Is Marvel Still Worth It?
When people hear Marvel they usually think of great superheroes, incredible plots, and great movies. After many years of adventures does marvel still have that same creativity they had?
Marvel was created in October 1939 in New York, NY. Martin Goodman is the original creator of Timely Comics which was the original name of Marvel. Sales were low and not good for business. Goodman found a guy with lots of bright ideas to lift the company and his name was Stan Lee. Lee came up with a plan called the “Marvel Method” which was made to make each hero as realistic as possible and make the unreal real. Lee was hired in late 1939 and brought a bunch of heroes we have come to love like Spiderman, Ironman, Hulk, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and many more. In years to come, the company took off with millions of copies of its comics being sold and eventually changed its name to Marvel in the 1960s.
In the 1990s Marvel’s competitor D.C. was the first to make their comics into movies. In 1993, Marvel came out with Marvel Entertainment to create a vision of their stories. Then in 1996, they came out with Marvel Studios. After Sony bought the character Spider-Man, the first marvel came out which was Spiderman. This movie blew up the box office and became one of the best movies and movie trilogies. In 2008, Marvel Studios introduced the Marvel Cinematic Universe with its first movie “Ironman”. Ironman was a hit and made the company lots of money. This success would carry them for the next eleven years. Towards the end of phase 3 of Marvel Studios, Stan Lee died of old age which was a saddening blow to the whole enterprise. In 2019 Marvel Studios came out with their last big Avenger movie Endgame which crushed the box office entirely and became the second highest-grossing movie of all time.
At the start of phase four, Marvel showed a new way of presenting their projects with TV shows on Disney Plus. Marvel fans were unsure of how to feel about the new way but went along with it. They released new series “Wandavision”, “Captain America and the Winter Soldier”, “Loki”, “What If?”, “Hawkeye”, “Moonknight”, “Ms.Marvel”, and recently “She-Hulk”. Recent reviews have shown that Marvel ratings on Disney+ have gone down remarkably from past ratings in movies. As part of phase 4, Marvel introduced the multiverse. In some of their movies, they succeed in bringing in the multiverse such as “Spiderman No Way Home” and” What if?” Marvel has also failed to bring in the multiverse along with missed opportunities, like “Dr.Strange 2”, “Loki”, and “Thor Love and Thunder”. Some argue that the shows are good and others say they should go back to movies, but movies have also gone down. Through phase four, Marvel released five movies. “Spiderman No Way Home, Thor Love&Thunder, Eternals, Shang-Chi, and Dr. Strange 2. All though Spiderman NWH and Shang-ChI were a complete success for marvel studios with very high ratings and box office sales. Others found Dr. Strange as an okay movie but with a rushed plot and terrible CGI. Most found Eternals and Thor L&T the worst movies Marvel has ever made. So is Marvel still going strong or are the cracks of Marvel Studios starting to show?
As Marvel recently released their plans for phase five, the big question is whether it should stop. Most people watched a Marvel movie and found it accelerating and fantastic. Still, others argue that Marvel has gone down in production and that the plots have become predictable, almost no hero ever dies, major plot holes, and awful CGI. So Marvel has its pros and cons but the future for it is unknown.
Samuel Ford is a senior at Perry and in his first year writing for the Precedent. This year he hopes to mainly write about sports. When not writing he...