The Marvels
She’s only 21, but increasingly, it feels like The Marvels’ actress Iman Vellani understands Marvel and the MCU better than anyone, overlord Kevin Feige included.
Her projects have had poor luck. Ms. Marvels was a low-watched Disney Plus show (albeit the MCU’s highest critic scored offering), while The Marvels just set records for the MCU’s worst debut ever, and it may be its lowest grossing film. And yet through all these, no one has anything but praise for Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan.
Now, Vellani is talking about the larger problems with the MCU, and she was asked by The Direct how the MCU could go back to generating Avengers: Endgame-level fan hype:
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s about just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Because then, like, what’s left? You know, I think it’s just about making the audience care about their characters. And I think they’ve established so many wonderful characters in the last phase of the MCU that it would be nice to see them all again and see them team up.”
It’s a simple answer, but one that seems to identify the core problem with the MCU right now, the pursuit of bigger spectacles, of sprawling casts covering every inch of Marvel history. While precious little time is spent on developing individual characters, short of say, Loki, universally agreed upon as one of the best offerings in this phase.
Loki
The problem is that all indications are that this is not going to change. The multiverse itself sort of necessities these “bigger and bigger” storylines. Think the MCU is already too big now? Well, here’s the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and a bunch of Spider-Men, the Thunderbolts, Young Avengers, and a dozen upcoming Disney Plus shows.
Vellani is right that there are great characters in this phase of the MCU. Among them, besides Kamala herself, I’d say that’s Wanda, Yelena, Kate Bishop, She-Hulk (CGI aside) Shang-Chi, Shuri and a recently reset Peter Parker. But there’s been little cohesive vision to unite them, and they seem like they’ll be chucked on a pile for the Avengers films, drowned out by a bunch of FOX X-Men and the new Fantastic Four.
She’s young, but Vellani gets it. It feels like the MCU needs breathing room and to recognize which of its films and shows work, and why. And that why is usually getting audiences to invest in the characters. Maybe they’re starting to understand, hence Loki creator Michael Waldron reportedly writing both Avengers films, but good lord, bring Vellani on as a consultant at least at this point between her encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel and every quote she gives bringing a clarity of vision to a muddled universe.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
