With any cultural phenomenon, there is, typically, a rise, a peak, and a fall. For the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the rise was Iron Man to The Avengers, or Phase One, when the franchise became the biggest game in Hollywood, with a bunch of imitators waiting in the wings to copy them. The peak was ran from Iron Man 3, all the way to Avengers Endgame.
And since then we have been witness to the fall of Marvel where, apart from the Sony-partnered Spider-Man and Guardians pulling their weight, the likes of Doctor Strange, a rootless Thor, a pointless Hulk, and killing box office blows from Ant-Man and Captain Marvel have all but sunk Hollywood’s biggest ship. Then, this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel fixed everything. That’s right, no worries, forget about Kang the Conqueror and the rightful baggage around him, the MCU has a new enemy: cannibalism.
Yes, with the announcement that the Russo brothers (whose last and supposedly final MCU movie was Endgame) are returning to direct two new Avengers movies, where the heroes will take on (checks notes without glasses on) Iron Doom played by Robert Downey Jr.
In all seriousness – well, as serious as a media empire having the kind of public breakdown I had when they cancelled Hannibal – Robert Downey Jr has returned to the MCU to play Doctor Doom in a suit as green as the room in his house that is now packed tight with money. As my tone should suggest, I think this is a terrible, cynical idea that make Marvel look weaker than they have ever been. It isn’t yet clear what the nature of his role will be, though presumably he will have nothing to do with the 60s-set Fantastic Four movie in another timeline. Reread that last sentence and see the scale of the problem.
In weird way, this was all inevitable. Marvel wanted the MCU to be the cinematic version of the comics: a shared universe with a wide cast of characters with standalone stories and big crossover events. Check. What happens when this structure starts to collapse? What happens when a linear cinematic continuity goes on so long that it starts to be nostalgic for itself? Iron Man becomes Doctor Doom, we have a million different variants of superheroes and villains flying around stories made by people that don’t give much of a shit anymore. What you have is an Infinite Crisis.
Crisis on Infinite Earths is an iconic (for what it pioneered, it’s quite bad) DC comics crossover event from the 1980s in which DC folded all of their different versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman etc, comics into a single clean(ish) continuity in order to wrangle a product that had spun out of control. The same thing happened in 2011 with Flashpoint ushering in the New 52. Except Marvel doesn’t seem to have this type of exit strategy. Instead it’s desperately trying to integrate new characters with no work and hoping Tony Stark in a Doom mask or Wolverine in his yellow spandex will make up for it. Y’know, like the DCEU did.
Lastly, it just depressing to see Downey Jr back. Iron Man and, more importantly, Tony Stark, are the centerpiece characters of the MCU’s success. His Endgame sacrifice has a great shout at becoming its most iconic moment, and in just sixteen years he has climbed from Marvel bencher to on par with Batman and Spider-Man amongst the most popular superheroes of all time. This Doctor Doom shit would have been fine for an episode of What If…? But, instead, Marvel are on that stage celebrating the dooming of their franchise and all I can say is “wait, what?”.
What do you think about this news? Are you excited to see RDJ return, or is this the death knell for the franchise? Let us know in the comments!
If you enjoyed this article, please check out the rest of our MCU retrospective, as well as our look at the Batman cinematic universe, and consider supporting us on Ko-Fi!
By Kevin Boyle
(header image via Hollywood Reporter)
No But Listen 