Entertainment
How Exactly Is An Employed Adult Meant To Enjoy Avengers: Doomsday?
By TeeJay Small
| Updated
Like many MCU fans, I’ve been following along with the drip-feed of Avengers updates with a mix of cautious optimism and thinly veiled concern since before the Doomsday title was even applied. With each new update, returning cast member, and behind-the-scenes shakeup, I’ve wondered how this film could possibly inspire the same audience turnout as installments like Infinity War and Endgame. Now, it is with great regret, and heaps of sarcasm, that I must admit: My Avengers: Doomsday hype has officially been squashed by the first official trailer.
Can Casual Fans Keep Up?
I’m already aware of the fact that there are millions of fans like me who have mentally checked out on the Disney+ Marvel shows a long time ago. While I enjoyed WandaVision and What If as much as any theatrical MCU experience, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the barrage of shows we’ve received in the years since. Marvel’s box office stats have also done somersaults in the last decade or so, with outings like Eternals, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Thor: Love And Thunder serving as box office disappointments, or outright financial bombs. I’m also told that a film called The Marvels was released in 2023, though there’s no record of it in my brain whatsoever.
Despite a general waning of interest in the daily MCU minutiae, I had held on hope that an Avengers team-up would rouse attention from the cultural zeitgeist, especially with the Russo Brothers at the helm. But, after watching the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, I’m left with a sense that the movie will be a who’s who of who cares. Multiple shots within the 145-second trailer left me wondering “should I know who that is?” or “what is the significance of this interaction?” or “does this movie have a plot, or is it more of a My Dinner With Andre situation where dozens of superheroes sit around having thought-provoking conversations?”
The MCU used to be really good at balancing numerous characters around a single, coherent story. Most of the movies leading up to the Infinity saga are designed so brand new fans can keep up, and existing super-fans can enjoy every little easter egg and reference along the way. If the trailer is anything to go off, it looks like Doomsday will be loaded with Disney+ streaming characters that no employed adult would ever have the time to commit to memory. Maybe there’s a mandate that casual fans sit this one out, but it seems strange that Disney would rest their next landmark movie on the backs of Yelena Belova, Bob Reynolds, and Namora.
Better Find A Study Buddy
Ironically, this inability to juggle spinning plates is exactly the reason that nobody attempted to form an expansive cinematic universe like this before 2008. If you pitched the idea of turning the entire Marvel Comics roster into an interconnected sequence of blockbuster films before the success of The Avengers, producers would shut you down because they wouldn’t want to alienate non-comic readers, or shell out millions for an ever-expanding cast of A-listers. These days, it feels like you can’t enjoy a new Marvel film unless you’ve committed to 14 hours of mandatory homework first.
Obviously, it’s way too soon to know for sure if Avengers: Doomsday will be any good. We’ll probably get a few new trailers, some carefully-laid behind the scenes leaks, and an overwhelming media blitz from the 400 cast members before it hits theaters. But for now, my excitement is suspended. That is, unless somebody can confirm that the MF DOOM song “Doomsday” will be used in the movie. That would get me back on board immediately.