Fans may blame Kevin Feige all they want for MCU’s downfall, but he has always been the Man With a Plan!

There are very few things in life that bring a person the utmost joy while delivering a sense of purpose at the same time. The Marvel Cinematic Universe tapped into that sense of purpose and Avengers: Endgame was its culmination. With billions of fans screaming, hollering, hooting, and wailing, the 22nd film in the MCU was a phenomenon worth its weight in tears, an event worth living through, and a tale worth retelling for generations to come.

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However, with the final stand of the OG Avengers, Marvel fans were also made to stand the test of time. The period of cinematic depression that followed witnessed an absolute and complete death of creativity after churning out monotonous, passionless projects with no end in sight.

After half a decade’s worth of patience and misery, Marvel fans look back in time to an era that could have delivered a solution to all of its future problems – only if it was brave enough to make one tough call.

Kevin Feige Advocated For an End to the OG Avengers

Avengers assembled in Age of Ultron [Credit: Marvel Studios]

When the MCU was still a booming universe and ‘Marvel fatigue’ was an illness not yet discovered, Joe and Anthony Russo lorded over the CBM empire with enough creative oversight to overshadow the rest of Hollywood combined. But this also meant they had the skill set and vision required to tell a story of grand scale and ambition. Despite the heft of lore accumulated in the run-up to Avengers: Endgame, the Russo Brothers-directed film neither felt overly stuffed nor succumbed to failure of expectations due to a bar set too high.

At this critical turning point of the MCU, Kevin Feige had the foresight to request an end to the OG Avengers before stepping off into Phase Four. However, the Russos vetoed the Marvel President’s idea for 2 reasons –

A: The shock would be too great and catastrophic to the senses and fans wouldn’t be able to process such a tragedy.

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B: There wouldn’t be enough time to end the arc of all 6 Avengers with enough dignity and finesse that each of them deserved and celebrate their story to give a sense of closure.

Although the Russos were right to object, had they been bold enough to adapt Feige’s idea and make it work, the MCU wouldn’t have suffered as much in the coming years and Marvel could have been saved from catastrophe long before ‘superhero fatigue’ began setting in.

Feige’s Original Endgame Plan Could’ve Saved the MCU

Tom Holland as Spider-Man in Avengers: Endgame [Credit: Marvel Studios]

When the curtains fell on Avengers: Endgame, the devastated fans went back home with only half their heart intact. 3 out of the original 6 Avengers had been sacrificed to serve as an acceptable counterbalance to Thanos’ rampage. Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, Tony Stark aka Iron Man, and Steve Rogers aka Captain America were struck off the map and the fans were left with a dysfunctional Hulk, a disillusioned Hawkeye, and a lovesick Thor.

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The result of these 3 hanging back in the MCU is – Thor: Love and Thunder, Hawkeye, and She-Hulk. All 3 projects have introduced a new model based on the OG Avengers (Love, Kate Bishop, Jennifer Walters, and Skaar), and yet, the dregs of the past are too heavy and sentimental to allow a complete transition into a new Avengers category.

With Tom Holland’s Spider-Man taking over from Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, he could have ushered in a new era at Marvel — both within the universe and for the studio. The immediate aftermath of Endgame could have been donated to the cause of building a new team instead of dragging its feet and tying up loose ends for 4 long and miserable years, let alone have a fully functional Avengers team in sight before Secret Wars comes knocking at the door.

In such a scenario, Marvel could have built on the new Avengers arc with an interplay between the young superheroes, dealt with their individual conflicts and evolution, and formed an emotional connection between these new custodians of the universe and their fans before fully realizing them into a stronghold capable of tackling an event of the scale of Secret Wars. One can only hope the current timeline is capable of marching to the tune of its own ambition, given the sorry state of superheroes scrambled all over the map, with no unifying sense of purpose or thread connecting them all.

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Avengers: Endgame is streaming on Disney+.