2023 is now over and I have a feeling the folks over at Disney and Marvel Studios are trying their darndest to put the entire year behind them. Although there have been some sporadic successes for them last year, such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. and even Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness to some extent, Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe still has to hit the highs it reached just a few years ago.

A lot of people have been trying to dissect what’s happening and trying to figure out why the Marvel Cinematic Universe is slowly declining in popularity. Some say the movies and television shows have become too formulaic, leading to a decline in quality. Some say Disney are just putting out too much as they started to release television programs set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to an oversaturation of the product. Some say there’s no real direction with all of these movies, leading to an overall lack of focus for the resulting products. There’s also some who are saying Disney has gone too “woke” and altering Marvel’s movies and television shows but it’s just not working out.

While I do agree there is some truth to all of that and those all factor in, I’m more inclined to believe that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is mostly a victim of its own success. By the end of Phase 3, there was no place for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to go but down.

For context, Phase 3 officially started with Captain America: Civil War and ended with Spider-Man: Far Way Home. More importantly, however, is that both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame came out during Phase 3. These two movies were and still are some of the best the Marvel Cinematic Universe films out there. Not only because the featured all of the characters from the previous Marvel films in them. But because it was all building up to it.

Even way back in Phase 1, you could see Kevin Feige had this grand plan of where to take the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Heck, even in the first movie, before Marvel was swallowed up by Disney, Kevin Feige already starting to drop breadcrumbs of what to expect next when Nick Fury showed up in that unforgettable after-credits scene in Iron Man. There was an plan but viewers had no idea if they were going to be able to actually execute this plan.

Then more Marvel superheroes started to get their own movies and the dream of finally getting an Avengers movie, which was a dream for most comic book fans, finally came true. Even more shocking, when we did finally see the Avengers assemble on the big screen, we got another after credits scene of some purple guy sneering at the camera when one of his minions told him that facing off against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would be like “courting death.” This purple guy was Thanos. And comic book fans couldn’t believe it as this could only mean one thing: they are going to bring the classic Infinity Gauntlet storyline on the big screen.

Now, the Infinity Gauntlet storyline was a big deal because it did lead to the temporary death of the majority of Marvel’s heroes and villains as everyone tried to band together to defeat Thanos. While all of the characters Thanos killed off were brought back immediately after the storyline concluded, there was just an epicness to it all as no one could take down this big baddie. So, the idea of bringing the Infinity Gauntlet storyline to live-action was always going to be huge.

And huge it was! I still remember the shock from the non-comic book readers who saw Avengers: Infinity War and they couldn’t believe that the heroes failed, half of the heroes turned to dust and Thanos, the villain of the movie, retired peacefully! I do think a lot of comic book fans mostly expected this ending as they were familiar with what happened in Infinity Gauntlet. Still, you can tell at this point how invested everyone was with these characters. So seeing them just fade into nothing really ate them up.

Of course, the catharsis of it all led to Avengers: Endgame. In a neat twist, the remaining Avengers did not go back in time to stop this from happening because, apparently, that’s not how time travel works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Rather, the survivors kept on living until the Avengers, through multiverse magic, gathered different versions of the Infinity Stones to snap all the people who were blipped out of existence back.

By the end of the film, it appears as if all’s right with the world. Well, mostly, anyway. Avengers: Endgame was definitely the endgame for a few prominent Marvel Cinematic Universe mainstays, namely Black Widow, Iron Man and Captain America. They were all given proper sendoffs. Well, maybe not Black Widow because, even to this day, I still think her death was just there for shock value. Definitely not the way I wanted to see her go.

So, Avengers: Endgame happened then Spider-Man: Far From Home. This was the end for Phase 3. And Marvel just created a huge problem. After building up to this and finally do it, what do you then? Sadly, even Kevin Feige couldn’t solve this problem.

Marvel created a problem wherein they built a rabid fandom for their characters and their ongoing storyline but couldn’t figure out what do when their stories ended. They did try to build on new characters, like Shang Chi and Captain Marvel but they just didn’t click with audiences. It certainly didn’t help that these characters were deep cuts. Iron Man and Thor may not have been the most popular superheroes out there but even the most casual moviegoer knew or heard about them. Who the heck are the Eternals and Shang Chi and why should I care about them when I didn’t even know they exist?

They tried to introduce Kang the Conqueror as the next Thanos but that kind of fell flat as, well, not many people really like Kang. Sure, fans know him to primarily be a threat that the Avengers need to band together to beat. But, for the life of me, I cannot think of any notable storyline featuring the character. Not on the level of the Infinity Gauntlet, anyway.

Basically, Marvel did everything right when it came to their projects all the way up to Phase 3. They introduced their most popular characters in their own movies and then built up to probably one of the most well-known Marvel storylines ever in the Infinity Gauntlet. If the Marvel Cinematic Universe ended there, no one would’ve batted an eye as it was the best place to end it all. It gave a mostly satisfying conclusion to a story that was a full decade long.

But Disney is still running a business. So of course the Marvel Cinematic Universe couldn’t end. It had to keep going. But where to? Well, they just decided to drive and see where the road would lead them. Unfortunately, this lead them to get lost as, not only did they not have a destination, they just decided to wander around aimlessly for an extended period of time. Here’s the thing: I’m not really mad at Disney, Kevin Feige or Marvel Studios because I wouldn’t be able to think of what to do after Phase 3.

However, things may be looking up as Disney did regain the rights for the X-Men and Fantastic Four, which are missing pieces to the puzzle. They can use those franchises to perhaps introduce more well-known characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Maybe they can now use Apocalypse, Doctor Doom or Galactus as the next big bad guy for the Avengers to take on. But they still need to look at their road map and settle on a place to go first instead of just what they’re doing right now.

What do you think is causing the decline of Marvel at this time? Let me know in the comments section below!