MCU fans lament the franchise’s relentless expansion robbing them of the little things

Marvel, let’s chat for a moment. In spite of all the memes that came from it, you have the claim to the most ambitious crossover event in history with the double threat of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame; a title you certainly have an uncontested claim to as far as the modern era goes. And yet, you seem dead set on outdoing yourself in that department for better or worse.

And for a good many folks, it seems to be for the worse. For all the films and shows from Phase Four’s library we’ve grown to love, it’s hard to ignore the growing oversaturation with every passing property. The myriad of new introductions have far outweighed the development for any new or established characters, and it’s left some of the folk on r/marvelstudios nostalgic for the tighter throughline that the Infinity Saga had.

The original poster pointed out how frequently we got to see such MCU staples as Iron Man and Captain America over the course of the Infinity Saga, compared to now, where not only is the rapid introduction of new characters leaving less and less time to spend with characters we want to keep following, but there doesn’t seem to be a main character for us to latch onto in the first place. We may love Shang-Chi, but with just one movie, nay, appearance under his belt so far, he’ll have to pull off a miracle to make us care about him as much as we did Iron Man by the time Avengers: The Kang Dynasty rolls up.

Others began echoing the observation of the Multiverse Saga’s lack of an “anchor” character, despite one user suggesting that Kang could very well be that figure. Like the rest of the Multiverse Saga’s players, we’re gonna need much more time with him if he’s going to have a lasting impact, especially with the fizzling defeat he suffered in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

The more organic nature of the Infinity Saga likely had something to do with the current dissonance as well, and that ethos isn’t something that can be simply replicated.

Even though Marvel’s current trajectory is well-deserving of critique, we’d prefer to wait until the Multiverse Saga has run its course before making any final judgments. Secret Wars can’t come fast enough.