In the past months, I have watched nearly every Marvel film that hit the big screen: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” etc. I have had a love-hate relationship with these movies over the past several years, but Marvel has now pushed me over the edge.

Growing up, I followed every film that the studio released and I owe it to them for some amazing childhood experiences. For instance, when my dad surprised my brother and me by taking us to see “The Avengers” (2012) in theaters, the experience could only be described as magical. Each time a new Marvel movie came to theaters I was the first person in line on opening night. 

Every. Time. 

Once “Avengers: Endgame” came out, it felt like that was the end of everything they had been building up to. Stories had concluded perfectly, 10-movie long plots were wrapped up beautifully and it was a cultural phenomenon that everyone was talking about. 

But as the years went by, more and more Marvel content continued to be released (even more than before “Endgame”) and I started to feel a little exhausted. With Marvel introducing TV shows into the mix, audiences now have the ability to tune in weekly to get their superhero fix. 

It was at this point that I began to feel even more burnt out. The only Marvel show I have watched in full is “WandaVision,” choosing to skip out on the rest because I was no longer interested in anything else. It was the shows that made me realize how impatient Marvel has become with their releases. 

The beauty in getting a few movies a year was there was enough time in between each film to build excitement for the next. Today, you can go see the new Ant-Man and then go home and catch up on the latest Marvel show. It is too much content, way too quickly, and it becomes overwhelming for an audience.

Also, I don’t want to do “homework” before I go and see a movie. That defeats the entire purpose.

So we finally get to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the movie that finally made audiences question the state of Marvel. I am honestly surprised it took this long. It is one of the ugliest, dumbest and most pointless feeling Marvel movies I have seen in years, alongside “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Doctor Stange: Multiverse of Madness.” 

Ant-Man introduces the next big antagonist for the franchise, Kang the Conqueror. Now for those who did their homework and watched the show “Loki,” Kang is a character that has already been introduced. But in Ant-Man, they have to completely reintroduce Kang because Marvel has to assume half of the audience members have not watched their seven shows on Disney+. 

I long for the time when Marvel was patient, when you could go to the theater every couple of months and catch up on the most recent superhero movie, then wait for the next one months later. Now I feel exhausted and burnt out by these movies and quite honestly can’t bring myself to care about these characters and stories after the peak of “Avengers: Endgame.”

Marvel has seemed to go in an unfortunate downward spiral over the past few years with the quality of their movies and the lack of care they put into each one. I just can’t seem to care about watching over 50 hours of seven different shows when it is all just going to have to be re-explained in their movies. 

There is a little spark left inside of me, the child me, that hopes Marvel will get back on track with back-to-back hits of interesting characters and incredible, fun action. But as of now, I feel as if I have wasted so much of my time sticking around and waiting for that fire to reignite.

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