Talk to any Marvel fan about their fandom, and you’ll likely get a lengthy discussion on the rise and fall of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Since the franchise’s first big superhero movie — Iron Man — hit theaters in 2008, the MCU has garnered more than $30 billion at the box office, making it the highest-grossing film franchise in the history of cinema.
The MCU has a particularly devoted following among its Filipino fans who, back in 2019, were deemed the “biggest Marvel fans.” At the height of this Marvel-mania, Disney Philippines was selling over 1,000 Marvel movie tickets every hour. Avengers: Infinity War was the highest-grossing film of all time in the country. Filipinos were buying Marvel merchandise at an excessive rate, with over 15,500 products being sold daily. To many Filipinos, the MCU was a cinematic institution.
However, the same die-hard loyalty that once fueled the MCU’s success both in the Philippines and around the world seems to be waning. Many fans can pinpoint the exact moment of the franchise’s decline after the release of Avengers: Endgame in 2019, which marked the end of its Infinity Saga line of movies. “It’s just all world-building and set-up now,” Marvel fan David Tan, who’s followed Marvel’s cinematic and streaming releases from its first chapter of story-building (or “Phase One”) up until its most recent phase (Phase Five), told Rolling Stone Philippines. “After Endgame, it felt like they were trying to bring in so many new characters for Phase Six without addressing plotholes or staying long enough per story.”
Another Marvel fan, Seewon Lee, discovered Marvel not through its comics, but through its films. While she followed along with the franchise’s cinematic releases up until Avengers: Endgame, the content afterwards felt inaccessible to her mainly because of their emphasis on heavy world-building and lengthy set-ups for later blockbusters. Films like Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and The Marvels felt as if they relied too much on prior comic book knowledge and the assumption that fans had already seen all the Marvel content, including the franchise’s numerous Disney+ shows. “They were trying to make all these new storylines, introduce all these new superheroes, and set things up for the next generation of movies,” Seewon told Rolling Stone Philippines.
Other fans point out how the overwhelming number of new films and shows from the MCU has weakened the coherence of its heroes’ narrative arcs. “There’s too much content to consume,” AJ Elicaño, a committed Marvel comic book fan and a lecturer on comics and cultural studies at Ateneo de Manila University, told Rolling Stone Philippines. “Think about the intensity and the build-up leading to Endgame: That was 10 years of build-up, and the pay-off of an adrenaline high was so worth it. But now, the narrative has come back down. We’re in this weird sort of transitional phase where some characters have just been introduced and have yet to hit their narrative climax, but now there’s less time to build up to that same Endgame climax. So the outcome is a messy sprawl: There’s no way to consume everything unless you’re a real super fan.”
Hope on The Horizon
Despite its many missteps in recent years, the MCU appears to be seeing a glimmer of hope. New series like Agatha All Along and Daredevil: Born Again have been well-received by fans and critics alike. The former, starring Kathryn Hahn, has been called the “best Marvel content” of 2024, while the latter is praised as a much-needed “creative overhaul,” delivering the most brutal action that MCU has ever seen. Its upcoming films, Thunderbolts* and the reboot of Fantastic Four, seem to have the potential to reignite excitement even more and restore some of the magic that made the MCU a global phenomenon.
For many fans, the announcement of Marvel’s latest array of films and shows marks an optimistic return to its renaissance era of character-driven plots and commitment to quality storytelling, reminiscent of the early comic book-driven narratives that first made the MCU a cultural force. “The heroes are what set the MCU apart,” Marvel fan P’Danji Ferrolino, who’s been reading the comic books since his father first introduced him to them, told Rolling Stone Philippines. “They’re not superpowered from the start, they’re not automatic gods: They’re humans who want to use their abilities to save the world. May humanity pa.”
“I’m seeing signs of life in the fandom,” said David. “With their take on Daredevil being such a hit, and with a lot of the groundwork for world-building already complete…I feel like we’ve already seen Marvel at its rock bottom, so the only way out now is up, right?”
