Mister Minutes' Cinema Circus

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I like the MCU. I like it a lot. I like... most of it. Watching through them all is how my mom and I kept our sanity during the covid lockdown, and we had a great time discussing our favorite characters and storylines, the fascinating themes that some of the movies touch on, critiquing the things we didn't like; I can't fucking wait to hear what she thinks about this nonsense.

On Saturday, Marvel revealed that Robert Downey, Jr. is coming back to the MCU after the death of Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame... as Doctor Doom. This has caused a lot of confusion and trepidation among the fanbase, as well as uncritical excitement in fans who are just happy to consume product and await next product. I for one think that this is a hilariously desperate move to regain fans after the pretty deep slump that was Phases Four and Five.

I don't think it's controversial to say that the MCU is a monumental achievement of cinema. We're used to everything being a "universe" now, and the MCU has been around long enough that there are kids alive today who have literally never known a world without it, so I feel like it's easy to not see the forest for the trees, and forget what a truly gargantuan achievement it really is. Under the leadership and direction of Kevin Feige, Marvel was able to build a universe spanning 33 movies, 22 TV series, and almost 20 years of real-world time. That's fucking insane. The level of forethought, coordination, resource gathering, and commitment on the part of all the Marvel creative teams, Feige and his fellow producers, and all the dozens and dozens of recurring actors -- not to mention ALL THE FUCKING MONEY -- that it takes to pull off an experiment like this, and succeed like it has, it just crazy. Nobody has been able to replicate their success -- not DC, not the Monsterverse, not the Dark Universe -- because none of them have what Marvel had: patience. Marvel had the patience to produce multiple standalone films to introduce their main characters and develop the interconnected world slowly before culminating in The Avengers in 2012. Six movies over four years.

DC Comics saw this runaway success for Marvel and thought "Hey, we can do that too!", so they shat out four exercises in audiovisual torture and pretended they were movies: two of these were standalone films featuring a single hero, one was crossover team-up movie, and one was so fucking terrible they had to call a mulligan and poach James Gunn to come clean up where they'd shit the bed. So technically that's two standalone movies to establish characters, one movie where they jammed Batman's chocolate into Superman's peanut butter (even I hate what I just wrote, sorry), and then they jumped straight into Justice League, where they called up Joss Whedon to come help them out (after a legitimately sad tragedy called Zack Snyder away from directing). All that to say, Marvel succeeded where DC fumbled and ripped their pants and spilled egg salad all over their crush, because Marvel was patient, and they continued to see success for another seven years after The Avengers, up through the equally monumental finale of Avengers: Endgame.

Endgame was more than just a movie; it truly was an event, a cultural milestone. Regardless of your feelings towards the MCU, it cannot be denied that Endgame is a triumph of filmmaking. Is it the most artistically satisfying film ever? No. Is it a flawless script? No. But it is a culmination, it's a reward for following the different storylines and character arcs and relationships of the previous twelve years, that all converge at the decimated ruins of the Avengers' complex. Nothing of that scale, the sheer concentration of star power and digital artistry and movie magic all focused into this triumphant finale like Rocket and Groot forging Stormbreaker in the heart of the neutron star. It's a supremely satisfying (MOSTLY) conclusion to the full Infinity Saga arc. Best of all for viewers, and worst of all for Marvel, it feels final. Thanos is defeated, the countless lives lost are restored, and many of our heroes achieved a catharsis, a closure. Captain America gets to live out the peaceful life he lost; Banner and Hulk learn to coexist peacefully; Thor achieves the hardest lesson of leadership - knowing when to step down and let a better leader take over; Valkyrie becomes Queen of New Asgard; Hawkeye gets his family back; Black Widow lies dead at the bottom of a cliff; and, after years of battling his PTSD and his obsession to protect the world, Tony Stark is the one who ultimately saves the universe, who finally uses the Infinity Stones to crumble Thanos' empire to literal dust, and, having fulfilled his greatest duty, he can finally rest in the arms of his beloved Pepper Potts. It's a heartbreaking, supremely cathartic end for the character and actor who propelled the MCU into the juggernaut franchise we know it as; one couldn't ask for a better send-off...

JUST KIDDING FUCK YOU BABY THE KING IS BACK KISS MY ASS 3000

There's a general agreement among fans that the post-Endgame MCU has not been nearly as strong as the Infinity Saga, and there are a lot of factors one can point to that have affected the quality of Phases Four and Five: the covid-19 pandemic halted production and forced them to change certain story aspects about the new TV lineup and production safety protocols in general; the use of generative AI to create the opening of Secret Invasion (a stylistic choice that I actually kind of like, but that's a topic for another rant); inundating their audience with too many shows and movies too close together; an increase in "wokeness" and "too many women-folk and minorities on the screen" (that's a joke that's a joke I'm fucking joking) -- but at the end of the day, the reason for the decline after Endgame is very simple: they stopped being PATIENT. They got nervous about how badly a lot of the Phase Four and Five projects have gone over, and they needed a surefire way to get fans' asses back in the theater seats.

Another factor in Marvel's panic is, of course, Jonathan Majors. A big bankable star snatched up by Marvel on the rising slope of his career; they hitched their wagon completely to him and set him up as the next Thanos, the next Big Bad Overarching Villain who the whole next phase would revolve around... and then he got his ass handed to him by Ant-Man in one of the worst MCU movies of the whole fucking run, and then Majors got convicted of physically assaulting his girlfriend and Marvel dropped him completely, thereby killing the future Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars movies that were supposed to be Majors' Infinity War and Endgame.

Fuckin OOPS.

I'm just speculating with this, but I'm sure that must have been absolute chaos in the MCU writers' room, Feige must have been pulling his hair out; and so, with their rising star out of the picture, they had to scramble to make up a new plan. People had already been champing at the bit for Doctor Doom to make his entrance to the universe-- after all, I'd argue that Doom is far more well-known to the average movie fan who isn't knowledgeable on Marvel lore, and, with a Fantastic Four movie already announced (the team which Doctor Doom is the nemesis of), it seemed like the perfect time for him to take center stage. It made perfect sense (logistically, anyway; the Kang hiccup will be a hilarious bump in the road for Marvel forever now) to pivot from Kang to Doom... and then at Comic-Con they revealed that Robert Downey, Jr. was coming back to play the Latverian dictator himself. I know that was a LOT of preamble to get to the meat of this rant, but I think the context is important to keep in mind as we examine just how stupid this decision potentially is.

"You could not live with your failure. Where did it lead you? Right back to me."

That Thanos quote is seeing a lot of use this week, but god damn is it so perfect. Marvel could not live with their roast burning, so they ran out and got Krusty Burgers to feed us an unforgettable luncheon, but I highly doubt this phenomenon is going to be as beautiful as the aurora borealis. Alright, enough beating around the bush, IT'S FUCKING STUPID. Like it's REALLY dumb, because it creates so many problems in the universe, namely........

Is he playing Tony Stark or is he playing Victor von Doom??

In the comics, Victor von Doom is the leader of the small nation of Latveria, and known nemesis of the Fantastic Four; and, thanks to three previous Fantastic Four movies, everybody knows this is the case. So, if RDJ is playing Victor von Doom... has there just been another guy out there in the MCU world who looks exactly like Tony Stark leading a small European nation and nobody noticed? Will he be revealed as the long-lost twin of Tony's, coming out of the shadows now that he's dead? Would he be another villain wronged by the Stark men and coming to take revenge on the world? Or are we going down an even stupider path...

Are we looking at an alternate universe variant Tony Stark who became Doctor Doom instead of Iron Man? Cause that's just about the stupidest thing I can think of! First of all, it's stupid either way because it shows how desperate Marvel is: they're jingling Iron Man-shaped keys in front of our faces so that we'll laugh and clap our hands. "Hooray, the shiny man is back!!" It's also stupid because the reveal was made for Avengers: Doomsday, and not Fantastic Four. So is Doctor Doom not in Fantastic Four? Is Victor von Doom in Fantastic Four, only to die and have his name taken by a Tony Stark lookalike? Is RDJ playing Victor von Doom and Marvel just expects us to ignore that he looks exactly like Iron Man? Marvel's already teased Galactus appearing in Fantastic Four, which is dumb because it potentially means that Doom is not the villain in that movie, and also potentially means that the Fantastic Four movie will just jump straight to a gigantic planet-eating god-being as the main villain with zero buildup or foreshadowing, because that worked out so well for The Eternals. It didn't even work out well in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, because when the stakes are so high, it kind of loses all meaning because there's obviously no way Galactus can actually eat Earth. When the Green Goblin dangles Mary Jane and a bus full of kids off the Brooklyn Bridge, that feels tense because those are believable stakes; we can sympathize with Spider-Man having to make an impossible choice between who to save. On the other hand, when the stakes are so high that the entire universe is in danger, that's just inherently less interesting because you know it can't happen, because they need to make more movies. Thanos is the exception because, while killing half of all life is still a big goofy stupid comic book plan, he actually does it, and it kills characters we care a lot about, while still leaving the others to deal with the fallout. Galactus can't eat the entire world because then Marvel wouldn't make any more money.

The last thing that's fucking me up about this decision is, if I'm right that it's an alternate Evil Doctor Tony Doom, Esq., going up against the New Avengers lineup, then there's only one person on the hero roster who's ever even met Tony Prime, and that's Sam Wilson... who, as far as I know, didn't even ever speak to Tony -- so that means there will be next to zero personal emotional stakes for the New Avengers, because I highly doubt Clint or Bruce are going to show up since they've already passed the torch on to their proteges, Kate Bishop and She-Hulk, who, again, have never known or met Tony Stark.

So basically this is gonna be a huge shitshow and possibly spell the end of the MCU. If you didn't think they'd already jumped the shark with Black Widow (pictured: the shark), this is certainly the point of no return in terms of quality and believability. Comic books are goofy and stupid as fuck, I'm sorry-- but the MCU at least had a coherent series of events going on that wasn't completely ridiculous. Now we've got: a troll named Pip, Harry Styles as Star Fox, Pre-Character-Arc Alternate Gamora, Mexican Namor doing an illegal border crossing to conduct a terror attack*, the entirety of Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder, ridiculous stupid MODOK, a Kang storyline that will go nowhere, and now we're just bringing back old actors to play new characters. Christ on a cracker, guys, this shit is looking dire.

Now, I may just be a clown on the internet, but I think if you have a complaint, you should be able to back it up with what you would do instead; complaining without an idea for improvement is just whining. So, to finish off this god damn essay, here's my idea: First off, I think they should have taken a few years off after Endgame. Take a victory lap, let the dust settle while you formulate the next two phases, and only then come back and set up the next stuff. Erase Kang, get rid of Kang completely; he's too big, bigger than Thanos, and you can't do that right after Thanos. Reel it back a little bit; give us a Fantastic Four movie introducing Victor von Doom as the only villain (maybe it's Michael Fassbender, or, fuck it, get Denzel Washington if we want to stick with a black actor for the main arc villain, why not); then, just like Thanos, we can show bits of Doom gathering his resources through after-credits stingers after his defeat at the hands of the Fantastic Four, culminating in his triumphant return in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars. It was a mistake for Marvel to invest in a villain who has infinite alternate iterations, and, in my opinion, a mistake to dive right into the multiverse when everything is doing the multiverse right now -- it would have been smarter to do a smaller-scale arc as a little breather after Endgame, a fun and comfortable Back to the Future Part III to come down after the intensity of Part II, y'know? As it stands now, we're watching Marvel panic, having dug themselves into a hole that's too deep to easily climb out of, and the hole is lined with grease so they keep slipping back down and bumping into Taika Waititi. Doomsday will either be so stupid it kills the MCU, or so stupid it propels it into a new echelon of cinema -- I'm not going to say "and I'm here for it", because I'm really kind of not. But at least it can't be as bad as The Eternals.

Probably.

*(I have zero problem with Namor being Mexican, I thought he was cool as hell -- but I did see it pointed out on Black Twitter how hilariously tone deaf it is to have a Mexican villain crossing water to get into a technologically superior country illegally, that's all)