Of Chris Snellgrove
| Published
We’ve been pretty hard on Disney+ here for a very specific reason: their lackluster MCU TV content. When the streaming service was first announced, the prospect of having more movie-quality Marvel content on the small screen was arguably the biggest draw, even more so than the promise of Star Wars on the small screen. The House of Mouse has unfortunately squandered most of the MCU’s television potential, but they could turn this ship around by doing something radical: namely embracing Netflix’s Marvel model of creating shows around minor characters that don’t connect to the movies.
Before Disney+ came along, Marvel’s television content was split across multiple platforms. All the more family friendly Agents of SHIELD aired on ABC while Marvel got shows expressly designed for mature viewers, incl Daredevil, Jessica Jonesand Luke Cage.
The ABC show has a lot of fans, as do the shows that later aired on other streaming platforms (I’m pretty partial to Hulu’s Runaways itself), but the series on Netflix instantly became a global phenomenon. They were everything fans thought we couldn’t have with the MCU – gritty, brutal and brooding – and one of the only downsides was that the shows distanced themselves from the Marvel movies (and vice versa).
While I understood the logistical difficulties of scheduling cameos around wildly different shooting schedules, I was one of those fans who was always disappointed that we didn’t get to see characters like Jessica Jones appear in Avengers movies. But now that so much of the Disney+ content that replaced shows like Daredevil has turned out to be a disappointment, I have completely changed my mind. The simple truth is that not connecting to the movies was one of the biggest strengths of the Marvel Netflix content, and trying to force such a connection is the biggest weakness of the Disney+ shows.
How making Marvel an interconnected universe ruined Marvel
For example, Loki was a hugely popular Disney+ TV series, and its only major flaw is that it spent two seasons trying to set up Kang the Conqueror as Marvel’s next Big Bad. It’s easy to say now that this was a waste of time as Jonathan Major’s legal drama led to Kang being written out MCU in total. But here it is the thing: even if these legal woes had never happened and Majors was “He Who Remained” for future films, spending so much time creating a future film means that Loki wasted the chance to tell a more self-contained and intimate story for his title character.
That’s the kind of mistake Disney makes with these shows. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier told an uneven story that is mostly set up Captain America 4a film that has been plagued by delays and reported reshoots. Secret invasion trashed a classic comic strip, seemingly just to explain why Nick Fury was in space in time for Marvel’s. Likewise the end of Ms. Marvel was sacrificed to set up Marvel’sa film that became a historic box office failure for Disney.
Singularity is Marvel’s strength
Again, it’s easy to pick on these shows through the lens of hindsight because we now know that the films they pitched suffered production and box office difficulties. But wouldn’t these shows have been better off having almost nothing to do with the movies? They could tell their own stories and deliver endings that would be satisfying no matter what happened with the release of later films. Netflix’s Marvel shows were forced into their own little corner of the world and ended up not thriving in despite of the lack of connection to the films but because of it.
Jessica Jonesfor example, could afford to do some fun stunt casting by making David Tennant the villainous Purple Man. In the Disney+ era, it would be harder to sign Doctor Who star because executives would like him on a 10-year contract for future shows and movies. Likewise, I’m convinced that it was easier to sign Vincent D’Onofrio as the villain of an outstanding TV show and he may have gotten away with the draconian contracts of the modern Disney+ era.
The Netflix shows’ distance from the larger MCU helped them tell different kinds of stories about different kinds of heroes. The hard-drinking and unabashedly vulgar Jessica Jones, for example, would likely clash with the bright heroes in a breezy Avengers adventure, but she thrives in the noir-infused world of a series whose sex and violence would never make it to Marvel’s big screen . Similarly, Luke Cage was able to address discussions of race and racism in a way that would likely terrify Disney executives, who fear even the hint of controversy regarding their tentpole films.
We’re running out of time to save Marvel And Disney+
This is about more than nostalgia. More than another aging Marvel fan saying things used to be better.
Pound for pound, Netflix’s Marvel era delivered better shows, bigger names, and bolder performances, and they were able to do so in large part because there was no real attempt to connect them to the MCU movies. If Disney+ wants its own future Marvel shows to shine (incl Daredevil: Born Again), it will have to copy the Netflix formula, focusing on telling self-contained stories rather than endlessly setting up future cinematic slop.
Otherwise, this franchise could be deadlier than Kang’s future in the MCU, and no amount of stunt casting Robert Downey Jr. Doctor Doom or restarting the whole thing will revive it.
