The highs and lows of a wild year at Marvel

In March, the second season of “Jessica Jones” dropped on Netflix. When the Netflix Marvel shows first started rolling out, there was as much fervor for them as there was for the movies. The first season of the Krysten Ritter-starring “Jessica Jones” garnered oodles of love from critics and fans. Then, in 2017, affinity for these shows started to flag. That even infiltrated “Jessica Jones.” Most people felt that the second season was not on par with the first. It suffered from the same bloat that plagues every Marvel show: It became part of the negative rhetoric. Now, “Jessica Jones” was still successful enough to earn a third season, which is more than some other Netflix Marvel shows can say, but we will get to that later. At best, Season 2 of “Jessica Jones” was a minor victory.

April, though, could not have gone better for Marvel because it released a movie event that was years in the making. We’re talking, of course, about “Avengers: Infinity War,” the film that Marvel fans were waiting for. It’s what the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe was building to. Even though the bad guy was a CGI alien named Thanos, whom only diehard comic book fans had heard of before these movies, there was a palpable excitement. The Guardians of the Galaxy were going to meet Thor! Who can quibble?

Given that Joe and Anthony Russo, who also directed “Winter Soldier” and “Civil War,” had so much to stuff into the movie, it was going to be hard to make a truly great film out of “Infinity War.” That being said, it was a tour de force of action, and it turned out to be pretty good.. Plus, it had that ending. We won’t spoil it for you, but it changed the landscape of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and, frankly, changed how we will view blockbuster summer movies forever.

It was a shocker and an audacious way for a comic book movie to end. Sure, it was a means of hooking people into seeing the sequel, which is coming out in 2019, but you better believe it’s going to work. What maniac watched “Infinity War” and then doesn’t want to see how the saga ends? Did anybody watch “Empire Strikes Back” and then think, “I’m cool leaving it here”? Oh, also “Infinity War” was an incredible success. It made over $2 billion worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film of 2018, which means Marvel had the top two spots on the box-office rankings, the other being  “Black Panther,” and is the fourth-highest-grossing movie in the United States and Canada ever. That alone justifies all this from a business perspective. Can the sequel beat these numbers? Don’t count it out.

While all this was going on, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” was airing its fifth season on ABC, from December 2017 until May 2018. Of course, we can all remember the exciting things that happened on it like… OK, so we’re struggling to remember anything notable, let alone fun. It’s just so sort of out there, not garnering much attention from anyone outside of its diehard fans. The excitement for “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” when it debuted was high, but it faded. It now has a dedicated, if small, fan base. In the modern TV landscape, that works, especially since Disney owns ABC and Marvel. It keeps the brand alive on its network. Still, even Disney has its limits. The show is coming back for a sixth season in 2019, but the order has been dropped from 22 to 13 episodes.

Speaking of Disney-owned channels, in June the network Freeform, which is for the young people, debuted its adaptation of “Cloak and Dagger,” which had been in the works since way back in 2011. Fittingly for the network, it’s about two superpowered teenagers who have romantic feelings for each other. It’s your classic teen drama, but one of the teens can shoot light daggers out of her hands and the other can envelop people in darkness and also sort of teleport. The first season ran 10 episodes and was well-received enough to get a second season. Maybe it wasn’t the biggest event for Marvel, but it has its fingers in so many pies it can afford to service a niche audience. That’s smart, and it worked.

What didn’t work was the second season of “Luke Cage,” which also came out in June. That follows the first season, which got lukewarm-to-positive reviews and was the first proverbial chink in the armor for Marvel. And lukewarm was about as good as it got for the second season. Perhaps enough was enough. Maybe Luke Cage wasn’t an interesting enough character. There will be no third season of “Luke Cage.” In fact, the show was among several that were axed by Netflix, as the streaming Goliath began frequently canceling shows. However, most of them didn’t have the big brand of Marvel attached to them.

It’s jumping forward a bit, but it ties into the end of “Luke Cage,” as another Marvel show on Netflix, “Iron Fist,” dropped its second season in September. And it fell with a thud. Nobody really liked the first season, and “Iron Fist” became the first clear misfire for Marvel on the Netflix front and perhaps the TV front in general. Danny Rand, the main character,  was seen as an annoying.. So when  “Iron Fist” was canceled too, nobody cared.

Trying to do a third Marvel movie in a year was lofty to begin with, and trying to do one after the events of “Infinity War” was particularly out there, especially with the way that movie ended. As such, releasing “Ant-Man and the Wasp” in July was a puzzler to some, but it was also kind of perfect counterprogramming. The “Ant-Man” films are decidedly comedic; much lighter fare than the already relatively light Marvel movies. After the heavy ending of “Infinity War,” it was a nice palette cleanser. The movie wasn’t as successful as “Infinity War” or “Black Panther,” but it was largely well-received and made $622 million worldwide. The Marvel Cinematic Universe seemed infallible.

However, in July, an off-screen issue started burbling that threw a wrench in the future plans for the Marvel world. Mike Cernovich, who even Wikipedia cites as an “alt-right social media personality, writer and conspiracy theorist,” dredged up some old tweets from James Gunn, director of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, in which he made off-color, fairly inappropriate jokes. Of course, Cernovich’s goal was to tie Gunn, a liberally minded member of Hollywood, into a bizarre web of conspiracy and bring him down. Cernovich was a major force behind the tragic Pizzagate, for further illumination. Gunn sincerely apologized for his tweets, but the conservative conspiracy theorists got their way, as Disney caved and fired Gunn from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.”

Even those who disliked Gunn’s jokes, and they were lazy shock-value bits at best and offensive at worst, shook their heads at this decision. People from all over Hollywood came to Gunn’s defense, with Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in the “Guardians” films, being a particularly vocal backer. At the end of July, all the main cast members of the “Guardians” movies released a joint statement on social media backing Gunn. Despite the backlash, Disney has stuck to its initial plans of barring Gunn from directing further films. This whole ugly mess was a black mark for Disney and thus a rough moment for Marvel as well.

The rest of the year for Marvel has been solid, if unspectacular. The third season of “Daredevil” on Netflix was released in October to solid reviews, but the show was canceled in late-November. In late December, the second season of “The Runaways” begins on Hulu. There was also a made-for-TV movie that aired on Disney XD called “Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors” a decent film for the younger crowd. Speaking of animated Marvel movies, on Dec. 14, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” will be released, featuring a variety of Spider-Men, Spider-Women and, of course, Spider-Pigs. It is a light, brightly colored romp and another example of Marvel’s niche appeal (this time outside the realm of Disney, as the film is a Sony project).

As you can see, there were some high highs and some low lows, for Marvel in 2018. However, time waits for no man or no multibillion-dollar company. So what does 2019 have in store for Marvel? Well, on the movie front, it’s primed to be another huge year. "Avengers: Endgame" is scheduled to come out on May 3. Rumors are it will run almost three hours, but it will also be bringing the story of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe as we know it to an end. Expect it to be the final film for several iconic characters, or at least actors, such as Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Chris Evans as Captain America.

Before that, though, March hits us with “Captain Marvel,” which is an exciting addition to the Marvel movie world. Brie Larson, an Oscar winner, will be making her Marvel full-length feature debut as Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. The film is a period piece, which is how it can occur prior to the “Infinity War” sequel without feeling weird. (Expect Captain Marvel to play a role in the next "Avengers,” by the way.) 

That’s not all, though, as the second “Spider-Man” movie starring Tom Holland, “Far From Home,” will come out in July. Meanwhile, over at Fox, the X-Men have a new movie on the horizon. “Dark Phoenix,” the fourth movie in the current X-Men series, starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto, respectively, is scheduled to be released in June.

In the world of television, there are a  couple of things coming our way. The second season of Netflix’s “The Punisher” will be released at some point. Will it avoid the axe that fell on “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist?” The second season of “Cloak and Dagger” will be arriving, and we are still waiting to find out when Freeform will debut “New Warriors,” which has been percolating for some time.

What we do know for sure is that Marvel is going to dominate the movie landscape. The box-office returns for these movies are going to be huge, and although the television front may not be going as well, the films will keep sustaining it. That being said, if this “Avengers” film is a curtain call, it will make the next couple of years for Marvel and Disney quite intriguing, as Disney is also working on its own streaming service, which will obviously involve, and impact, Marvel. 

2018 was an eventful, overall successful year. 2019 will be fascinating to watch unravel. Until next time, true believers!