Tasked with bringing the MCU to streaming as the Multiverse Saga began, Marvel Studios has struggled to find the right balance between quantity and quality since 2020. Also not helping matters was a pandemic and two Hollywood strikes.
Kevin Feige and company are looking to bounce back with Avengers: Doomsday this December, while Avengers: Secret Wars will end the Saga and set the stage for the spotlight to shift to mutants. However, heading into both movies, there's no denying that a handful of characters have been completely wasted.
Those listed here have either been handled poorly, underutilised, or portrayed in a way that hasn't done the comics justice. There's still time to redeem them, but for some, it may be too little, too late.
Find out which characters we think deserve better by clicking the "Next"/"View List" buttons below.
8. Valkyrie
Thor: Ragnarok finally brought Valkyrie into the MCU, and while she only had a small role in Avengers: Endgame, we had high hopes for the hero in Thor: Love and Thunder. Instead, the King of Asgard played third fiddle to two different Thors.
Her cameo in Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, stood a chance of redeeming the character. Unfortunately, Marvel Studios wimped out of exploring Valkyrie's romantic history with Carol Danvers, making the whole thing feel pretty pointless.
For now, Valkyrie remains in the God of Thunder's shadow. We can only hope the Asgardian will be given some agency in Avengers: Doomsday and/or Avengers: Secret Wars.
7. America Chavez
Introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, America Chavez looked set to be a game-changer for the Multiverse Saga. She could punch her way through reality, opening the door to her being a crucial part of any number of projects.
That hasn't happened. America remains in Kamar-Taj, and we've repeatedly heard that there are no plans for her to be part of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars (and if she is, it will be a very minor role).
Had the pandemic not happened, the teenager would have debuted in Spider-Man: No Way Home and helped bring those Peter Parker Variants to Earth-616. Now more MacGuffin than character, it seems there's no longer a defined place for America in the MCU.
6. Ralph Bohner
WandaVision was a phenomenal series, and still ranks among Marvel Studios' best streaming stories. Unfortunately, things did go a little off the rails in the finale, including the revelation that Evan Peters' Quicksilver was a failed actor called Ralph Bohner.
With the Multiverse in play, it would have been easy to reveal that Agatha Harkness had pulled the X-Men Universe's Pietro (or Peter) Maximoff into the MCU and given him the memories of Wanda Maximoff's dead brother. Heck, it could have even been a simple recast!
That obviously wasn't the case, and while Ralph returned in Agatha All Along, it's clear now that Peters has no future in the MCU. What a waste of a great character and actor.
5. Abomination
For the longest time, 2008's The Incredible Hulk was the black sheep of the MCU family. That changed with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and the return of the Abomination, following his brief, albeit memorable, fight with Wong in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Would it have been a tad predictable to reveal him as She-Hulk's secret villain, likely under the employ of The Leader? Maybe, but it was what fans wanted. Instead, we got a comedic take with Emil Blonsky now in charge of group therapy for supervillains.
While the series ended with Wong breaking him out of the Department of Damage Control's Supermax prison, this whole thing felt like a major misstep on Marvel Studios' part, especially heading into Captain America: Brave New World.
4. Mephisto
This one is a little more complicated, so allow us to explain. Sacha Baron Cohen's MCU debut as Mephisto in Ironheart was superb, and arguably the best part of the series as a whole.
Marvel Studios has missed a trick by not including the villain in WandaVision. After the fan outcry, there was time to squeeze him into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness...and ample opportunity to make Mephisto part of Agatha All Along.
The stage could have been set for the Marvel Universe's devil to be a major part of the next Avengers movies, but we can no longer see that being on the table. So, while he may have a future in the MCU, this Saga has definitely wasted Mephisto.
3. Nicodemus West
We're going with a slightly more obscure character for our next entry, as Marvel Studios has really missed a trick with Michael Stuhlbarg's Nicodemus West. Introduced in 2016's Doctor Strange, he returned for little more than a cameo in the 2022 sequel.
A lot was going on in that movie, to be fair, but there's so much more that could be done with Nicodemus. On the page, it's revealed that he also travelled to Kamar-Taj, but ultimately returned to medicine. Later, by casting an incorrect spell, he inadvertently killed a cancer patient.
The two former friends clash when West joins Timely Pharmaceuticals as its CEO and sets out to sell a stolen elixir's power for profit. That sounds a little more interesting than a random Mordo Variant targeting Strange, surely?
2. Eli Bradley
Marvel Studios hasn't assembled the Young Avengers during the Multiverse Saga, something we can likely blame on this era of storytelling not exactly being planned out in advance. The "Champions" are supposedly coming to Avengers: Doomsday, albeit without one key member.
Eli Bradley was introduced in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as the grandson of Isaiah Bradley. Like his comic book counterpart, we expected Eli to have inherited his grandfather's Super Soldier powers and become Patriot. Instead, he's vanished from our screens.
Captain America: Brave New World was the perfect place to revisit this character, especially with Isaiah central to that story. However, rather than have Sam Wilson take Eli under his wing, we were introduced to the new, incredibly lame Falcon.
1. Moon Knight
As a whole, Moon Knight was a decent TV series. There were some clear signs of post-production tinkering, but it was an effective enough introduction that set the stage for future stories with the introduction of a third personality, Jake Lockley.
The character hasn't been seen since, and Marc Spector and Steven Grant's impact on the MCU has been minimal. There's been some chatter about Moony eventually returning in a Midnight Sons project, but it's hard to get excited about that when it hasn't been officially announced.
If Oscar Isaac was only willing to commit to a six-episode TV series, then Marvel Studios should have cast someone else. Plus, how did they make a series tied so closely to Ancient Egypt without even mentioning Kang Variant, Rama-Tut?