Top 5 Biggest Mistakes Marvel Made on the Road to Doomsday (And 2 Great Decisions)

It’s not the easiest time to be a Marvel fan right now. 

Marvel was once a dominant presence in pop culture but now it’s become a punching bag with high profile flops like The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World causing general audiences to abandon the formerly beloved franchise. Even the most solid MCU films like Thunderbolts* or Fantastic 4 couldn’t gain the box office success of the MCU’s glory days.

Despite this, Marvel is gearing up for the climactic end to its multiverse saga beginning with Avengers Doomsday this December. Fan reception has been mixed to say the least with some fans still holding out hope while others are much more pessimistic. Regardless of how you feel, let’s take the time to unpack the choices both good and bad that Marvel has made since Endgame.

5. The Bad: Fewer original projects

The Infinity Saga had its flaws but one thing it was good at was giving tons of B and C list comics characters original movies and building the franchise off of strong individual movies without an overreliance on sequels. While hit films like Iron Man and Captain America got sequels, they never stopped Marvel from introducing fresher characters to keep things from getting stale. The Multiverse Saga unfortunately has never truly done that.

Only three Marvel films released after Endgame follow new characters and the films are admittedly a mixed bag. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a smart and fun kung fu superhero film that felt like a breath of fresh air. It smartly used the Marvel universe to broaden Shang-Chi’s story and was a promising new direction for the franchise. The same can’t be said for Eternals which was a convoluted mess of a film that never truly went anywhere. 

2025’s Fantastic Four was also a good step but it feels like too little too late. Instead of bringing in interesting new characters for the MCU, Marvel focused too heavily on mediocre sequels like Thor: Love and Thunder and Captain America: Brand New World for its theatrical slate.  New characters who were brought in for Disney Plus series such as Moon Knight and She Hulk have either been abandoned or sidelined for Avengers Doomsday, leaving the film’s cast shockingly familiar. 

Original characters could’ve created a new face for the MCU post Endgame but Marvel unfortunately didn’t have confidence in these newer characters to sell tickets.

4. The Bad: Relying on Nostalgia

Speaking of not introducing new characters, the Multiverse Saga, particularly Avengers Doomsday, seem to be relying on fan nostalgia more than a strong story. You can see this across the marketing for Doomsday beginning with bringing back previous franchise leads Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. 

RDJ’s casting as Doctor Doom is a pure stunt that has overpowered conversations about the character. Doctor Doom is a fascinating and complex character that deserves his own spotlight instead of comparison and theories surrounding a potential connection to Iron Man.

Additionally Chris Evans’ return as Captain America is very nostalgia heavy and unfortunately takes away the emotional complexity of Avengers Endgame’s final scenes. Steve Rogers’ character arc was allowed to reach a natural conclusion which is a rarity for a Marvel character. Dragging him out for yet another film is a disservice to his story but is also disrespectful to Anthony Mackie’s new iteration of Captain America. While Captain America: Brave New World is not a good film by any means, it would be great to see Mackie grow into the role and it’s unfortunate to see Steve Rogers’ return steal his spotlight once again.

Finally, connecting the Fox X-Men films yet again is another example of relying on nostalgia. These characters have been paraded out time and time again for “one final film” countless times since the original films in the 2000s. From Logan to Deadpool and Wolverine these characters have more than had their time so doing it yet again for Doomsday feels excessive. The X-Men are some of Marvel’s most popular characters and (after Doomsday) they will get a fresh launch with a young new cast. I’m incredibly excited for that film, but I can’t help but feel bringing in the original X-Men cast will draw attention away from the young cast as well as cause confusion for general audiences less familiar with the Fox franchise. That’s not to mention the new exposition Doomsday will require to reestablish these characters and explain their connection to the events of Doomsday. 

Overall I think Marvel would be better off focusing on newer ideas instead of focusing on these characters.

2. The Good: Marvel Spotlights and Special Presentations

To take a break from the more pessimistic news, I do want to mention both the Marvel Spotlights and Special Presentations series which have been amazing for telling fun stories within the Marvel toybox. Only two titles have been produced as Spotlights so far but the idea behind them is very promising. 

Marvel Spotlight hopes to tell grounded and character driven stories in the MCU that may not tie into the main continuity. Echo was the first show released and it spun off from Hawkeye back in 2024. Maya Lopez, Kingpin’s deaf adopted daughter turned assassin, is easily the most interesting part of Hawkeye and Marvel further expanding that story is refreshing.

Wonder Man released this year is a true comedy following a man with superpowers trying to land his dream job: the lead role in an actual superhero film. It unfortunately was recently canceled, but it’s the type of story I’m looking for Marvel to explore more of. Shows that play on genre and use minor characters in the MCU to make fun projects. There are plenty of characters that could easily be featured in these projects and I think Marvel would be smart to continue this label alongside the main MCU.

Special Presentations are in the same vein and tell unconnected stories in TV specials featured on Disney+. There’ve been quite a few of these such as the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and Punisher: One Last Kill but to me the highlight was easily Werewolf by Night. Every Special Presentation has been worth the time though and I think it’d be fun to see more comics stories explored in one shots like this.

3. The Bad: Abandoning Kang

This is an easy negative but I think we’re still seeing how bad abandoning Kang the Conqueror could be for the MCU. For those who don’t know, comics villain Kang the Conqueror was set up to be the MCU’s new big bad but after actor Jonathan Majors’ domestic abuse scandal he was swiftly dropped. While I obviously support dropping Majors for his actions, this left the MCU with no big bad for years. Kang’s arrival was really only teased in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania so his appearances were really a mixed bag but it was at least something to work up to. It really just feeds into the next point because…

2. The Bad: Lack of Buildup

One of the biggest mistakes that Marvel has made is not building up to Doomsday in any meaningful way. In the Infinity Saga the end goal was being built up from the very first Avengers movie in 2012. That film introduced Thanos in a post credits and set up the first Infinity Stone. This meant that every subsequent film released naturally built up to Infinity War either by introducing characters relevant to the story or new Infinity Stones that naturally connected in a way that feels miraculous looking back on it.

The Multiverse saga is now reaching its end and I still struggle to see where it’s all going. Post credits scenes introduce major characters like Clea or Starfox that never reappear. Kang was sort of built up to be a villain but he was swiftly dropped leaving nothing to replace him. Now Doctor Doom is suddenly supposed to be a major player but he didn’t get anything close to the six-year multi-film buildup that Thanos got. It just leaves the whole saga feeling pointless and unexciting. Infinity War and Endgame worked as the conclusion to what at the end of the day was an eleven year story that spanned from Iron Man in 2008 and Avengers Endgame in 2019. Marvel wanted to cram that amount of buildup in a much shorter time and without the high quality buildup that took the series there. 

1. The Good: Slowing down releases

I will say that one thing that I have to give Marvel credit for the last year or two is that they have slowed down the rate of releases by an incredible amount. The beginning of the Multiverse Saga was filled with accusations of “superhero fatigue” and a lot of projects fast. For example, 2021 had 9 major MCU projects between film and TV. Compared to 2026 only having the excellent Spider-Man Brand New Day, Wonder Man and the upcoming Vision Quest and Doomsday make the MCU feel much more manageable. On top of that it seems like the projects being focused on are getting more attention since there hasn’t been a true miss since Captain America: Brave New World in early 2025. I’m hopeful that this means Doomsday will be a real polished project but it may be too early to say.

1. The Bad: No real team up movies

The main problem that most people talk about is a lack of build up towards Doomsday in the Multiverse Saga as a whole. That’s obviously one of the main issues, but I think what’s leaving this era of Marvel feeling more hollow is that it’s missing the big team up movies to mark each “phase” of the universe. See The Avengers being a culmination of all the phase one movies or Captain America: Civil War starting phase 3. More team up movies made it feel like things mattered and let smaller story arcs play out in event movies before the Thanos story was fully fleshed out.

The Multiverse Saga has no equivalent of this really. The closest that they got was Thunderbolts* which was a great movie but hardly had the narrative weight or event movie buildup that the Infinity Saga event movies had. While there are more cameos in other projects than ever before, the universe somehow feels more disconnected than it did during the Infinity Saga. For example, a movie like Age of Ultron has universe altering ramifications that naturally lead into the Sokovia Accords storyline that is relevant to every movie afterwards. There’s no  equivalent to this in the Multiverse saga which just means the individual movies feel incredibly disjointed. 

Overall this era of the MCU has made several decisions which stop it from reaching the highs of the Infinity Saga. But what do you think? Are you excited for Avengers Doomsday or has the MCU lost its luster? Let us know in the comments below.