It's Friday afternoon so it seems like as good a time as any to set aside politics for a moment and argue about comic book movies. Variety published a ranking of all the Marvel studios film and TV show releases (not including the movie and TV shows not produced by Marvel studios). Reading the list made me despair for the future of humanity more than anything I've seen at the NY Times today.
Since 2008, Marvel Studios has released 37 feature films, 15 streaming series and two TV specials, all of it knitted together within the unprecedented narrative tapestry known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
That means the list has 54 entries and it started off pretty well:
- 54 - Secret Invasion (2023)
- 53 - Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- 52 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
- 51 - Moon Knight (2022)
- 50 - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
All of these are bad though I'd say Thor: The Dark World is the best of this group. It's not good but it's badness mostly consists of it feeling rote and empty. That still puts it above Thor: Love and Thunder which is tiresome and unfunny and the other three which all border on being incoherent.
The real shock is that Ironheart, which I wrote about here, isn't at the bottom of this list. Ironheart was truly terrible and made me really dislike the main character who is portrayed as a self-aggrandizing villain with a moral sense slightly less appealing than Thanos. Incredibly, Ironheart finally shows up on the list at #30, near the midpoint. Here's what the authors had to say:
From the moment that teen tech genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) crash lands onto the streets of Chicago after getting kicked out of M.I.T., it was clear that this show would mimic its lead character’s ingenuity, scrappiness and sense of humor. But its most standout element was the deftness with which the show addressed Riri’s deep-set grief over the loss of her best friend and her stepfather, with the story illuminating the idea that her desire to create a suit of armor was about protecting her own heart as much as it was the bodies of those she loves. Produced by “Black Panther” steward Ryan Coogler, this series sat on the shelf longer than planned, but its multilayered story stayed fresh thanks to strong performances from its lead cast and a science versus magic plotline that had plenty of spark.
At #30, Ironheart outranks the first Ant-Man film, Iron Man 3, Thor (the first one) and Avengers: Age of Ultron. None of those films is perfect but Ironheart is absolute garbage, which is why Marvel sat on it for a couple years instead of releasing it.
Other terrible shows that show up way too high on the list include She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (#39) and Hawkeye (#21). But the real shocker is that Agatha All Along, a spin-off of WandaVision, is ranked #16 above Deadpool & Wolverine (#17) and Captain America: The First Avenger (#19). Agatha All Along was watchable but only had one really good episode. It was not a great show. If you read what the authors wrote about it you'll figure out pretty quickly why it ranked so high on this list.
Kathryn Hahn was such a gas as scheming witch Agatha Harkness on “WandaVision” that Marvel built a spin-off series around her, and Schaeffer, who also created “WandaVision,” makes the absolute most of the opportunity. Deftly drawn equally from comic book lore and the writers’ own fertile imaginations, “Agatha All Along” spins an enchanting (sorry) tale, as Agatha gathers a highly reluctant coven of witches — including Joe Locke’s Billy Maximoff, Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu and Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale — to walk the legendary Witches’ Road and reclaim their power. As the show slowly peels back Agatha’s origin story, it also puckishly explores the ways pop-culture has commodified witchery as a metaphor for so-called “difficult women.” Also, Aubrey Plaza plays Agatha’s ex, Death — which, yes, makes this show the gayest thing Marvel’s done by a country mile, and about damn time, too!
For far too many people these days, identity politics is enough to make something good. Finally, at the top end of the list we get
- 10 - Loki
- 9- Thor: Ragnarok
- 8 - Iron Man
- 7 - Spider-Man: No Way Home
- 6 - X-Men ’97
- 5- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- 4 - WandaVision
- 3 - Guardians of the Galaxy
- 2 - Black Panther
- 1 - Avengers: Endgame
It's a terrible muddle. Loki doesn't belong in the top 10. It beat out the Avengers at #15?! No, sorry, that's ridiculous. But the worst thing here is putting WandaVision at #4 above Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man. It was a mildly amusing TV show with a clever premise but that's all. It doesn't belong in the top 10, certainly not ahead of those two films. There is probably no one who thinks Loki and WandaVision are as good as Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, except apparently the five Variety authors who made this silly list.
Here's my own top 10 for comparison purposes. No TV junk on this list. All of these movies manage to be coherent, well-plotted, entertaining, funny and heartwarming at times, plus they all have great action sequences and solid special effects. These are comic book movies after all.
- 10 - Avengers: Age of Ultron
- 9 - Iron Man 3
- 8 - Captain America: Civil War
- 7 - Black Panther
- 6 - Captain America: The First Avenger
- 5 - Avengers: Endgame
- 4 - Captain America: Winter Soldier
- 3 - Guardians of the Galaxy
- 2 - The Avengers
- 1 - Iron Man
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