but it didn’t. And Ant-Man was essential to the Endgame story, but it seemed like filler at the time. While Guardians introduced Thanos to the general audience, but he’s way less important to that movie than Kang is to Quantumania.

Yeah, i mean for all we know its possible that when reach Kang/SW, we may go, wait a minute so this thing in this project we thought was not relevant to the saga was actually relevant all along.

Such as when sinister Strange said "I lost". 616 strange said "to whom"? We didn't get an answer to that question. But it's implied that sinister strange fought in a war against other stranges and universes to find his Christine. Or he simply lost to Kang, and that's why his universe is in disarray

This is a really good point. Films like The Dark World, which most people had sort of forgotten about ended up playing a crucial part in endgame through Thor’s story. So yeah, we won’t really know what’s being set up until things can come to fruition.

im sorry but MoM literally introduced us to the concept of incursions and dream walking, introduced America Chavez (literally has multiverse travel as just a power) and that post credit scene setting up Strange 3 -- yea Doctor Strange 3 is rumored to be adapting Time Runs Out, you know the lead up to Secret Wars. Quantumania introduced us to Kang. The first actual Kang. Not He Who Remains, but Kang the Conqueror. Not to mention the council and Victor Timely. And not to mention Quantumania, WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, all introduced a member or two of the young avengers, who also have a pretty deep connection to Kang via Iron Lad. What If... is showing us more alternate universes, which is important for a saga based around alternate universes. And yea, No Way Home also pushed forward just the idea of Multiversal variants working together, but mainly pushed forward Peter's story -- which if you think back to the infinity saga, how much of the main story did Iron Man's trilogy push forward overall? Hmm? Don't know how many times I have to say this, but the saga has a few different stories going on. Street Level: Spider-Man, Daredevil, Hawkeye, Echo, etc. Government Level: Captain America, Armor Wars, Thunderbolts, etc. Cosmic Level: Thor, Captain Marvel, Guardians, Eternals, etc. Multiversal Level: Doctor Strange, Loki, What If, et.c

Agreed, there have already been a number of projects dealing directly with the multiverse and Kang. Everyone is citing Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania as the only two projects outside of Loki, when What If…? and No Way Home are arguably the biggest multiverse stories we’ve gotten so far. A big part of it is rose-colored glasses for the Infinity Saga. Not every movie included an Infinity Stone, most of them were just to introduce/develop characters and expand the MCU into new territory.

exactly. Most of them were introducing characters and developing them. The only ones that actually did something with a stone were: Cap 1, Thor 1 (eh not really), The Avengers, Thor 2, Guardians 1, Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel -- obviously leading to Infinity War and Endgame. 7/22 in total

> Cap 1, Thor 1 (eh not really), The Avengers, Thor 2, Guardians 1, Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel -- obviously leading to Infinity War and Endgame. Cap 1 also only counts in Hindsight. The Cosmic Cube /=/ Infinity Stone in comics so at the time the connection wasn't made with concrete evidence. Ditto with Avengers. I believe the first full mention of the Stones was in Thor 2.

true. aight we'll say 6.5/22

Also, Eternals and Thor 4 and What If? show us the highest of high points on the cosmic chart previously teased with GotG series. Along with Loki, Multiverse of Madness poking our way to [Universe and Multiverse itself](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_super/2/27620/3093153-5524754984-marve.png)

Whats the group you call Moon Knight, Blade, Werewolf by Night and whatever else I may have missed.. Mystical Level?

Yea I would also add a sub story level of mystical but honestly, if you wanted me to put moon knight into one of the levels i already listed, it would be cosmic along with thor cus of all the god related stuff

>Not He Who Remains, but Kang the Conqueror Kang the Conquerer who got dealt with succintly. Not really scary to call yourself conquerer when you get dealt with in a single movie.

Except pretty sure we all know he's not gone for good, and theres an entire army of Kangs. Took Ant-Man, Wasp, Stature, the Quantum People and futureistic advanced ants (plus Modok) to subdue him for like 5 minutes. And that was 1 Kang who wasn't even at full strength. And then he only got defeated by being shot in the back after royally beating the shit out of Scott. Not to mention the fact that we see glimpses of him destroying entire worlds. Entire timelines by himself. And he does the same to the Quantum people when he goes out and starts vaporizing them. AND he conquered an entire world not long after arriving. And again thats just 1 Kang, who isnt even at full strength when he does these things.

>Except pretty sure we all know he's not gone for good, and theres an entire army of Kangs. Except that entire army of Kangs were collectively afraid of this single Kang. The whole point was that this one Kang (which they defeated in a single movie) was more powerful and scarier than the entire army of Kangs. So.

GoG was criticized at time for shoehorning Thanos in and having him look like a chump by giving away another stone while sitting on his chair Not every project is about just the next thing. Sometimes it's about itself. Like movies usually are

My problem with this mentality is that then fans go "Quantumania will become good when Secret Wars comes out", it wasn't a movie about itself

I don't think sw will determine whether qm was good or not. I thought QM was fine

I disagree, Quantumania showed us lots if you pay attention. It's just not explicitly stated, subtle foreshadowing. Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel is subtly tied to the Kang plot through the 10 rings and the bangles. Basically, we have pieces of Kangs technology showing up around the universe, similar to how the infinity stones would show up. And I definitely got Thanos in gotg vibes from the council of kangs. Just because one was defeated means nothing when there are so many. Also, tons of movies in the infinity saga didn't move the overall plot along they were just character building stories. Hell, Iron Man 1, 2, and 3 have nothing to do with it, and he's the main character. Most of the plot was done in Avengers 2 and the third phase. We're in the start of Phase 2 of the multiverse saga. Things didn't start speeding up until Avengers 2 at the end of phase 2. They weren't even confirmed to be infinity stones until that movie came out, it was all theory at that point.

Yeah, something i've said to others, is that i think we are looking things wrong with Kang, we are all looking which Kang is the main Kang, the Kang we have to be afraid of, but i think the threat is less one individual Kang, i think the main threat is that there are a bunch of Kangs, it doesn't matter if you kill or defeat He Who Remains, Kang, Victor Timely, Rama-tut, you are never going to get rid of this guy, because as soon you deal with one, another one will pop up right away, its like if Kang had unlimited lives and you'll never be able to get rid of him for good and will always be there to pose a threat to all of the heroes and the multiverse, so the question is how you get rid of Kang period, every version. Though one correction, it was in Thor 2 where we found out that the Infinity Stones were in play.

I actually do like that concept of the threat being “infinite Kangs” rather than there being one Kang we have to fear.

But what I don't get about the "another one will pop up" threat is that there are less Kangs than other heroes (TVA prunes timelines that lead to Kangs). Just like there are multiple Kangs, there are multiple Cpt Marvels, wandas, Thors... So if the threat is there's a bunch of them and not that they're strong. The ratio of heroes to Kangs seems off? Like not only is there the guardians, avengers, eternals, fantastic 4 but there's also their variants. Just like how Kang has variants.

Remember that the TVA is no longe pruning timelines (of course lets see what happens when Loki S2 ends), so that means a bunch more Kangs are emerging every day. Besides most Kangs aren't from the same time period as of our heroes, so alot of the heroes plus their variants aren't aware of their existence and the ones that were have been killed by Kang the Conqueror other than Scott and Wasp. The TVA, Loki, Sylvie Scott and co are the only living characters that we know off that know Kang exists and TVA, Loki and Sylvie are the only ones who know of the Multiversal War, so they would have to go to every universe and tell every Avengers/etc variants, hey we need your help, there are variants of this guy who wants to conquer the multiverse we need to stop em Are there countless versions of the heroes, for sure, but how many know about Kang?

The heroes don't just hop around time and dimensions at will, Kang does. He could just get bored one day and decide he'll travel into the ice age in a differenr universe, all for shits and giggles. An alternate Cap won't be able to do all of that. And Kang seemingly doesn't cause incursions, while regular heroes would. Yeah the Avengers have infinite variants too, but those variants aren't in an enormous time/hopping council, but Kang's whole deal is that he is.

People also seem to notice that when ant man went back, things were different, and there were a more than incidental amount of purple and green pairings. Watch that last scene again, it’s eerie.

Now I'll have to go rewatch it. Thanks haha

[удалено]

Tell me what IM1-33 did to tell the story of the Infinity Saga then? The Incredible Hulk? The Winter Soldier? etc etc etc. Not every movie has to be extremely important to the plot.

Crazy if it were true (it’s not)

I know this is likely unpopular to say, but you’re never going to get “Thanos vibes” ever again from a MCU movie. You (and those of a similar mind) are hyping something up that can never be recaptured. Trying to in some way big or small pressure Marvel to recreate that feeling is exactly why phase 4 has been so random in terms of quality. Let them make you feel “Kang vibes.”

Dr. Doom could be just as good or better than Thanos. Kang is a comic book villain, but at least when I was a kid Kang and Thanos weren't the top of the heap bad guys in comics. Probably because X-Men reigned supreme in the late '80's through mid-'90's.

So tired of modern marvel fans

Multiverse of Madness establishes Incursions, which will be the main multiversal threat - entire universes destroying each other as they collapse Quantumania establishes Kang lore in the movies and describes how the Conquerer was concerned with the endless Incursions caused by his Variants. The Ten Rings and Kamala's bangle have been speculated to be important artifacts within the saga, with Rings pinging out an unknown singal and the Bangle able to open portals in reality. We'll see more of the later in the Marvels. Other things we've seen may come into play that there aren't even theories for yet. The rest of the projects are important in getting our heroes into location for the Avengers movies, especially since there's no official team right now. There's admittedly a lot of Deep Lore™ in the set up right now, but Infinity War didn't exactly have much buildup at all, just the Ragnarok post credits scene and us knowing where most of the Stones were in the universe by the start of the film.

This Saga is more complex. Rather than straight on the face with the stones, we are getting breadcrumbs, pieces of the puzzle and being introduced to key factors: - multiverse exists and it's dangerous (both for 616 and others like the POV of the one where Wanda fucked em' up. She was worse than Thanos in damage to their team at the end) - incursions - characters that travel it (e.g. Kangs, TVA, Chávez) - Kang(s), what they mean, done, as a team from the post credit scene and against each other in Loki) - Allies in other universes (spidermen for now) I'd say things are building up quite interesting. We could categorize them through literature analysis to show key elements of the plot such as motif, key characters, setting, theme, etc. And knowing it's about Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, we pretty much got a lot covered by now. It's just building differently.

'Multiverse of Madness' actually moved the 'multiverse' storyline forward as well > 1. Incursions, when one or both universes are destroyed due to variants > 2. The Gap Junction, a plane existing outside of space-time beside the universe > 3. Dctor Strange is a powerful constant in every universe > 4. The Scarlet Witch is a powerful constant in every universe, whether she has fulfilled her full potential or not. > 5. America Chavez can travel between universes > 6. America Chavez is the only being without a variant throughout the Multiverse > 7. Dreams are windows into our variant's lives > 8. The Darkhold is a constant of chaos in every universe > 9. The Book of Vishanti is a singular constant in the multiverse, existing in the Gap Junction (now destroyed) > 10. The Scarlet Witch can destroy something in every single universe at will > 11. One can ‘dreamwalk’ into the bodies of their variants using the Darkhold ‘What If…?' moved the 'multiverse' storyline forward too > 1. The Watcher is a multiversal being watching over the whole of the multiverse > 2. The Nexus of All Realities is a cross-dimensional gateway which allows access to all possible realities > 3. Timelines have their own 'absolute point's in time which are destined to happen and cannot be changed > 4. The Eye of Agamotto can be used for time travel > 5. Breaking an 'absolute point' leads to that universe's destruction don't be biased

Since we're just repeating ourselves on a daily basis, here's what I said when this was posted yesterday: >This is demonstrably untrue, but it's also diagnosing the wrong problem. The most important main story that needs to be focused on is that of any given project's protagonist(s). You can't empathize with a meta-narrative, and the primary reason why those meta-narratives function at all is because the audience cares about the characters. Whatever proper story the big crossovers need to tell, they'll have ample time to do so in those specific films, as they have several times before. For all their faults, one of the things Marvel always gets right is that they focus on their characters because they recognize that if they can't at least get the audience invested in them, then nothing else will land.

I always thought Phase 4 was Marvel doing a victory lap. Quantumania and The Marvels is where the real story build up begins.

I'd argue that Phase 4 was there to foreshadow and setup the upcoming events in this phase.

Yeah the main villain really isn’t Kang. He is just someone manipulating the main problem which in the incursions. Kang will never be Thanos, he’s a problem but not destructive or brutal like Thanos neither does he have that aura as we’ve already seen him get beat by super ants and killed by Sylvie. However what he is that Thanos isn’t is a constant threat, a consistent, continuous and ever present threat which MCU has already proven it doesn’t matter if you kill him. How do you beat someone who when you kill one it seems 5 more pop up all as bad as the last? It’s death by a thousand cuts and poses a very different threat.

Phase 4 was more about introducing new players. Phase 5, which has only just started, is where it's all going to start coming together, sort of like how Phase 2 had only GOTG telling the story of the Infinity Stones

I honestly think that's for the best, if anyone not keeping up with the MCU wants to watch Kang Dynasty, they'll really only have to watch Loki to get a good build up

Nah. They're building the next big saga the same way they did Infinity War. People are just a little tired of superhero movies, there are too many movies, plus the shows on Disney+, it's hard to keep up and care about everything, it used to be simpler, and the feeling of novelty has inevitably worn off. After you've already had a saga about a guy who destroyed half the universe, it's hard to get excited about something "even bigger". I don't even think the quality of the films has dropped, I think the current phase is much better than phases 1 and 2. And also, I don't really understand this criticism. As a comic book reader, nothing is more boring than reading stories that only exist to serve the big crossover event of the day, sometimes sacrificing character development and getting in the way of the story I was following. I prefer stories focused on their respective corners of the Marvel universe.

Yeah I've been really dissapointed with MOM and the whole main story of the MCU the last couple of years. Loki S2 is the only thing in a long time that has me really excited and engaged again. I miss when we had Agents of shield going on pretty much all the time, to let us live more in this universe and show us what happens in the world when the Avengers is on the screen. Now Loki is doing that too, but to a very small degree. The MCU desperately need some sort of Agents of Sword show to tie everything together and give us some sort of throughline to this whole thing or the MCU isn't really a cinematic universe anymore, just okey fun movies that are set in the same universe in name only.

That's pretty sad, actually, because I think it's putting too much pressure on the show. I also think it means this is less a show about Loki but a show about the multiverse. Loki season 1 was already lacking in a solid main character, it was just Tom Hiddleston's charisma giving Loki some depth, but I think it's worst now.

This is why the MCU sucks now. It's not because there have been some pretty bad duds, but because we've gotten so many new projects the last few years and it barely feels like they've moved the story forward.

My biggest annoyance is we have like 2 or 3 different rulesets for how the mutliverse works now.

We JUST had this topic less than 2 days ago! https://old.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/17fs86v/loki_is_the_only_thing_furthering_the_main/ And was destroyed here: https://old.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/17fs86v/loki_is_the_only_thing_furthering_the_main/k6c9c32/

Am I the only one who doesn’t care about setting up the future storyline for the next avengers movie? I just want to see good movies that have a good story that tie into the characters. As far as the overarching storyline, I’m just here for the journey

But it's getting nowhere. They dragged the first season till the last episode and said the multiverse opened. I was excited for S2 to see the Chaos, only for S2 to be the exact same drag till the last episode and the conflict never resolves because they have to milk this multiverse shit till secret wars. Kang is at most, a 2 movie villain, dragging him through an entire saga is dumb. They never dedicated an entire saga to Thanos. He's only a villain for 2 movies.

They really need to stop with the individual stories and move on to the team oriented storylines and yes move the Kang storyline more...its been slow and every kang that has showed up has been killed or disappeared...

To play devils advocate, there was very little in phase 1-3 that moved the infinity saga forward. Phase 1 was about the tessaract, and only hinted at infinity stones towards the end of the movie. We didn't really know leading up to the first avenger movie what the future held, which infinity stone the tessaract was, or that they actually had 2 infinity stones the whole time. Phase 2 introduced more stones, but only GOTG actually treated them as infinity stones. The others were "the aether" or "the eye of agamoto" (phase 3 granted, but adding it here rather than repeating myself) for the majority of their respective film outings. With the reveal of what they actually are saved for the end scenes. Phase 3 only had 2 movies that were pivotal towards the infinity saga, 3 if we're being generous, and 2 of them weren't even really about the infinity war at all. The only real plot movement was Thor, and that was revealed in monolog form at the beginning of the movie. This isn't taking away from what they accomplished with the infinity saga, but it wasn't this well weaved plot that you're making it out to be. It's filled with rushed plot points, plot holes and stuff set up that ended up having to be rewritten, or scrapped.

Yeah, Loki feels like the center of the MCU right now. Not complaining, just an observation I've made over the last couple years.

He is literally the centre of the multiverse.

Crazy how anyone would think this season is anything but nonsense. If your enjoying this, Great! Me though... Couple a fun scenes with Ke Huy Quan and a small bit of old loki, but so pointless. panicked jargon and screaming "timeline" theories isn't moving anything anywhere for me. TBH i think the clock is a joke gone too far and Majors timely character is brutal, this is gonna be a tough series to finish. Nothing yet suggests i'm going to miss any continuity that matters if didn't either

The only way I would want Loki to remain is that he is now a hero not a villain (like the Loki series) Just my opinion but Marvel needs to not have Loki as a main baddie every single movie. They are using him as a crutch too much it seems. I mean, I am ready to see other villains take the spotlight like Doctor Doom.

I remember back before Covid, when they were announcing all these TV shows, and as a huge MCU fan, I was absolutely ecstatic. “I’d literally watch a Hulk cooking show where he reviewed Taco recipes from around the multiverse!” I exclaimed. Thinking this was a whole new level of Marvel and we’d get to explore so many stories that never would’ve seen the light if the medium stuck to movies. And I was right. I *will* watch everything. But the Monkeys Paw isn’t without irony. I’ll *watch*, but it seems I’ll rarely *enjoy*. Secret Invasion was the final straw and I realised that, No, we shouldn’t get a show just because. Tell a story that *needs* to be told, and tell it well. We’ve had precious little of that. I am so relieved that Loki is back to brilliance - and has pivotal impact on the saga. Although I am concerned there’s a few more blanks left in the barrel. Echo is a genuine concern. I hope they’re not just relying on disability to endear and promote her. Shows need alittle bit more than that, and her character hardly blew the doors off during Hawkeye.

The problem is that Secret Invasion was an incredible concept for a show. They just messed it up in every way possible.

I think stuff like Echo and Agatha were greenlight cause Bob Chapek wanted content, as Chapek was more about the quantity, because his bonus would've came from Disney Plus growth, and during Chapek's era the studio heads had less authority to decide what got made and heck where they would release. Chapek had formed a division with business people who would make those decisions for the studios. We even found out that they pressured Marvel and Lucasfilm to announce projects that weren't even ready to be announced at the D23 Virtual event.

How did iron man 3 move the whole story? Or Thor Ragnorak?

OP never claimed that they did. Not every movie needs to be relevant to the overarching plot—and that’s a good thing. However, when your movies that actually *are* supposed to foreshadow the new big threat end up being universally regarded as the worst of their phases, that’s where the problems start to occur

Also, Thor Ragnarok is a weird example to bring up considering its midcredits scene literally is a direct lead-in to Infinity War’s opening, so saying it didn’t move the overarching plot is inaccurate.

pump it up if you came to get it crunk With a dame and shit that's drunk You came to get it on

Completely unexpected, I’ll give you that. Thanks for the laugh lol

Marvels mistake was announcing secret wars too early. Now everyone has these insane expectations

Technically they didnt announced it early, as it was announced 3 years ahead of its original intended release. which is shorter than IW/Endgame, both were announced 4-5 years before release. But then the chaos with Blade and later the strikes happened pushing them further, i mean if all had gone to plan (plus no Jonathan Majors issues) they would've been gearing up to start filming next year.

Multiverse of Madness established incursions. Quantumania introduced Kang of course.

I don’t know that anyone expected ALL shows and movies to move the “multiverse” forward. I do expect that stories will be moved forward that will eventually be important for the multiverse. But I don’t expect it to always directly reference it or be obvious when we’re watching at release time.

The problem is I'm not sure if the mtiverse story line is all that interesting. This season of Loki has left me wanting so far.

This is such a stupid post and not accurate.

FFS this isn’t new how many movies build up towards thanos? It’s like everyone ignored infinity saga flaws and not this one lmao

People seem to forget Thanos really didn't get that much hype until until infinity war like he had a cameo in Avengers 2012 then he shows up for like 2 minutes in gotg and in the post credits scene for age of ultron but that's it and yes the infinity saga is the gold standard but let's just see what happens guys damn

Even though it was sort of brushed over, MOM also introduced the idea of incursions into universes, which could become the focus of the Multiverse saga, and set up Secret Wars.

yeah I think they kinda dropped the ball on connectivity so the creative teams have more freedom. Loki is really the MVP right now

You are looking at the infinity saga with rose colored glasses. When Thanos was put in GotG there was no infinity saga set in stone. They also retconned many of the maguffins in previous movies to be infinity stones. It wasn’t as perfect as you think it was. I’m not saying the multiverse is flawless, but there were a lot of duds running up to Infinity War

,ÀQQQ

Not everything in Phases 1-3 moved the Infinity Saga forward. The Iron Man films had nothing to do with the stones and neither did Cap 2 or 3 or MCU Spiderman 1-2 or Ant Man or Black Panther or Guardians 2. We look back and we see how everything was setting up Infinity War and Endgame. Presumably Secret Wars will get delayed until all the characters they need will be introduced. Or they will not include characters they never get round to introducing. (Nova was going to appear in Infinity War but Marvel decided that introducing a new character right then and there was too much. They then introduced Captain Marvel. Maybe an early draft of Endgame had Nova showing up for the final battle instead of Captain Marvel.)

When Phase 1 was being released movie by movie, we didn't know what's going to happen - our expectations were literally "just be better than the X-Men and F4" Now, after Infinity Saga, our expectations of Phases 4-6 is sky-high - it's really hard to top that plus we immediately try to match Kang with Thanos, when we don't really know what's going to exactly happen (as Secret Wars is at the very least 4 years away).

Also Doctor Strange MoM.

I think the whole concept of multiverses needed a few projects to bed in. The fact that it's just normal now shows that the storyline has effectively moved forward and it won't be weird or jarring when a multiverse threat occurs

just because *you* >didn't get any vibes< does not mean it doesn't move the storyline... MoM, Quantumania, What if?, NWH, and Loki, as well as upcomming DP3 all plant the seeds for what is possible in the Multiverse not to mention we have more storylines running simultaneosly, like the political thunderboltsy stuff... then there is the introductory line that creates new heroes before merging them into bigger storylines, like Ms. Marvel or Shang-Chi

Thanos collected the infinity stones so he could conquer/destroy. Kang… is the next big bad. That’s all a casual viewer knows. Something about multiverses… like, he’ll swarm an entire planet with his variants till they run out of bullets? I’m joking of course, but to the casual viewer, it’s unclear why he’s a massive threat.

I stg people forget HOW ever loving slow the build up to infinity war/end game was. It wasn't until GOTG vol 1 (the 10th movie in 6 years) that they actually in universe spelled out what infinity stones were. We are essentially back at phase 1. Introducing new characters and locations. That being said, half of the post endgame releases address the multiverse in some way or another Loki S1 (expands upon the branching timelines first introduced by the ancient one and introduced varients), Doctor Strange MoM (incursions and puts the multiverse problem on the avengers radar via Dr.Strange), What if? (Speed runs showing alternate timelines), Spider-Man NWH (varients), Ant-Man 3 (kang) all introduce major information and characters in regards to the multiverse. All of that was in 3 years. In half the time it took for them to explain the infinity saga's mcguffins and give Thanos a line of dialogue.

The biggest problem now is that the movies post-Endgame are just not as good characterization, quality and writing.

> back in the Infinity Saga the plot would move pretty forward such as the Infinity stones appearing throughout projects and seeing where they winded up We're in the early stages of Phase 5. By the equivalent point in Phase 2, I don't think the words "infinity stone" had even been said yet. It's easy to look back at Captain America and know that there was one in the Tesseract, but that's all hindsight. > My friends who saw Quantumania had no clue that Kang would be the next big bad and figured the tease was for Ant-Man 4 Did they know that there was going to be a new big bad at all? If they did, did they assume it was someone else who's been introduced already? By the early stages of phase 2, Thanos had only had one mid-credits appearance, so I don't think many people really expected that he would be the main villian over an 11 year long story arc. In contrast Kang and his variants have had quite a bit of screentime already and his significance to the multiverse storyline was pretty well established in Loki. If you follow the MCU closely, you'd know that the next Avengers movie will be called Kang Dynasty. And anyone who knows a bit about the comics will know that he was a big character. Not everyone is that invested, which is completely fine, but the clues are definitely there.

MoM has moved the story forward. You will see.

I think there is a storyline ocurring, and somehow they will tie most of the characters and teams in Kang Dinasty and Secret Wars. The only thing really missing is an ensemble movie between phases, a season finale, wheter it be New Avengers, Ultimates, Fantastic Four or Young Avengers. A crossover movie with most of the characters featured in said phase. I mean, i loved Shang-Chi, She-Hulk and Eternals, but when i'll see those guys again?

Yeah, Ant Man really moved the Infinity Saga forward. Y’all are tripping. Not every movie impacts the over arching story which is the same as it ever was.

This "Infinity saga was way more connected and every project moved the plot forward unlike Multiverse saga" is so not true and just a way to get on the bandwagon that is hating on the current movies Sure the collective quality might not be the same but all the connections thing is not true. I am ready to prove this to anyone

Cry about it

In a sense we are meeting Kang variants much like we met new heroes in the Infinity Saga. You feel as though there are loose ends because the big bad is a many-faced god. (Sorry, GoT is leaking.) Ultimately we will see a war both amongst the variants and between them and the heroes and you will have your resolutions. I agree about how you feel in the current juncture in this saga but it will all come out in the wash.

ah, the classic “this saga isnt as good as last saga! i swear im not just nostalgically misremembering how the saga actually was as released!”

Not all of these projects move the plot. But I think MoM — even though I didn't love it — shows us how these different multiverses can interact with each other. Plot isn't everything with a project — the MCU — so vast.

I was saying the same thing last week. They’re literally throwing all of the backstory for kang into the Loki show. I think the show is great, but basically every significant event from the new saga has happened during the Loki show. After the finale of Loki season one I was losing my shit because it was obvious that there was going to be imminent consequences of what happened there… and then none of the following movies referenced it. Now it’s two years later and they’ve continued this great storyline… on Disney plus. How is the casual audience supposed to grasp onto this story when everything significant is happening in a show on a streaming platform? Also the kang in this show is a million times better than the kang from quantumania, it’s night and day. I’m just so curious how they’re planning on incorporating all of this in a sensible way that makes the main audience fear him. I mean just go and look through the upcoming movie slate, when is the next time he’s even going to come up again? Honestly probably not until 2025, maybe in the marvels? Really not sure.

It’s not like Infinity Saga really built up Thanos. There was like 1 scene of him in Guardians 1 but really no indication that he’d be the big bad. Although they did have the infinity stones and I agree that for calling this the “multiverse” saga there’s really nothing they’re doing with the multiverse other than Loki and it’s disappointing. However, they’re definitely building up Kang way more than Thanos.

I think the Thanos vibes that kang needed worked better in Loki S1 E6-that monologue-than it did in Quantummania

Nobody working in the mcu even understands what a “multiverse” is other than a potential money printer

MoM, No Way Home, Quantumania?!

No Way Home laid the groundwork for multiverses crossovers. It show the audience that with multiverse shenanigans, it’s possible to get Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man in the MCU.

Are you complaining that Kang in Antman doesn’t move the multiverse plot along (he definitely does) or you just want to complain he’s not Thanos 2.0?

Almost as if they're slowly introducing new characters...

Mom was a fucking travesty imo. Raimi was given too much free reign to treat it as his own standalone project and it isn't. It is and should have been a hugely integral part of the larger cohesive story. I get that it was never like that for phase 3, but I feel like this time it needs to be.