By Gabe Thornber

This year at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Studios announced its biggest endeavor yet: Marvel Phases five and six. Marvel confirmed 15 new shows and movies coming out, ranging from the end of 2022 to 2024. They also unveiled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars coming out in 2025.  

   This collection of movies, known as the Multiverse Saga, is the biggest project released by Marvel to date. The previous phases, known as the Infinity Saga, were released over 10 years.  This fitting of the new phase into just 3 years is met by fans with both excitement and apprehension. However, Marvel fans everywhere are wondering if it is too much.

   With movies like Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Eternals, it seems like the movies have fallen significantly in quality compared to those spanning from previous years. Ranging from a Rotten Tomatoes score of 45% to 65%, this has been disappointing compared to the 80-90% scores coming from other titles coming out in early 2021 and before. The movies seem too short and the comedy too forced, with holes in the plot and jumps in logic. 

   With these few movies released being less entertaining and of lower quality, Marvel should focus on spending more time and investing in the quality of one or two first-rate movies rather than rushing out several and potentially dragging down the Marvel franchise.

   Speaking in Marvel’s defense, fan Kyle Lowell ,’23 explains that “All the new shows and characters they are introducing might seem a little chaotic, but that chaos ties into the new ‘Multiverse’ theme and could possibly contribute to the upcoming secret wars and invasion plot arc.” 

   With all the new content upcoming in the franchise, it is impossible to not be a little apprehensive of more movies being released of lesser quality. However, only time will tell as we wait for more announcements, and as excitement rises for the next big film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as it hits theaters this winter.