Marvel — once a shining beacon for comic book fans everywhere — is now becoming known for formulaic films with half-baked plots and underwhelming CGI. More and more frequently, audiences are considering themselves lucky if a film is above average. The studio has dropped the ball a bit as of late, especially with its latest entry — the one that was supposed to kick start phase 5; Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania — adding to the ever-growing list of Marvel movies that were “meh.” There’s no doubt that Kevin Feige will have to implement some changes to keep the MCU fresh and exciting, especially with DC stepping up its game.
The next major movie event fans are looking forward to is Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and it goes without saying, Marvel cannot afford to screw this up. Filming hasn’t begun yet and we have over two years until it’s set to hit theaters so the studio has plenty of time to stop and re-evaluate how it wants to tackle this beast. And it will have to do something new otherwise the Secret Wars movie really will be secret (because no one will be going to watch it). The writers behind the project need to bring back the grounded feeling of previous entries while simultaneously presenting Kang as an imposing threat. Luckily, they have a pretty solid blueprint on how to do that with the original Kang Dynasty comic run.
The comics that the film is taking inspiration from are hailed by fans as some of Marvel’s finest, so the adaptation will have a lot to live up to. Plot details are scarce; although reports suggest that it will be quite the bloodbath for the heroes. The multiverse will likely play a significant role too (after all, it is called the Multiverse Saga), however, it doesn’t play much part in the original comic storyline. Marvel would be wise to steer clear of bringing the multiverse into the next Avengers film as it’s only brought complications and lower stakes to the MCU.
The multiverse needs to go
Hear us out. There are inherent problems when dealing with a concept such as the multiverse. First of all, it gives writers a free pass to kill off and bring back whoever they want. In this sense, the stakes are lower because, sure, a character might die but there’s an infinite amount of variants from other universes who could take their place. The MCU has already killed off characters and brought them back, such as Loki (yeah that was more to do with time shenanigans than the multiverse but the point still stands). It doesn’t matter if the next Avengers really is a bloodbath if they can all be brought back in some way. Although there aren’t a lot of significant hero deaths in the Kang Dynasty comics, they have more of an impact, so if the movie hopes to do the same then resurrection via multiverse variant needs to be off the table.
Being a more faithful adaptation of the original story would also make it more grounded. A key complaint from phase four and five is that the films focus too much on spectacle instead of plot; which was most noticeable in the latest Ant-Man. Everyone loves bright lights and cool visuals, but when that’s all the film is, it starts to make you feel queasy, like eating too many sweets. Some of the settings and shots in Quantumania looked cool, but there wasn’t enough time spent in the real world. Five minutes into the movie and the physical sets were gone in favor of green screens and computer effects. It took many viewers out of the experience and compared to the first two Ant-Man films it feels like sensory overload. Everyone’s already seen the meme comparing Spy Kids 3D to Quantumania, but if you haven’t, it sums up the issues with the film perfectly.
Keep it grounded
The best way to avoid too much cosmic mind-bending craziness would be to keep the events on Earth. Sometimes the old mantra of bigger is better just isn’t true, we don’t need to see a huge multiversal battle in The Kang Dynasty, save that for the Secret Wars. Keeping the stakes more personal and grounded on Earth would certainly engage the audience a lot more. It would hearken back to the old MCU and remind many fans why they love the franchise.
This would also be closer to what actually happens in the comics. A gritty battle for planet Earth where Kang destroys cities with Damocles (his giant death ray-shooting space ship) would be a much better way to get the audience invested. In the original story, most of the action takes place on planet Earth and it follows a similar story to Infinity War in the sense that Kang defeats the Avengers and they have to regroup and rally together to launch an all-or-nothing attack.
While it could be argued that we’ve already seen this storyline play out in Infinity War and Endgame, it wouldn’t hurt to take inspiration from those films. Both stand as the most successful to come out of the MCU to date. That doesn’t mean the writers can’t mix it up a bit (we’re sure they will) but the main priority needs to be establishing high stakes.
The good news is that Marvel seems to be learning from its mistakes as the studio has recently announced that it will be pushing back a few of its upcoming projects. This includes The Marvels, which had originally been set to release in theaters this summer, but has since been moved back to Nov. 10th. While this is great news of course, fans aren’t holding their breath for the next Avengers, and we can’t say we blame them.
If the writers take their time with the setup and execution of The Kang Dynasty it could be on the same level as — or even better than — Infinity War. The key to achieving that lies within the pages of the original story and if Marvel wants to re-capture lightning in a bottle then it had better start by looking at what made that comic so great and work from there.