November 10th, 2023
I’m sure you’ve already heard, but Marvel is done, big time.
There’s nothing left. It’s all too woke, the studio is broke, none of the stories make sense anymore and they’re just putting out, like, the worst garbage ever made of all time, like, for reals.
Weirdly, though, I watched the season finale of Loki last night, which has been one of the most thought-provoking, exciting TV series of the decade. Oh, and I just left a screening of The Marvels, which was an effervescent, thrilling team-up packed with laughs, heart, and, sure, a few well-earned tears.
This can’t be true, right?
When I was a kid, I couldn’t have imagined a pop culture world like the one we have. I lived before the internet as we now know it; I lived through a time when they weren’t making new Star Wars films and there weren’t any plans to; I remember watching the first animated TV shows created entirely with CGI (what’s up, Reboot and Beast Wars?); I lived with VCRs and “streaming” was what we did on accident during sleepovers.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the X-Men and Batman animated series to those of us who grew up with them as they aired. To see something we loved so much onscreen in any capacity was enough to fry our little nerd circuits, week after week.
We live in a Golden Age of geek TV, and we’re too entitled to even notice; to say this entitlement ended at entertainment wouldn’t be an honest thing to say.
I tell people this all the time: not everything is made for you. And not only is this fine, but it’s beautiful. I have enjoyed every single series and film Marvel and Star Wars have produced; not because they’re all “good,” but because I imagine my eight-year-old self laying down on his childhood carpe, and I can see these stories through his wide, wanting eyes.
And I feel bad for the kids now who are loving these same magical stories, but have to deal with the adults in their world who have to bitch about literally every single thing that rubs their arm hair the wrong way. No gratitude or grace or even the recognition that it means something to somebody else.
Look, I know I’m teased for liking everything, but that isn’t even true; I just tend to look for the good in things, even in things that don’t appear to be made too good. I wasn’t a fan of the new Ant-Man film, but there were pieces I really did like, and I knew, too, that little me would have eaten up every crumb. I did not leave the theater and loudly proclaim, “THAT’S IT THEY’RE DONE THEY’RE FINISHED I KNEW IT THEY SUCK AND ANYBODY WHO LIKES THIS SUCKS DISNEY IS OVER.”
I also do recognize the actual dangers and bad practices; for example, I have followed the SFX artists and their stories closely, and that appears to be a much larger issue than Marvel (it’s most studios) that Marvel just seems to be exacerbating.
But they also seem to be learning; adjusting their output and refocusing on the who, not just the when and where and why.
One of the oddest bits to me is that people have been complaining that the decade-plus MCU has gotten too confusing, too similar to the long-running comics they’re based on. You guys: people are actually mad that the films are TOO much like the source material. You truly can never win.
Except we can: by managing our own expectations. It’s the sharpest tool in my toolbox. Almost any time we’re upset, sad or mad, when we get that uncomfortable feeling in our gut, it’s because we had expectations, and the film we saw did not meet them. Or people did not meet them. Or life did not meet them.
But it’s not a film’s fault, or people’s, or life’s. It’s ours. And sometimes it doesn’t hurt to repeat to ourselves: not everything is for me.
This is more than fine. It is beautiful.
The Den 