Kevin Feige announced the Marvel phase 4 schedule at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday. The schedule announced 10 Marvel films releasing between May 2020 and November 2021 and the titles are HORRIBLE. I mean they just flat out suck. I am a huge MCU fan and will no doubt be giving them my $21.99 for each release, but are they even trying anymore? It’s like when Rihanna released ‘Work’ because she realized she would still put out hits without saying real words. Even the origin stories, whose titles are literally just the character’s name, still have miserable logos. If they put the same effort into making the movies as they did into naming them then we’re going to end up with 10 more Thor: The Dark World’s on our hands.
To be fair, they’re not ALL terrible. Thor: Love and Thunder is the best of the bunch. Although it’s still not my favorite title, the artwork looks awesome and it seems like they’ll be keeping that 80s/90s feel that made Ragnorak so good. What If…? is straight from the comics and their logo is just kind of a play on Marvel’s which is fine. Eternals is boring but fine. Black Widow just has a terrible symbol in general, it’s a somehow less cool version of Green Lantern’s. So I guess considering what they had to work with it came out fine. The rest of the Marvel Phase 4 titles, aside from those 4, suck on ice.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier & Wanda Vision
These are just so stupid. Could they have put less effort into these? What if the creators of Breaking Bad had this work ethic? Would we have seriously watched “Heisenberg and Cap’n Cook” for 5 seasons? Fuck no. Imagine the Duffer brothers had the “names don’t matter” mentality that these Marvel guys have. Stranger Things would be “Mike Eleven”, blahgg. Gross.
Hawkeye & Loki
Hawkeye and Loki are obviously fine names, but these logo graphics are about as worthless as Rickon’s plot in Game of Thrones. The way they made Hawkeye, looks like it will be a children’s nature show about birds of prey. Unfortunately, the abysmal artwork here pales in comparison to the logo for Loki. How did this get approved? Marvel is a gigantic company how does someone not voice concern over this, much less how does Disney allow this to be released. FUCKING DISNEY. This logo is soooooooooo bad. I get it he’s a shapeshifter, the logo shifts font, it’s playful – WRONG. It’s shit. Pass these through some focus groups for fuck’s sake.
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Part of what Marvel has done so well with the MCU is translating what works well in the comics into something that looks good in movies. For example, Thor never wears his winged helmet because that would look dumb in movies. It’s what DC is so bad at in their movie adaptations. Look at Aquaman.
What an idiot. He looks ridiculous. I imagine the only thing this suit is good for is blinding enemies with Jason Momoa’s gold plated nipples. Multiverse of Madness is a textbook comic book title, which is why, to me, it seems a little too corny as a movie title. Since it’s going to be a horror film I would’ve expected them to go with a more daunting title, rather than something almost whimsical. Why not name it something that describes the multiverse? The multiverse is supposed to be endless, with millions of timelines so I think something like “Dr. Strange: Abyss” would fit way better. But hey, I’m just spitballing here.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
This is just so bad. This sounds like a kids movie that the Rock would star in just for the paycheck. Who the hell is going to be the villain in this thing? Fucking Swiper the Fox? I hope AMC orders some extra booster seats and sippy cup lids the weekend this baby premieres, it sounds like the G-rated movie of the year. Look, I’m sure these rings are important, I mean there are ten of them so that’s gotta mean something. Plus, historically rings have been crucial when it comes to Hollywood. Lord of The Rings, The Ring, He’s Just Not That Into You, Rocky – all have rings essential to the plot, but that’s not the issue. The problem is there hasn’t been a good title that starts with “the legend of” since a giant talking stone head made kids run through a maze avoiding kidnap.
