PHOTO COURTESY OF IMDB

Jack Bond, Opinion Editor, is a senior English major from Marion

I remember going to see the first Avengers movie three times when it was in theaters. Three times. It was a dream come true to see some of my favorite childhood superheroes make it on the big screen, and it was executed perfectly.

Now when I see a new marvel movie announced, I just shrug and move on with my day. Seeing the name “Marvel” attached to something just doesn’t instill the same sense of excitement and child-like wonder it used to.

I’m not the only one either. It seems a lot of people are getting tired of Marvel. What happened in the latest Marvel movie used to be the talk of the town, but I have yet to hear anybody talk about the upcoming Ant-Man movie next week.

Even critics are starting to give harsher reviews. Some of the earlier movies had some fairly bad reviews (looking at you “Thor: The Dark World”), but overall it was some pretty stellar numbers.

Most movies seemed to get a minimum 7/10, but with the introduction of phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the numbers have more consistently dropped. Just look at the IMDb ratings for their latest movies and shows.

“Black Widow,” 6.7/10. “Thor: Love and Thunder,” 6.3/10. “Eternals,” 6.3/10. “Ms. Marvel,” 6.2/10. “She-Hulk,” 5.2/10. 

Where are the days when Avengers would destroy the box office? What happened to the state of Marvel movies? It’s a pretty decent number of things, but the main offender in my eyes is the lack of maturity.

Look at the comics that created these characters and you’ll see some pretty gruesome stuff. You have people being disemboweled, ripped in half and even eaten alive.

You could argue that the heroes in the MCU are just not the ones who did things like that in the comics, but you would be wrong. Take Spiderman for example. There are comics in which an evil version of him uses his wall-clinging ability to rip the skin off of people’s faces. There’s even a zombie version of him that ate his family.

This lack of graphic violence is easily forgiven though, as there are ways to write around it while maintaining a more mature story. Multiverse of Madness did it pretty well, but I won’t detail it here for risk of spoilers.

What is inexcusable, however, is the amount of jokes. Marvel jokes were a nice break in the action at first, but now they have become a hallmark of the genre. They are predictable and tiresome at this point. 

Just look at their worst offender: “She-Hulk.” It was meant to be a comedy series, yet it failed, getting some of the worst ratings of any recent Marvel media. 

It doesn’t help that many marvel characters seem to almost always have to have a cocky or quirky personality. Iron-Man, Spiderman, Thor, Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, they might as well have the same personality with all the jokes and jabs they poke at their villains.

It may be, however, that people are just tired of the superhero genre in general. There are so many superhero movies and tv shows nowadays that it’s almost overwhelming. There are even shows like “The Boys” popping up just to parody the genre. 

But then again, “The Boys” also does what Marvel doesn’t. It’s much more gruesome and mature. Similarly, shows like “Invincible” or some of DC’s animated stuff like “Harley Quinn,” both of which are much more adult-oriented, do pretty well.

Unless Marvel fixes itself, it will just continue to lack the same punch it used to. Something needs to change, but I doubt that change will come anytime soon.

Categories: Opinion