Gorr the God Butcher is granted a wish for literally anything and he doesn't think to
save his daughter and himself? His choice isn’t the only thing in the MCU that has us confused.
In "Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings," Katy is a regular human with no superpowers,
no combat training, and no experience with the supernatural. Her relative normalcy,
frankly, is what makes her endearing.
But after she spends little more than a day practicing archery with Guang Bo in Ta Lo,
she displays Hawkeye-level skills in battle. Which would have been
a little easier to forgive if the film's entire climax didn't hinge
on Katy making a one-in-a-million shot that nails the bad guy in the throat.
After the movie, Marvel tried to explain this in the comics,
with "Shang-Chi" #7 revealing that when people go to Ta Lo,
they’re given special powers, including super-archery. Nice try, Marvel. Nice try.
It was awesome to see Yelena grace the screen in the "Hawkeye" TV series,
but the reason for her appearance was quite flimsy. It all came down to a misunderstanding;
if the characters would have stopped hitting each other in the face and simply had a conversation,
it could have been sorted out in two minutes rather than across six episodes.
Which was proven when they finally had a conversation, and sorted it out in two minutes.
"I'm sorry."
Supposedly, Valentina made Yelena think Hawkeye was responsible for
the death of Black Widow. So Yelena spent the series trying to assassinate Hawkeye,
only to accept much, much later that it wasn't his fault.
What's weird is that the events of "Avengers: Endgame" appear to be known to the general public,
as Kamala Khan was able to describe the fight pretty much play-by-play
in “Ms. Marvel.” So why doesn’t Yelena, a highly trained superspy,
know what everyone else in the world knows? It just doesn't make any sense.
At the end of "WandaVision," Wanda defeats Agatha by casting runes on the Hex barrier
to prevent Agatha from using her magic. So long as Agatha is inside the circle of runes,
only Wanda can cast spells. However, when Wanda allows the Hex to collapse,
Agatha should be able to access her powers again. Only, she seemingly can’t. Why?
ScreenCrush theorizes that it doesn't matter if Agatha is outside the Hex, because Wanda cast a
spell on her while she was still inside the Hex to trap her inside the mind of "Agnes." Once Agatha
becomes Agnes, argues the site, she has no free will and presumably can't cast any spells. Still,
that explanation may not hold up to scrutiny, because of what Agatha had previously told Wanda
"My thoughts are not available to you, toots. They never, ever were."
If that’s true, then only Wanda's runes seem to have had any real effect on Agatha. Maybe
when she returns in "Agatha: Coven of Chaos" we’ll get the answer as to why
she couldn’t break free of Wanda’s spell. But don’t hold your breath.
In the first episode of "What If...?" the Red Skull uses the Tesseract to create
a portal in hopes of unleashing a monster. Captain Carter manages to stop the creature,
but not before passing through the portal and getting stranded in the twenty-first century.
However, there's one small problem: the Tesseract doesn't work that way.
Canonically, the Tesseract has been established as something that can be
used to travel through space, not time — that's why it's called the Space Stone. Yet somehow,
Captain Carter hurtles through space and time, ending up almost 70 years in the
future. If the Space Stone could actually allow the wielder to travel through time,
then that would have changed everything. For instance, Thanos would have been much
more powerful when he held only two Infinity Stones in the beginning of "Infinity War."
But hey, the series is called "What If...?" after all. Maybe the Infinity
Stones operate according to different rules in Captain Carter's universe?
The world was in jeopardy countless times throughout Phase 4 of the MCU,
ranging from a Celestial's emergence to the Noor Dimension nearly obliterating Earth,
and more. Throughout all this, where were the Avengers? Even if the team itself is disbanded,
you'd think individuals like Dr. Strange or Wong would have noticed Wanda's Chaos
Magic at Westview, or Rhodey would've lent Sam Wilson a hand after seeing that the
Flag Smashers were a real threat. But nope, apparently they were taking some time off.
Of course, if the Avengers showed up every time there was a threat,
there wouldn’t be much for heroes to do in their own solo films and shows. Because of this,
the world was in danger plenty of times before Phase 4 without the Avengers showing
up — just look at "Thor: The Dark World" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."
But that's the explanation in our universe. In the Marvel Cinematic
Universe? It might be nice if the MCU acknowledged that the Avengers were
at least paying attention to all the crap happening in their world.
Sometimes, by trying to resolve one plot hole, you create another. Case in point: "Eternals"
trying to explain why none of them tried to stop Thanos from snapping half the universe.
"We were instructed not to interfere in any human conflicts unless the Deviants were involved."
But attempting to offer an explanation for the absence of the Eternals only ended up raising
more questions. The non-intervention policy of the Eternals comes from their Celestial masters.
All they cared about was incubating their new baby Celestial in the heart of Earth’s core.
Here’s the issue: in order to do that, the Celestials need the population of
Earth to reach a certain point — so having half of humanity snapped
out of existence would be a major problem. Not to mention the fact that Thanos might,
you know, also snap half of the Celestials out of existence too? Which is also counter-productive.
Maybe it would have been better if the film didn’t mention Thanos at all,
because now that we’re thinking about it, it doesn’t make any sense.
"Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" has madness right in the title,
so it's easy to forgive any details that don't make sense. However, there
is one plot hole from "Multiverse of Madness" that's a little distracting: where is Vision?
For the entire movie, Wanda seems to forget about Vision;
instead she is only concerned with finding Billy and Tommy from an alternate universe.
Once Wanda finds her kids on Earth-838, Vision is never shown on-screen. Even in the climax,
when Billy and Tommy fear for their lives from the Scarlet Witch, Wanda-838 rushes to their rescue,
while Vision is nowhere to be found -- not even the Vision from Earth-838.
There could be reasons why Vision wasn’t in this movie besides the prosaic possibility
that actor Paul Bettany had a scheduling conflict. But given that Wanda’s entire
arc in the MCU was intertwined with Vision, it was weird and disappointing
that he was barely even mentioned in "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”
Given they are planet-destroying, god-like beings who shaped the universe's development,
you’d think someone would notice the Celestials. But nobody does unless the plot directs it.
During Phase 3's "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2," for instance,
the Celestial Ego almost consumed the entire Earth without the Avengers even noticing. In fact,
this world-threatening event is never acknowledged elsewhere in the MCU.
Then there’s "Eternals," which is even worse. Although the Eternals stopped the
new Celestial from fully emerging, the parts of the Celestial that had
already sprouted from the planet's surface would have still done cataclysmic damage to
Earth. A colossal hand rising from the Earth's mantle and bursting through the
ocean floor would be plenty sufficient to wipe out almost all life on Earth.
Not only does the movie never explore these consequences, but nobody seems to even notice the
gigantic Celestial protruding from the ocean. The barely-averted apocalypse has yet to be mentioned
again, aside from a split-second glimpse of a news headline on She-Hulk’s laptop in "She-Hulk."
The biggest question about the Celestials:
if nobody in the MCU cares about anything they do, why should we?
The climax of "Thor: Love and Thunder" gives the villain Gorr a satisfying redemption.
Rather than choosing to get revenge on Thor and the other gods, Gorr instead asks
Eternity to give his dead daughter a second chance at life. It’s very moving.
Unfortunately, though, it doesn't entirely make sense.
The movie acts as though Gorr only has two choices: wish to destroy all
the gods as he originally intended or wish his daughter back to life — even
though he is dying from a curse and won't be able to take care of her.
But as far as the movie seems to explain, Gorr can wish for just about anything. The rules behind
Eternity are hazy. It seems like, if Gorr phrased his wish more carefully,
he wouldn't need to choose between saving his own life and his daughter's. For one,
Gorr could simply wish to be reunited with his daughter. Or he could wish that
the drought that wiped out his people never happened. That would mean his daughter would
still be alive, and he would never have sworn vengeance on the gods.
Ultimately, the film's emotionally bittersweet ending would've felt more
earned if it had laid down some rules to the wishes beforehand so any of it made sense.
Dr. Strange has been repeatedly depicted as taking his duties with the utmost of fidelity,
even refusing to give up the Time Stone in "Infinity War" despite it placing a target
on his back. So it was surprising when Dr. Strange agreed to cast a risky spell for
Peter in "No Way Home," especially because he only seems to be doing it to spite Wong.
Of course, the spell backfired, so instead of making everybody forget that Peter Parker was
Spider-Man, it summoned everybody who knew Spider-Man's secret identity, in this and
other alternate universes. The whole disaster could have been avoided if Peter and Strange
had simply taken a moment to discuss their plan before casting any spells. Come to think of it,
it might have been a lot more simple to cast a spell to make people forget Mysterio instead.
And even if Strange's spell hadn't blown up his face, it still wouldn't have done much
good. Strange emphasized that his spell wouldn't change history; it would just alter everyone's
memories. But erasing memories wouldn't be enough. There would still be plenty of
evidence about Spider-Man's secret identity that would be impossible to ignore. The spell would
be rendered useless as soon as somebody Googled Spider-Man or Mysterio, or read an old newspaper
or watched an old news program, simply because the incriminating physical evidence would still exist.
Doctor Strange does ultimately cast a spell that somehow succeeds in erasing
Peter’s secret from the public record. Maybe he should have used that spell the first time.
Despite opinions to the contrary, the final episode of "She-Hulk:
Attorney-at-Law" made sense. Jen smashing through the fourth wall was consistent with the character,
and it was fun that Jen called out the cliche of the bad guy turning into a Hulk.
"This can't possibly be where this season was going!"
The only problem was that the season's hasty resolution left
some confusion about how much of what the show depicted was real.
Since Todd didn't turn into a Hulk in Jen's alternate ending,
then what exactly happened? Did Jen just call the cops, and Todd was arrested without even a
struggle? Would the cops even believe Jen, after she'd lost control at the gala? For that matter,
what exactly was Todd's master plan? To simply defame She-Hulk?
Also, did the scenes with Jen dating Josh never happen,
or just the part where he steals her blood? If Jen wrote Josh out of the show completely,
that would have huge repercussions — namely, the crucial scene where Jen attends Emil Blonsky's
retreat would have never happened. It's not such a stretch to imagine Josh stringing Jen along
just so he could film Jen sleeping with him and release it at the gala to humiliate Jen. Still,
it would have been nice to have the final episode at least offer clarity on which parts were real.