The MCU Is Heading Towards Every Comic Universe Fate And Marvel Needs To Make It Happen Soon
The MCU is dying a slow death. That’s not meant to sound cynical, but it’s hard to argue against. Rather than wait as its cash cow crawls slowly toward its ultimate demise, Disney’s best bet would be to put the MCU out of its misery now and replace it with something new.
The MCU Needs To Die
You know, like every other superhero universe before it.
Whether it’s due to superhero fatigue, “wokeness,” or just a general shift in quality, Marvel content isn’t performing as well with fans as it once did. This happens with comic books all the time, causing publishers to simply push the reset button and start everything fresh.
It’s even happened to solo Marvel properties like Spider-Man which Sony rebooted not once, but twice in ten years.
The MCU as a whole, however, has largely maintained the same continuity since 2008. For the last 16 years, Disney has slowly added to its Marvel canon until it’s reached a point where fans are skipping movies like The Marvels because they refuse to watch the two separate television shows required to know what’s going on in a single seemingly unrelated film.
It’s that bloated, interconnected universe of content that’s going to lead to the MCU’s inevitable death.
DC Did It
Our suggestion that Disney kill the MCU rather than letting it expire on its own isn’t made out of anger. We—like most of the world—love Marvel as a concept and only want what’s best for the brand.
At the moment, though, what’s best happens to be ending things and starting over a couple of years down the road.
DC already killed their first cinematic universe, the Snyderverse—officially the DCEU, but no one calls it that—and is rebooting all their properties with James Gunn’s upcoming DCU.
Disney might want to wait and see how everything works out before they put the MCU to death, but if history is any indicator, DC’s reboot will prove to be successful.
How do we know that? Because they’ve done it in the comics several times.
And Not Just DC
In the ’60s, when DC continuity started to get bogged down by complicated lore, the publisher established that the early adventures of Superman and all the other golden age heroes actually happened on Earth-2 as opposed to Earth-1.
When Earth-2’s lore got too complicated in the ’80s, DC got rid of its first 50 years of continuity with an event called Crisis on Infinite Earths that set all their characters back to square one. When post-crisis DC became too hard to keep track of after 26 years, there was a Flashpoint, an event that again reset the status quo at DC.
DC isn’t even the only example of this happening. When Image Comics started continuing the original Mirage run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, stuff got really weird.
As a result, when Mirage started publishing the title again, they decided, “Hey, none of that stuff actually happened.” Maybe that’s more of a retcon than a reboot, but the point still stands.
Why Kill The MCU?
The MCU’s death would serve a few purposes. For one thing, it would give fans a chance to miss their favorite characters while Disney retools everything so that when Marvel did come back, the brand would have nostalgia on its side.
Meanwhile it would give Disney a chance to recast beloved roles like Tony Stark and T’Challa without having to exploit the multiverse or something equally cheap. It would also make distancing the MCU from all the Kang stuff so much easier.
Of course, the very existence of the MCU multiverse makes the franchise’s death a bit tricky. Would the new revamped MCU still technically be a part of the original’s multiverse? Probably, but hopefully not for a few years. Not until after all the new versions of the MCU’s classic heroes have been given time to establish themselves.
Who knows, the MCU’s death could also lead to a more comically accurate live-action Marvel universe. Maybe this time, Hank Pym could create Ultron, and Rick Jones could be involved in the Hulk’s origin. We know it sounds like a desperate act, but honestly, the only way to save the MCU might just be to kill it.
Let’s Get It Done
One big crisis-level event—maybe Secret Wars or something similar—to get fans excited to see their favorite heroes one last time and to line Disney’s coffers before pulling the plug for, oh, about five years or so.
Or the MCU can desperately cling to life as its organs fail one by one and it marches toward a slow, painful death.
It’s your call, Disney.
