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6. Spider-Man's Botched Origin Story
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5. We Never Got The Kree/Skrull War
Handled the correct way, the Kree/Skrull War is a story that has enough meat on the bone to be the basis of 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 2019.
The heroic Skrulls...the '90s setting...Yon-Rogg's disappearance...The Supreme Intelligence being dispatched in a throwaway flashback...this all went wrong in so many ways. The way Marvel Studios dropped the ball on the conflict 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 Secret Invasion (another waste) and The Marvels, it's sadly too late for that to realistically come to fruition.
4. The Falcon Became Captain America Too Soon
Captain America: Brave New World didn't live up to expectations, and arguably failed to establish Sam Wilson as an effective Captain America before he takes centre stage in Avengers: Doomsday next December. However, mistakes were made long before that.
While we have no problem with Sam wielding the shield, it should have been Bucky Barnes. Not only would that have followed the comics, but it was a logical next step for a character who had finally found redemption for his past actions and could now honour his best friends by inheriting his mantle and the expectations and pressures it entails.
The former Winter Soldier would've come out the other side an even richer character. Instead, he was a Senator for 5 minutes and now leads the New Avengers (which, we guess, is something). Both Bucky and Sebastian Stan deserved better and have instead been left to tread water.
3. Kang The Conqueror's Downfall
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. In fact, it's been said that his apparent demise was meant to set the stage for Kang to return more powerful than ever before. Jonathan Majors' legal issues aside, this was the wrong place to debut the Conqueror and a real waste.
2. The Avengers Was Missing Two Founding Members
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, but Ant-Man and The Wasp's absence still stings, and is the main reason Tony Stark and Bruce Banner become Ultron's creators.
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, and one that's robbed us of many great stories and moments.
1. Planet Hulk Became A Subplot In A Thor Movie
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 and essentially rebooting the God of Thunder was a wise move for a character who couldn't headline his own project at the time. Still, condensing the "Planet Hulk" arc to a glorified subplot was 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 largely reduced to being involved with jokes about the "Devil's Anus."