The Marvels | Through the Shattered Lens

The trailer for The Marvels dropped today. I got through about 30 seconds of it before I started to get a headache thinking about how insufferable the discourse around this film is going to be. Comic book films can be fun but, over the past few years, the discourse around them has become unbearable. Will this film be accused of being too woke or not woke enough? Probably both because that seems to be the way of the culture right now.

On a personal note, I have to admit that I’m at the point where I’m a bit bored with all of the Marvel films and TV shows. I was very much invested in the MCU for its first ten years but Endgame just felt like the logical place to end the saga. Everything after that — with the possible exception of the Spider-Man films — has felt somewhat anti-climatic. The first ten years of the MCU worked because every film, in one way or another, was clearly a part of a bigger story. Post-Endgame, it’s hard not to feel like the films are lacking the epic feel that previously excited audiences.

Will The Marvels reverse the MCU’s fortunes? We’ll find out later this year! For now, here’s the trailer:

Due to the Pandemic, 2020 was the first year since 2009 not to see the release of any new Marvel films. Many people wondered if the MCU would be able to survive taking a year off. Would people still care about or even remember the Marvel movies without having a new one released every four months? With so many of the MCU’s most popular characters either dead or retired by the end of Avengers: Endgame, would viewers in a post-Pandemic world still flock to theaters to see what Marvel’s fourth phase had to offer?

The positive responses to Disney+’s WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier would seem to suggest that the answer is yes but the first real test will be when Black Widow, Shang-Chi, The Eternals, and the latest Spider-Man film are released later this year. Black Widow is the first solo movie of one of the Marvel’s most popular characters and Spider-Man is Spider-Man so both are expected to be blockbusters. The Eternals are less well-known but, because their movie was directed by Nomadland‘s Chloe Zhao, expectations are high. Shang-Chi is probably the biggest question mark but the trailer generated a lot of enthusiasm.

With Black Widow just a few months away from opening, Marvel Studios today released a sizzle reel to remind viewers of what’s coming out. After a brief look at Marvel’s past, the trailer provides footage of Black Widow, Shang-Chi, and, for the first time, The Eternals. It ends with a list of upcoming Marvel films, including the newly titled Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Marvels. (The Marvels is the sequel to Captain Marvel, presumably titled to remind people that there is more to the film than Brie Larson.) Finally, things end with a hint that The Fantastic Four will soon be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.