For one to enjoy a film series, many liberties must be taken. This is because there are bound to be inconsistencies in storylines as the series grows larger. For an interconnected series such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there needs to be a leeway granted as several different directors hem different projects.
As people differ from one another in style and flow, a subsequent film usually has conflicting events from earlier ones. This is just something we need to accept or else ruin the enjoyment value from watching the MCU films. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t be aware of those things that aren’t right in the series.
There are a number of criticisms the MCU has received over the years regarding certain tropes such as people claiming the franchise doesn’t regard women as viable leading characters, or the age old gripe where the villains are called extremely weak in substance as compared to the protagonists. The one thing that the MCU has been guilty of, though, is the inconsistency in plots.
As said previously, these inconsistencies should be overlooked for the most part, and they are too seeing that we’re listing them as points that everyone has chosen to ignore, but perhaps Marvel could pay heed to these mistakes and correct them in the future. A big shift is expected once Avengers 4 is released and you might notice a number of points in the following list might be resolved by then.
For now, let’s see the 30 things Marvel hasn’t quite gotten right.
30 Why Didn’t The Avengers Remain Assembled?
Before Civil War, the Avengers were only shown to assemble when the time called for it. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, dialogue stated they had banded together purely for the sake of bringing down HYDRA?
But wouldn’t it be more prudent to keep them together? Banner, Rogers, Romanoff and Stark clearly have nothing really going on in their lives for them to forego the team. After Civil War, the short-lived permanent team was disbanded, this time for different reasons.
29 Why Did The Avengers Accept Blame?
The blame that fell onto the Avengers in Civil War was hypocritical by all the world nations. Of course there would be collateral damage when combating aliens with advanced technology.
How about the world’s governments fight off aliens by themselves if they think it’s that easy?
Not only that, but the Avengers, in fact, saved New York City from being vaporized into nothing; a decision taken by the World Security Council. The destruction on Sokovia was inevitable when battling an insane robot looking to inflict global extinction. So how was it the Avengers’ fault?
28 Steve And Sharon Carter Relationship
People who think themselves too smart always argue that the meaning behind Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter’s romance was to show that the former was ready to move on from Peggy Carter; however, the moving on part could’ve easily been applied to any other woman.
How about considering the extreme inappropriateness of locking lips with the niece of the woman you loved just a little while after she passed away? As Cap won’t be featured after Avengers 4, this relationship was for nothing.
27 Inconsistent Powers
Remember that guy who stood atop a tower in New York City and lightning blazed entire alien ships with ease? How about when he ended the Destroyer, the famed creator of Asgard, all by himself?
This same guy got beaten down to his knees by a man-made robot.
Power levels are all over the place when it comes to MCU heroes. At times, when it’s required to show them as vulnerable, they’re taken out easily. When it comes to showing off their powers, then nobody can stop them.
26 New Trend Of Sympathetic Villains
After showing Erik Killmonger’s motivations in Black Panther as sympathetic, Marvel seems to be favoring this new trend of the misunderstood villain. Since Black Panther, we’ve had the next two antagonists embody this trope.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos’ ultimate goal is for the benefit of all life in the universe (or so he believes), and Ant-Man and the Wasp’s lousy antagonist was shown to be the same as the protagonists, only viewed up until then in a negative light. If this is kept up longer, no one will consider the villains as legitimate.
25 Thanos’ Plan Was Stupid
The Purple dude spent all those years-perhaps centuries, even-waiting to get his hands on all infinity stones so as to cull half the universe. His reasoning was that overpopulation would be combated and the remaining population would enjoy resources in abundance.
But, as revealed, he even snapped away half the resources.
With plant life and food cut by half, what was the point of everything seeing that all the problems still remain? All Thanos did was bring the number down; but by percentage, everything’s exactly the same.
24 How Did Thor Know Of Wakanda?
Most argue that Thor was aware of Wakanda due to Stormbreaker guiding him to the next infinity stone. But how would Stormbreaker even know that? If Thor deduced that the last stone was on Earth, then how did he know it was in Wakanda? When he’d left Earth, Wakanda was unknown to everyone.
Besides, if his target was Thanos, then he should’ve gone straight to Titan seeing that Thanos was present there. With five infinity stones on Titan, it should’ve been a clearer beacon for Thor to follow.
23 The Suddenly Fixed Bifrost Bridge
There were two major problems at the end of Thor, and both of them were fixed with no problems by the next film. In The Avengers, Thor was transported to Earth by Odin using Dark magic. This proved that teleportation wasn’t that big of a task for the All-Father.
More significantly, by Thor: The Dark World, the Bifrost bridge has been repaired for a while as Thor was shown to have been visiting most of the nine realms to fight off invaders. So who fixed the bridge that quickly?
22 Let’s Forget About Light Years
While the plan of the Asgardians to travel to Earth and set up a new home for themselves there was a solid one, it was always going to be impossible for them to get there.
The slow-moving Statesmen would only reach Earth in millions of light years.
Why did the Asgardians expect to reach there when the destination was unreachable realistically? It’s believed Thanos intercepted the ship months after Thor: Ragnarok, and he probably did them a favor; there was no getting to Earth, that’s for sure.
21 Why Didn’t Heimdall See Thanos Arriving?
While Loki spelled the Asgardians’ doom by snagging the Space stone from Asgard’s vault, it was Heimdall who should be blamed. The All-seeing character didn’t see squat as Thanos arrived seemingly out of nowhere. Heimdall could see every soul in the universe from where he stood, so wouldn’t he have seen Thanos’ ship arriving from light years away?
The only explanations would be that he was either asleep most of the time or didn’t bother looking out the window.
20 Tony Stark’s Reversal Of Character
Iron Man 3 is the most useless entry in all of the MCU, even more so than The Incredible Hulk. Nothing from that movie carried over to the later entries. Pepper Potts had dumped Stark by Civil War due to the latter’s obsession with remaining Iron Man. They went back to agreeing to disagree by Avengers: Infinity War, but all the story development from Iron Man 3 blew up just like the suits in that film’s finale did. Stark still had all his suits and gadgets starting from Avengers: Age of Ultron.
19 TV Shows Ignored, And Vice Versa
It sounds cool to think that the TV shows and movies all exist within the same universe. The idea that all the impactful events from the films were felt by the TV series’ characters is intriguing. Unfortunately, it all remains just an idea.
You could easily imagine these shows separate from the films.
There’s nothing to suggest they take place within that universe as the TV shows never mention any events like Sokovia or Infinity War. The Defenders should never have been needed as the Avengers exist.
18 Do Chitauri Have Minds Of Their Own?
The aliens from space haven’t been defined the best way by the writers. In The Avengers, we were led to believe that most alien species were unable to function the same way as humans and had a hive mentality.
However, the Asgardians are clearly capable of their own will and are technically aliens. In Guardians of the Galaxy, we saw a Chitauri in the possession of the collector. But how’s he alive by himself if in The Avengers all the Chitauri perished at the same time?
17 Sudden Love For Females
It shouldn’t even be a big deal that there haven’t been any female-led films in the MCU as of yet (Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn’t count despite how mad you might get), as superhero comics were, and still are, marketed toward boys and men; so naturally there wouldn’t have been many female superheroes.
Now as everything seems to need to be women inclusive (just check out Doctor Who’s obvious pandering), a Black Widow film is in the works with producers specifically targeting a female director, as if her gender would make her a more competent filmmaker. Obvious damage control.
16 Vision Was Useless
Not only was he a burden for the Avengers in Infinity War, but Vision hasn’t been useful for them after his debut in Age of Ultron. In Civil War, Vision’s only role was to be a hindrance between Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch, and later on hardly participated in the airport brawl.
His only contribution ended up crippling James Rhodes indefinitely. Turns out having an android in the team isn’t as useful as one might think.
15 How Does Vision And Scarlet Witch Romance Work?
Seemingly out of nowhere, we got a Vision and Scarlet Witch romance. In Civil War, they were close friends at best but by Avengers: Infinity War they’d taken their relationship to the next level.
However, shouldn’t the fact that he’s an android present some problems?
Biologically, how does his body function? He could imitate looking like a human but as far as performance is considered shouldn’t there be some natural obstacles? Now that’s more interesting than most MCU films combined.
14 Scarlet Witch’s Accent Change
Ever since Quicksilver was shot and written out of the series, Scarlet Witch seems to change her personality more by every new film. In Civil War, you’d have been forgiven for forgetting she was the same character from Avengers: Age of Ultron, while in Avengers: Infinity War she was nothing like we’d seen before.
Most striking of all was the fact that she didn’t even have her Sokovian accent anymore. It’s one thing to alter an accent after spending a lot of time in a different country, but this girl’s pretty much from the USA by this point.
13 Thor’s Modified Vision
Before Taika Waititi rejuvenated the Thor series with his blend of fun, humor, and style, the films were known for being heavily focused on Shakespearean elements. Following this format, the vision Thor had in Avengers: Age of Ultron depicted Ragnarok.
But since we know what Ragnarok looked like now, Thor’s vision was hardly accurate. Heimdall was shown to be blind for some reason, which never came to pass in the actual event and the talk of Asgardians being taken to Hel didn’t happen either.
12 Avengers Routinely Ignoring Borders
Try stepping even a toe onto the border of a neighboring country without a visa and you’re likely to either be shot or arrested for trespassing. In the MCU, however, these sovereign borders are easily ignored by the heroes with no repercussions. Thaddeus Ross did mention this in Civil War but that was only to add evidence to a larger argument.
While Cap was a fugitive, he still traveled to different countries without being caught even once.
11 Everyone Forgot About Quicksilver
The Avengers had a great argument in their favor that they never used when the Sokovia Accords were about to be put in place. They too lost one of their own in the Battle of Sokovia and had suffered greatly. In fact, the loss of Quicksilver held more regard as he had saved the city and the world, and passed away rescuing innocent bystanders.
And yet, Quicksilver’s been completely ignored since this event with not even his twin sister mentioning him anymore.
