The Marvels Used To Be A Solo Franchise; Here’s Another Marvel Solo Series We Don’t Need
Despite grossing over $ 1 billion at the box office, 2019’s Captain Marvel was met with a lot of backlash directed mostly at Brie Larson’s portrayal of the title character. While much of the criticism seemed to boil down to “Ewww a girl!” it still prompted Disney to make the sequel The Marvels a team affair, essentially putting an end to Captain Marvel as a solo franchise. Let’s hope Marvel listens just as well to all of the negative reactions to Thor: Love and Thunder and cancels the Thor series outright.
After The Marvels turned Captain Marvel’s franchise into a solo affair, Thor should be next to have his solo series eliminated.
Thor obviously has his place in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe as a member of the Avengers—and by all means, Marvel should keep him around for ensemble films. But when it comes to any more solo Thor adventures, we think Marvel zombies everywhere can agree that, as a fandom, we’re good. Thanks, but no thanks.
But Giant Freakin Robot, you’re thinking (yes, we can read your mind, but that’s neither here nor there), “we love the Thor movies!” No. You don’t. You love Thor: Ragnarok.
Search your feelings. You know it to be true. The first Thor was a stuffy, Shakespearean affair directed by noted Shakespeare director Kenneth Branagh.
Chris Hemsworth’s bleached blonde eyebrows alone are a good enough reason not to revisit the original Thor, but if you need more convincing that Marvel’s first solo trip to Asgard was “mid,” as the kids say, look no further than the first movie’s unoriginal fish-out-of-water premise—the same tired trope employed by such cinematic classics as The Smurfs and Crocodile Dundee.
A decade or so should be long enough for fans to forget about Love and Thunder and how it inexplicably gave Thor new powers…
Thor: The Dark World was a stinker full of weird red goo and elves. The less said about it, the better. Thor: Ragnarok was—against all odds—one of the better entries in the Marvel catalog. It was just the right amount of funny without going overboard, and it utilized the Hulk brilliantly.
In fact, if there’s any fault to be found in Ragnarok, it’s the fact that it adapted parts of the Marvel story Planet Hulk and inexplicably made them Thor-related. For example, Korg is the Hulk’s companion in the comics.
Then we have last year’s Thor: Love and Thunder, the sequel to Ragnarok that looked at its predecessor and said, “What if Ragnarok had an excessive amount of ill-timed jokes and was bad?”
The closest comparison to the progression from Ragnarok to Love and Thunder is the Schumacher Batman films from the ’90s. Thor: Ragnarok is Marvel’s version of Batman Forever, a little campy, a bright and colorful contrast to the previous films’ dark tone, funnier than the last one, and overall a fun experience.
Meanwhile, Thor: Love and Thunder is Batman and Robin, campy to the point of ridiculousness, cartoonish, and an overall blight on the Marvel brand. Basically, what we’re saying is that Thor: Love and Thunder is the nipples on the batsuit that is the MCU.
If you remember your Hollywood history, then you remember that 1997’s Batman and Robin effectively killed the Batman franchise for close to a decade. Nobody would touch the series that—in case anyone needs a reminder— ended with Arnold Schwarzenegger singing along with the Snow Miser from The Year Without A Santa Claus for eight years until Christopher Nolan came along. That’s what should happen to Thor.
Then we have last year’s Thor: Love and Thunder, the sequel to Ragnarok that looked at its predecessor and said, “What if Ragnarok had an excessive amount of ill-timed jokes and was bad?”
We’re not saying there should never be another Thor movie, ever. Marvel should just give the god of thunder a little break, that’s all. A decade or so should be long enough for fans to forget about Love and Thunder and how it inexplicably gave Thor new powers—his being able to transfer his lightning powers to others would have come in handy during, oh, we don’t know, every single Avengers movie!—as well as a prison tattoo honoring his dead brother.
After 10 years of Marvel using Thor sparingly, they could get someone with a reverence for the source material to reboot the whole solo Thor franchise. Preferably someone who won’t put Thor in a love triangle with his old, all-of-the-sudden sentient hammer Mjolnir and his new more-of-an-axe-than-a-hammer hammer Stormbreaker.
For now, however, we implore Marvel to hold off on Thor 5. Please. We can’t take another movie with those stupid goats.
