Since Iron Man was released in 2008, Marvel Studios has changed the game for superhero movies. Now, not every movie - or TV show - they've released has been perfect and, yes, a few were arguably downright bad.
Overall, though, the MCU has an impressive batting average, knocking these adaptations out of the park time and time again. We'd be lying to say at least some significant creative missteps haven't been made along the way, of course, and it's those we're taking a closer look at today.
This doesn't cover all of them and every fan will likely have their own (the portrayal of Ms. Marvel's powers only just missed out on being included). Ultimately, we think you'll agree that these blunders are hard to forgive!
To check them out, you just need to click on the "Next"/"View List" buttons below...
8. Ant-Man And The Wasp Weren't Founding Avengers
We can't fault Marvel Studios for waiting on Edgar Wright to make Ant-Man, but doing so meant neither Hank Pym nor Janet Van Dyne were founding members of The Avengers.
Black Widow and Hawkeye took their place, one of many cues the studio took from The Ultimates. Those two made for effective members of the superhero team, though we still can't help but think the dynamic between these heroes would have been so much more interesting with the original Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Ultimately, the decision was made to age up both characters, meaning we never got to see them in their prime. We love Scott Lang and the newly created Hope Van Dyne; this just feels like a missed trick in the MCU which has robbed us of many great stories and moments.
7. The Ball Was Dropped On 'Planet Hulk'
While we can appreciate that not everyone enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok's zany tone, the movie as a whole was very good (and vastly better than Thor: Love and Thunder, a follow-up which nearly earned a spot here for its crummy take on The Mighty Thor).
Making The Hulk a supporting character in a movie essentially rebooting the God of Thunder was a wise move for a character who couldn't headline his own project at the time, but condensing the "Planet Hulk" arc to a glorified subplot was beyond disappointing.
So much of what made that story beloved was gone, including an ending which set the stage for World War Hulk. The Green Goliath never found romance, didn't get a team of his own, and was reduced to being involved with jokes about the "Devil's Anus."
6. They Released Black Widow At The Wrong Time
There are many layers to this one, including the fact former Disney CEO Bob Chapek should have never had Black Widow premiere in theatres and on Disney+'s short-lived "Premier Access" service at the same time. It was a decision which doomed the project and hurt female-led superhero movies as a whole.
Making a Black Widow movie was impossible when Marvel Studios was still being ruled over by Ike Perlmutter; however, finally giving her a solo outing after the character died in Avengers: Endgame just felt...pointless.
Setting it between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War also forced the movie into a very specific part of the MCU timeline which, ultimately, wasn't all that interesting. How much cooler would it have been to see Natasha Romanoff's first meeting with Clint Barton instead?
5. The Kree/Skrull War
Handled the correct way, the Kree/Skrull War is a story capable of inspiring an entire Avengers movie. At the very least, we'd have liked to see the conflict form the basis of a Captain Marvel trilogy. Alas, too many creative missteps were made in the 2019 blockbuster.
The heroic Skrulls...the '90s setting...Yon-Rogg's disappearance...The Supreme Intelligence being dispatched in a throwaway flashback...this went wrong in so many ways, and it remains downright baffling.
It's a shame too because there's a great war movie somewhere with Carol Danvers fighting both the Kree and Skrulls in a battle with the fate of the entire galaxy at stake. After The Marvels, it's sadly too late for that.
4. Making Spider-Man "Iron Man Jr."
We don't have the same number of issues with Marvel Studios' Spider-Man trilogy as many fans out there (c'mon, Far From Home really wasn't that bad), but Peter Parker's relationship with Iron Man...well, it remains an annoying part of the web-slinger's MCU portrayal.
We get pairing Spidey up with Tony Stark because those are two of Marvel's most popular superheroes. We just don't buy Peter siding with Iron Man in Civil War...and there's no way he should have been that beholden to him in Homecoming. And why did Mysterio need to be an Iron Man villain again?!
Spider-Man: No Way Home mostly moved on from this, but seeing the hero utilise nanotech and all those gadgets was a turn-off. Thankfully, the movie ended by setting the stage for us to finally see a comic-accurate Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man in the MCU, so we'll forgive 'em!
3. A Messy Multiverse
Has Marvel Studios completely dropped the ball on the Multiverse? Yes and no. Ultimately, the concept's inconsistent portrayal is a big part of what's led to many fans wiping their hands of this "Multiverse Saga," an era of storytelling which had the potential to blow the "Infinity Saga" out of the water.
Now, we just can't wait for it to be over. The MCU being forced to stretch itself across theatrical and streaming stories has done little to help, with these Multiversal projects failing to reference each other in a meaningful manner.
Incursions still make no sense, What If...? feels largely irrelevant to the wider narrative, and the alternate realities we've visited - Earth-838, for example - were lame. Where were the TVA during Spider-Man: No Way Home? Why are some Variants all the same and others completely different? It's a MESS.
2. She-Hulk's Fourth Wall Break
There are a lot of reasons She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was criticised (much of which came from suspect circles of the internet) but at least some very valid points were made. The visual effects weren't good enough and the handling of characters like Skaar and Abomination was a total misfire.
The childish complaints about twerking and the "offensive" portrayal of incels hold little merit. However, where She-Hulk really went wrong was with its attempts to emulate the comics with a finale that broke the fourth wall in the worst ways possible.
Some elements worked - like She-Hulk strolling into Marvel Studios' headquarters - but K.E.V.I.N.? It was a dumb idea, as was Jennifer Walters rewriting her finale. That robbed the show of feeling vital to the wider MCU (the Intelligencia was a punchline and had nothing to do with The Leader) and left a bad taste in our mouths.
1. Kang vs. Ants
The internet being the internet, there's a weird narrative online now that the Multiverse Saga's big bad, Kang the Conqueror, was beaten by ants. That's not entirely true, of course, but wasting this villain in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania remains a moronic move on Marvel Studios' part.
Kang the Conqueror was the baddie we were meant to fear; the "final boss," so to speak. Instead, he was relegated to this messy threequel, and ultimately dispatched by Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne in an underwhelming fight which was the product of reshoots.
Now, we don't doubt there was a bigger plan at play here. Maybe, one day, we'll look back at this and it will make sense. For now, though, all it really did was prove that the Multiverse Saga shouldn't be orchestrated by former Rick and Morty writers.