The MCU’s Multiverse Saga has been plagued by some really head-scratching decisions — most of them found in Quantumania, to be fair — but there’s the feeling that Marvel Studios is finally finding its feet again in the wake of the gargantuan success of Deadpool & Wolverine and is once more making the smart decisions that made the franchise a smash in the first place.
The Russo brothers coming back? Check. Robert Downey Jr. returning (not that this choice isn’t without its critics)? Yup. And, on the TV side of things, Marvel might finally be about to make more of its most acclaimed live-action series ever. In a move that you really shouldn’t need to be Tony Stark to make, it’s rumored that Ms. Marvel is finally on the cusp of landing a second season.
You might expect WandaVision or Loki to occupy the top spot, but the Iman Vellani vehicle is genuinely the highest-rated of Marvel’s non-animated streaming series on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 98% critics score. For a long while there it was the highest overall, but then X-Men ’97 had to come along and steal its (love and) thunder with its near-perfect 99%. Stupid sexy Gambit!
In a sane world, then, Ms. Marvel would’ve gotten a renewal straight off the bat, but in this crazy Kang-mangled timeline we’re stuck in it’s taken three years for even a whiff of a second season to materialize. And for once the entire Marvel fandom is united in one unanimous reaction: Well… duh!
Wait, what’s this? A positive comment about The Marvels? On the internet? I don’t believe it.
Honestly, they might as well make this a backdoor Young Avengers project, seeing as the actual Young Avengers project seems doomed never to materialize before Hailee Steinfeld turns 30.
The complete and utter box office failure of The Marvels left lovers of Kamala Khan afraid that the studio was going to send all three of its heroines to the Void, but while Captain Marvel 3 and a supposed Photon spin-off do appear to have been shelved for the moment, it’s just possible that Ms. Marvel could be the one to survive that wreckage intact. Any claims that this is because Iman won’t stop texting Kevin Feige until he greenlights a season 2 are unconfirmed at this time.
The Russo and RDJ making Avengers films; Marvel crossing the $1 billion mark at the box office again; a show with a virtually flawless critical reception potentially (I say it again, potentially) getting recommissioned… The MCU is healing.