Marvel Studios’ genius, at least in the beginning, was that each film seemed like a puzzle piece. Each chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe saga felt deliberate, with each chapter introducing a hero, a few side characters, a villain, and then a stinger previewing the next picture. Even if the picture didn’t quite work, each films about Iron Man, Captain America, or Thor were building toward something bigger, generally an Avengers film.

Marvel Studios has been chastised by critics for producing films based on corporate rather than creative mandates. Kevin Feige, on the other hand, was in charge of a singular vision. The Marvel Studios president divided the films into “phases” and frequently told fans what to expect next. New characters would make their stage premiere at Comic-Con, generally years before their film debut, to get fans excited about their future films.

But it’s been three years since Marvel grabbed the stage at Comic-Con, and for the first time in over a decade, the MCU movie trajectory isn’t entirely apparent. I eagerly await each new MCU entry, hoping that it would explain a clear, united vision for the future of this storytelling effort. Every time, I leave the theater feeling more disoriented than before. Thor: Love and Thunder was no different. For better or worse, the film is self-contained, rarely acknowledging a world outside of Thor’s New Asgard.

In their stingers, the classic Marvel movies tended to at least set up the next chapter. We saw Thor’s hammer for the first time at the end of Iron Man, and we saw Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver for the first time in Avengers’ end credits. However, the end-credits scenes in Love and Thunder (which I won’t spoil, but you can read about here) merely introduce prospective sequels and spinoffs to the Thor franchise in general.

And, although it may be OK for a single picture, at some point, viewers will wonder if hours of investment in a tale that leads nowhere would provide diminishing returns. After two years of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s time to assess what’s working and where it’s all going.

The manner in which we were

Yes, it was a capitalist ruse: you needed to see all of the movies to really comprehend what was going on, and Marvel was maximizing its movie ticket sales in the process.

However, that format had narrative advantages. Early in the pandemic, my husband and I rewatched (for me) and watched (for him) all of the Marvel movies in a row. We didn’t hold them in high regard. We took breaks when we were bored, fatigued, or hungry, and resumed them the next day. We treated them as if they were long episodes of television. And the episodic Marvel movies work great as television. The phases were referred to as “seasons,” with each Avengers film serving as the season finale.

Even when a single film underwhelmed us (hello, Thor: The Dark World), we didn’t feel like we’d squandered our time. There are always highs and lows with episodic narrative. But we knew Thor’s backstory will come in handy in a later installment. Despite writing issues, you were working toward a storyline crescendo that would be pleasing in its finale.

Some of the most reviled films ended up having pivotal roles in the conclusion. Every significant event in Avengers: Endgame was predicted by the infamous Avengers: Age of Ultron. Of course, we couldn’t have known that at the time, and it’s possible that the film’s director, Joss Whedon, didn’t either.

But there were signs. The phases had somewhat well-defined origins, middles, and finishes. The Infinity Stones were scattered sparingly throughout the movie, rewarding viewers who could point at the screen and identify a key MacGuffin when it appeared. In practically every film, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury would appear at some time to warn the Avengers that another threat was on the way and that they needed to learn to work together.

The dreadful Thanos (Josh Brolin) was previewed in the original Avengers movie’s end-credits scene, six long years before he’d become the main villain in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. He had a little involvement in Guardians of the Galaxy but generally remained a lurking threat in the background. The expectation of something bigger spurred us forward.

When the MCU was operational

When viewed via an episodic lens, Avengers: Endgame was one of the most successful series finales ever made in episodic cinema. Not only did it tie up nearly a dozen stories from other films, but it also provided satisfying endings for characters such as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans). The heartbreaking scene in which Iron Man sacrifices himself only succeeded because we’d seen the guy transform from an immature playboy to a responsible, if still witty, father over a decade.

Captain America’s reunion with his love Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) struck a chord because Evans and the Russo brothers (who directed several of his films) had spent years developing the character from a resilient but cloyingly earnest Boy Scout to a slightly more cynical and wiser version of the character, without losing Cap’s all-important moral compass. (For more on the evolution of the “I can do this all day” catchphrase, click here.) Those emotional beats come only after years of character development.

That narrative interest in the characters was what set Marvel apart from the competition, particularly the DC and X-Men films. It was impossible to believe Batman and Superman would clash in Batman v Superman because we had never seen Ben Affleck’s Batman onscreen before and had no idea what made him tick. The Dark Phoenix film failed in part because the viewer spent so little time with Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey before she became the antagonist. There were other reasons why those single films didn’t perform, but the franchise failures are mostly due to the studios’ lack of patience. Those franchises attempted to forgo the world-building episodes in favor of the season finale. However, for the vast majority of fans and moviegoers, the finale is only rewarding because of the preceding building pieces.

According to reports, the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t always the meticulously designed plot it appeared to be. James Gunn, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, has stated that he received no guidance on the scene in which a character recounts the origins of the Infinity Stones. So, yeah, some dumb luck was involved. Audiences knew what to anticipate once the pattern was established—several one-off pictures each year, culminating in a team-up every few years.

The MCU becomes disoriented

Endgame has been out for three years, and fans have been left scratching their heads ever since. Marvel IP have expanded as a result of the launch of the Disney+ streaming platform, as well as Marvel-themed TV series. Some are inextricably tied to other entries: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness doesn’t bother with character development for its nemesis, Scarlet Witch as Wanda Maximoff, because it presume you’ve seen her Disney+ show Wandavision.

Others appear to have nothing to do with anything: Moon Knight originally captivated me, but the star-studded show that appears to live in a vacuum left me cold and puzzled. The writing was insufficient to explain the show’s existence, and since the plot had nothing to do with the rest of the MCU, why did I waste six hours of my life watching this show when I could have been watching far better projects like Oscar Isaac or Ethan Hawke?

We anticipated the MCU would be dormant for a while. With significant performers like Downey Jr. and Evans completely out of the picture, and others like Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) on the verge of retirement, the franchise would need to hit the reset button and introduce a new generation of heroes. There was definitely some type of strategy in place, with actresses like Johansson and Renner passing the mantle to fresh talent like Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld in films like Black Widow and shows like Hawkeye.

However, Feige has stated that there will not be a new Avengers squad comprised of these new actors filling in for the old. In the usual sense, the action is not building toward an Avengers 5 sequel. Which begs the question, “Why not?” Previously, the format worked really well. Why give up now?

The simple solution is money. Disney desired a streaming service and required shows to populate it. As a result, the stories spread. But there are now far too many diverse personalities and narratives going in all directions. The Eternals’ cosmic beings appear to have little to do with Steinfeld’s street-level arrow slinging. Furthermore, the tones of these projects are so disparate that it’s difficult to envision them ever coming together.

A Young Avengers team could be in the works. And some kind of magical alliance encompassing all the wizards and witches. And one with a grim undertone featuring Blade and the Black Knight. And a villainous one consisting of criminals, assassins, and discredited would-be heroes led by none other than Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It’s…a lot. Even though I’m paid to keep track of everything, I’m frequently tempted to remove episodes, movies, and storylines because I just don’t have the time to keep up with every single story beat.

The studio has also experienced a number of unexpected hurdles. Chadwick Boseman, one of its brightest stars, died in 2020. Black Panther was a huge success—the biggest solo debut for a Marvel superhero—and Boseman appeared to be on track to dominate Marvel films for years to come. Director Ryan Coogler was sent racing to draft the sequel script.

Corporate squabbles with Sony, which owns the Spider-Man rights and intended to create its own superhero movie universe, placed Peter Parker’s fate in doubt and posed creative hurdles for Spider-Man: No Way Home’s ending. Meanwhile, Johansson sued Disney for deciding to webcast her long-awaited solo picture Black Widow during the pandemic. (Disney and Johansson have since reached an agreement.)

That leads us to Marvel Studios’ most unexpected challenge: COVID-19. The virus struck, delaying the filming and release of multiple projects and mucking up well planned plans. Notably, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was said to be released before Wandavision and Spider-Man: No Way Home. This discovery explains a lot of the clumsy narrative in those three franchises. Wanda follows the same path twice, going from hero to villain to hero in Wandavision and again in Multiverse of Madness. It’s a choice in storytelling that some fans have compared to character assassination. Wanda’s spiral into corruption in the Multiverse and her disclosure of her wicked actions in Wandavision were presumably the original intentions.

Even ignoring character, this era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe appears to rely on the audience comprehending the multiverse (parallel universes); variations (different versions of the same character in other realities); and invasions (one parallel universe crashing into another). Instead of providing fans with a single concise explanation for why characters can suddenly travel across the multiverse, we get three: Loki’s murder of the man who was maintaining a single master timeline; Doctor Strange’s misbegotten spell that leads to Spider-Man villains invading our main timeline in No Way Home; and America Chavez’s multiversal travel in Doctor Strange.

As a Marvel fan, I’m not sure what any of these events have to do with one another. Again, I assume rescheduled release dates have something to do with this perplexing plot, but it’s far from an ideal way to kick off a global reset.

Where Thor: Love and Thunder falls short

Then there’s Thor: Love and Thunder, the most recent MCU installment. With Iron Man and Captain America no longer present, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the only significant character remaining from the original Avengers lineup. (Sorry, Hulk, but I don’t think Ruffalo’s take on the Big Green Guy counts because he has yet to have his own film, and probably won’t.) Thor, presumably, will be the pivotal figure in whatever follows.

But Taika Waititi’s new picture, which has underwhelmed critics in comparison to its predecessor, Thor: Ragnarok, exists in its own world, almost purposefully devoid of references to earlier Marvel films, save for a throwaway joke about Thor saving Nick Fury’s phone number as “Nick Furry” on his cell phone. This meditation on a specific character’s emotional state would be fine if we weren’t desperate for a rock to cling to in the midst of the Marvel content deluge.

Listen, solitary films that stand out from the crowd are fantastic. For example, Black Panther finds ways to shine without being weighed down by easter eggs referencing earlier Marvel flicks. In that situation, Coogler exploited the available space to create an entirely new world. That film incorporates Wakandan folklore, a long history of its leaders grappling with political and moral duties, and a discussion of how the affluent should assist the oppressed. Waititi, too, used his time in Ragnarok to create new worlds for Thor to explore while also refreshing the character by giving him a humorous bent.

Love and Thunder, on the other hand, does not break new ground. It’s just a little journey that closes up a decade-old tale from a previous film. To the credit of the screenwriters, there is some character development here. Thor has lost his sibling (three times), his mother, his father, and several of his greatest friends in previous Marvel films. Because of this loss, he battles with loneliness and vulnerability, although he finds some solace in various relationships in this film. However, for a character that has now appeared in more standalone superhero movies than anybody else in the MCU, this metamorphosis feels like a conclusion rather than a beginning.

Thor might yet have life in him. The mid-credits teaser teases an intriguing future antagonist. The casting is especially creative. But, at this point, Marvel has introduced so many new characters in cameos and stingers that have yet to appear in the MCU that I try not to get too enthusiastic about any single casting move.

Here’s a list of some of the performers Marvel has teased but who have yet to appear in a Marvel film: Michelle Yeoh and Sylvester Stallone as Aleta Ogord and Starhawk in an end-credits scene in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2; Will Poulter as Adam in that same film; Donald Glover as Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Homecoming; Michael Mando as Scorpion in that film’s end-credits scene; Harry Styles as Thanos’ brother Eros in Eternals; Mahershala Ali as Blade and Kit Harington as the Black Knight

It’s an embarrassment of riches in Hollywood waiting in the wings. And who knows if or when we’ll see them again. In fact, I would argue that the list of persons drawn into Marvel’s universe has grown much too long. The films end up squandering brilliant talent such as Tessa Thompson, who is quickly sidelined in Thor: Love and Thunder because the film doesn’t know what to do with her, or Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was set up as the big bad at the end of the first Doctor Strange film but only played a minor role in its eventual sequel.

In April, Feige announced that the Marvel team was going on a creative retreat to plan the next decade of Marvel films. One can wonder why they didn’t hold such a planning session before Endgame premiered several years ago, anticipating this current slump. Perhaps they did, and this meeting indicates that they have realized that throwing spaghetti at the wall isn’t working. Instead of dozens of underwhelming storylines, they should refocus on one or two key storylines and execute them well. The studio will have another opportunity to pique fans’ interest in the MCU’s future at the San Diego Comic-Con in July and the Disney Expo D23 in September.

To avoid Marvel fatigue, the Marvel team will need to clarify that there is a strategy in place and that we are in good hands. The tale doesn’t seem to be moving forward after twenty-nine films and seven Disney+ TV series.