I hate to say it, but it bears repeating – the MCU was destroyed by Avengers: Endgame. It has been nearly six years since Avengers: Endgame was released, netting nearly $3 billion for Marvel Studios and consistently topping lists of the best MCU movies ever made. It drew the MCU’s first cinematic saga to a close with several bombshell developments that we’re still reeling from today. Tony Stark’s death, Steve Rogers’ retirement, and the death of the MCU’s best villain yet, Thanos, are the three biggest, and I don’t think the MCU has yet recovered.

The fact is, I am still a huge fan of the MCU and the vast majority of the productions that have been released since Avengers: Endgame, but I’m not going to bury my head in the sand. 2023 alone hosted the MCU’s most critically lambasted movie and its biggest flop with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, respectively. While I don’t personally feel that either deserves these particular accolades, it’s hard to ignore how emblematic this is of the MCU in a post-Endgame era – and I think Avengers: Endgame itself has a lot to answer for.

Avengers: Endgame Was A Fantastic Culmination To The MCU Phases 1-3

Its Financial Success Speaks Volumes

Avengers: Endgame is the perfect example of how to conclude a franchise. While it still set up plenty of subsequent story beats for the movies of the Multiverse Saga to dine out on, it drew a line beneath more than a decade of stories, and each of the 21 movies that preceded it was expressly designed to feed into this culmination. All Avengers: Endgame had to do, therefore, was deliver a satisfying payoff to this gargantuan, decade-spanning throughline – and it’s safe to say that it succeeded.

The MCU’s Phase 1 was its most myopic, purpose-built to deliver on 2012’s The Avengers by introducing Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America and establishing them as unique cogs in the genre-defining machine that was The Avengers. After pulling this off, and delivering superhero movie characters replete with nuances and clearly defined arcs to traverse, The Avengers then got the ball rolling on a far more ambitious picture: debuting an arch-villain whose influence would pervade several years of MCU installments with piecemeal physical appearances.

Thanos would continue to be a looming threat throughout each subsequent installment that continued to trounce every MCU villain in the Infinity Saga from Ultron to Hela by virtue of how he was portrayed, even to audiences oblivious to his comic book designs. Avengers: Infinity War then vindicated this by having Thanos win in the MCU’s most stunning move to date. While his efforts would be undone in Avengers: Endgame, the Infinity Saga’s climax was a touching testament to the MCU’s composite movies until that point, bringing closure for its most highly regarded characters.

The fact that no MCU movie has yet exceeded Avengers: Endgame‘s box office gross stands to reason. At the time, it was the highest-grossing movie of all time and remains one of the most acclaimed movies in the entire genre. If that isn’t a testament to its overall quality, then I don’t know what is – but the fact remains that it has now maneuvered the MCU into a particularly тιԍнт spot.

The MCU Has Struggled Since Avengers: Endgame For Various Reasons

The MCU Started Releasing Far Too Much Content

The MCU’s Multiverse Saga got off to a decidedly rocky start. There is no denying that the global pandemic affected the franchise’s momentum, with 2020 being an entirely fallow year before WandaVision got the ball rolling on the Multiverse Saga in January 2021. While WandaVision was excellent, it represented one of the several reasons that the MCU was about to struggle to recapture the magic of the Infinity Saga.

The MCU Started Making TV Shows That Were Required Viewing

Disney mandated MCU content for its new streaming platform and Marvel Studios capably obliged. Unfortunately, it obliged with installments that would have huge ripple effects in the MCU, including WandaVision‘s set-up of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Loki establishing the multiverse. This move ostracizes a swathe of more casual viewers who are less likely to commit to several hours’ worth of content typically centering around a single subject. Diminishing viewership for shows like Ms. Marvel indicates how this is a big problem for Marvel when it then attempts to spotlight the тιтular hero on the big screen.

Over-Saturation Intensifies Superhero Fatigue

The latter issue feeds into the notion that Marvel Studios was frankly churning out far too much content. It was additionally difficult to ascertain which of its installments would be necessary viewing for the wider narrative (like Ms. Marvel and Loki) and which were mostly made for more committed fans (like Werewolf By Night and What If…?). 2021 alone saw the release of four movies and five shows, though the new norm would become a steady diet of three of each per year until Disney resolved to pivot to a quality-over-quanтιтy ethos.

There Are Too Many New Characters With No Resolutions

Following Avengers: Endgame, the MCU began spotlighting a new string of characters including the Eternals and Shang-Chi, with their self-тιтled movies being sandwiched between the familiar faces of Black Widow and Spider-Man in the first half of MCU Phase 4. Four years later, despite Shang-Chi, in particular, striking a chord with many fans, these characters have seemingly fallen by the wayside – and people have noticed. This makes it much harder to invest in yet more new characters like Wiccan and Ironheart when audiences are still waiting to see what’s next for the first contingent of new superheroes.

There Is No Avengers-Guided Throughline

Where the Infinity Saga excelled in setting up its climactic final bout with its arch-villain, Thanos, by punctuating six movies with a bombastic team-up, there has been no such move in the Multiverse Saga. This is perhaps the most baffling of Marvel’s decisions, as the very concept of a shared cinematic universe that it epitomized hinged on this tried-and-tested formula. Now, after four years, 12 movies, and 10 MCU-focussed shows, the shared cinematic universe has never felt so disparate.

Only in Captain America: Brave New World, which has only just been released, has the concept of reforming the Avengers been addressed. In the meantime, the only real “Big Bad” that has had half as much of a looming effect as Thanos is the multiverse itself, as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Loki addressed the cataclysmic implications of incursions. While I’m as hyped as anyone to see Doctor Doom finally debut, I have to admit that the MCU has given me no reason to care about his incoming role in Avengers: Doomsday.

Avengers: Endgame Destroyed The MCU Because It Was So Good

The Bar It Set Is Impossible To Clear

Another reason many might point to the MCU’s struggles is a general downturn in quality. However, I wonder if that notion is simply intensified by the fact that Avengers: Endgame will forever be the benchmark that subsequent installments are expected to reach. If that is the case, then the prognosis is dire as that bar is almost impossible to clear.

Only one MCU movie has come relatively close to hitting the mark: Spider-Man: No Way Home, which remains the MCU’s third-highest-grossing film behind Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War. I‘m deeply concerned that Avengers: Doomsday will not reach the same heights as the last Avengers movie due to the aforementioned lack of set-up that the Infinity Saga achieved so well for Avengers: Endgame. With all too many critical and financial fumbles now populating the Multiverse Saga’s release slate, the tough question that now remains is whether the MCU is over.

Can The MCU Ever Recover?

Avengers: Endgame Remains The Peak Of The MCU

I’m cautiously optimistic. While Captain America: Brave New World has been divisive, it’s far from the MCU’s worst installment, and I feel compelled to remind everyone of the record-breaking success that was ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, the second-most-recent MCU installment, which proved that the MCU still possesses the capacity to release inarguable successes. Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, meanwhile, seem to be the perfect tonic to the main criticism leveled at Captain America: Brave New World: that it was an uninspiring return to a tired formula.

With that being said, whether the MCU’s upcoming movies are enough to recuperate the amount of faith wider audiences have lost in the franchise is another matter. If we are being totally honest, the best remedy for the franchise might require hitting that “reset” ʙuттon. Thankfully, if rumors are to be believed, this might be where Marvel Studios is headed as Avengers: Secret Wars will reportedly spark a soft reboot of the MCU.

From there, the MCU can establish a fresh image, shifting gears and shifting focus to a new string of headliners in the form of the X-Men. Perhaps the new MCU will branch into innovations, sidelining the need to keep abreast of every new release in favor of telling more contained yet no less compelling stories, like Logan did for Fox’s X-Men franchise. Whatever the case, if there is any hope that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will measure up to the heady heights of Avengers: Endgame, it’s safe to say that Marvel Studios has its work cut out.

Upcoming MCU Movies

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  Thunderbolts*

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  May 2, 2025
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  The Fantastic Four: First Steps

  Release Date

  
  July 25, 2025
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Avengers: Doomsday (2026)

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
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  Spider-Man Homecoming 4

  Release Date

  
  July 24, 2026
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

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  Avengers: Secret Wars

  Release Date

  
  May 7, 2027
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

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Source: The Numbers