Summary

Ironheart's mixed reviews reveal Marvel's habit of subpar streaming series, diluting their brand.
Marvel faces criticism for lackluster, uninspiring series like Ironheart, causing audience fatigue.
With scaling back to combat Marvel fatigue, the studio must reinvigorate their content to revitalize their brand.

When Marvel initially announced its game-changing Disney+ streaming lineup at the D23 Expo in August 2019, the entertainment world was confident that the MCU wouldn't peak with Avengers: Endgame as previously supposed. Somehow, Kevin Feige and company had cooked up a plan so masterful, intricate, and diabolically marvelous, that not only were we getting more MCU, but following Endgame, we were, in fact, in for the best the MCU had to offer thus far.

Twelve streaming series later, we've been snapped back to reality. With the studio's latest in Ironheart, critics and fans alike are abuzz about the series, which merges magic and technology, but not because the show is any good. Or, not the entire show, at least.

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By Tom Thandi

The word around town is that Ironheart doesn't take flight until its final episode, which would mean the last series of Marvel's Phase 5 goes out with a whimper, along with too many of its other ho-hum series efforts. If they want a fair shot at competing with James Gunn's high-powered DCU revamp, Marvel must make sure their next efforts are complete ones.

Ironheart's Reviews Have Been Somewhat Critical About The Series Overall

Audience Scores Are Harder To Parse

The new series isn't dreadful, as it sports a 74% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its 59% audience score isn't nearly as promising, but the show also suffered a relentless review bombing before the show even premiered. Other Marvel shows have faced similar vitriol prematurely, such as Secret Invasion, which fans lamented for its use of AI, among other things, and She-Hulk, which was famously divisive as well.

The show's Rotten Tomatoes audience score, or 'Popcorn Meter', is up significantly from its pre-release state at an abysmal 32%. It seems Marvel fans have come to the show's rescue after news of the sabotage went public after making headlines around the web, according to Cinemablend. As charitable as fans have been with the troubled series, it's not as if the show is baseless in its criticisms. For instance, in The Best War Games's own review of Ironheart, we found the series tedious and largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, save for its final episode.

With that said, it really seems as if Marvel formed a bad habit of phoning in the meat of their streaming series and ultimately diluting their brand because of it. Sure, it's great to flesh out the superheroes we'll eventually see on screen with extended films of their own on Disney+, but what good is that if the bulk of the time we spend getting to know them is anything less than super?

Marvel Has To Fix Its Biggest TV Problem: Telling Earnest, Inspired Stories

We also felt that Ironheart's finale, while great in its own right, was unearned. As welcome as it was, it's debatable whether it was worth trudging through hours of uninspiring content to get there. Fortunately, Marvel at least somewhat agrees with that sentiment, given Ironheart was shelved after completing production three years ago, and marks the end of the studio's mini-series streaming model with its release.

Marvel is scaling back its output now in response to Marvel fatigue, which stems from shows such as Ironheart, and films like Captain America: Brave New World, which have failed to inspire audiences and suffer from a plainly visible lack of inspiration from the studio behind it. This truth is a hard pill to swallow for comic fans, as Marvel once established itself as a beacon of creativity and ingenuity in the field, from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame.

Since then, it's felt as if they're closer akin to a legendary band, past their heyday, insisting upon playing out-of-touch new tunes instead of giving people what they actually crave. Fans want engaging, earnest stories about outcasts and lovable oddballs, accepting their individuality and facing the darkest sides of themselves in the form of fleshed-out, empathetic villains. Any product that feels rushed or poorly conceptualized will feel disappointing to the many fans who love to love their heroes.

Of course, Marvel isn't completely out of the race, and its decision to slow output is not at all indicative of them bowing out. Marvel has two huge films on the release calendar with Fantastic 4: First Steps and Avengers: Doomsday. Both of these films, especially with Fantastic Four merely weeks away, stand to be the most consequential films Marvel has released since Endgame.

Marvel Studios Isn't Sitting On Their Hands, Waiting For The Problem To Solve Itself

Fans and studios alike will be able to presently gauge DC's box office weight class vs Marvel's with the competing Superman and Fantastic Four releases around the same time. Moreover, Marvel's Captain America: Brave New World wasn't exactly promising for the future of the MCU, with some rough visual effects and an admittedly great Red Hulk that unfortunately didn't appear until too late into the movie. This echoes the complaints surrounding Ironheart, which support the notion that Marvel needs to reinvigorate its moment-to-moment efforts in order to revitalize its brand.

Marvel is offering up Eyes of Wakanda in August, followed by Marvel Zombies in October. While these anthology-adjacent animated shows will hopefully be fun, the real X on Marvel's upcoming release calendar will be Marvel's Wonder Man, about a stuntman who gains superpowers. The show will be run by Andrew Guest, who should inspire confidence as he wrote 26 episodes of the excellent sitcom Community, which is widely praised for its story structure. In the meantime, Ironheart is available to stream on Disney+, although you might want to just wait until the finale is available to watch it.

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