As someone who has been a huge fan of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe for nearly 20 years, the last few years have been real dicey. Why? Disney/Marvel had been releasing a lot of Marvel movies and TV shows. The problem is that because there was so much being released, the quality of those projects was all over the place. The movies were hit and miss, and the TV shows were mostly forgettable. Now, one could make the argument that Bob Chapek decided it was better to pump out multiple projects a year to see if something worked, and a lot of the time it didn’t. While I enjoyed The Eternals, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange 2, and Black Panther Wakanda Forever, everything else was sloppy. After Thor: Love and Thunder, I decided it was time to jump off the MCU train. Now, Deadpool and Wolverine was released this weekend and is set to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, but what also was happening this year was San Diego Comic-Con. This was a huge convention in which a lot of projects from various studios would be announced.
Well, Marvel is having their day in Hall H. One of the announcements was the new title for one of the two Avengers movies coming out in a couple of years. Everybody knows about Secret Wars, but the one that’s supposed to come out before that was originally titled Kang’s Dynasty. However, legal issues with star Jonathan Majors, who portrayed the supervillain Kang in the Loki show and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, forced Disney to fire the actor and scrap any future plans with Kang. With the announcement of the new Fantastic Four movie’s main cast, including Ralph Ineson as the planet-eating Galactus, it seemed that Marvel was doing alright. Well, the title of the 5th Avengers movie is Doomsday. Which means the main villain of these new movies is going to be none other than Doctor Doom, one of the most popular comic book bad guys. I’ve got…issues, here. First: Nobody has been able to get Doom right. At all. Not Roger Corman, not Tim Story, and certainly not Josh Trank. Anybody who knows the comic book character, knows that Doom’s real name is Victor von Doom, the leader of the fictional country of Latveria. He’s a super-intelligent scientist that developed the iconic armor that you see him in all the time.
Now, the title of this article is Marvel’s Getting Desperate. Here’s why? As you can see in the picture I posted, Doom is going to be played by none other than Robert Downey, Jr. Yes, the same actor that played Tony Stark/Iron Man. Which means that this particular version of Doom is not going to be Victor von Doom, but rather an evil version of Tony Stark, playing into the whole Multiverse bullshit that they should’ve abandoned long ago. I think RDJ is a fantastic actor. The role of Iron Man basically gave him a second shot at life and the rest is history. However, when he’s not playing Iron Man, the movie’s that he’s been in haven’t exactly been blockbusters. Also, the directors of the last two Avengers movies and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War are now attached to direct. Joe and Anthony Russo have tried their hand at making non-Marvel movies and failed. I’m not particularly excited about this. It reeks of desperation. The other projects include the new Thunderbolts movie and Captain America: Brave New World. Whatever. Now, this might be because I’m all Marvel’d out. After Thor: Love and Thunder turned out to be utter dogshit, I’ve question Disney/Marvel’s ability to get back on the rails. I’m going to go see Deadpool & Wolverine this weekend, but beyond that? I had hoped that after Chapek got fired and Bob Iger was brought back to get things fixed, I would get more excited about what Marvel’s got planned. I’m not. Brave New World looks incredibly generic, and Thunderbolts sounds like an attempt to replicate James Gunn’s success with Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m more interested in what James Gunn and Peter Safran are cooking up over at Warner Bros/DC. Marvel just completely lost me. Maybe that’s for the best.