Okay, folks, this is one of those things where I look at Disney, Marvel, and the whole superhero fatigue argument and go: the problem is not that superheroes are dead.
They are not dead.
Genres do not really die. Swashbucklers did not die. Westerns did not die. Cowboy stories did not die. Spy stories did not die. Monster movies did not die. They go away for a while. They cool off. Audiences get tired of seeing the same thing served the same way over and over again. Then, years later, somebody comes along, finds the right angle, and suddenly the genre works again.
That is where Marvel is right now.
The superhero movie has gone the way of the blockbuster. It got too big, too connected, too expensive, and too expected. Every project started feeling like homework. Every show had to set up another show. Every movie had to explain another movie. And after a while, people stop feeling like they are watching a story and start feeling like they are maintaining a subscription to a fictional universe.
That is not entertainment. That is a part-time job with visual effects.
Disney already seems to know there is a problem. Bob Iger has talked about reducing Marvel output and focusing more on quality, with fewer films and fewer television series per year. That is the right diagnosis, but it is only part of the cure. (EW.com)
Because the fix is not just “make less Marvel.”
The fix is “make the right kind of Marvel.”
And here is the funny part: Disney already had the answer sitting inside its own house. ABC is part of Disney’s television operation, and ABC already proved that Marvel could work as television. (The Walt Disney Company)
They did it with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
They did it with Agent Carter.
Agent Carter ran for two seasons on ABC and gave Peggy Carter room to exist as more than just Captain America’s lost love interest. It took a supporting character and built a period spy show around her. That is exactly the kind of thinking Marvel needs more of. (Marvel)
Then there was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which ran long enough to become its own thing. It started as a companion piece to the movies, but it eventually became a full television engine with its own cast, its own mythology, and its own rhythm. Marvel’s own site listed the seventh season as the final season and named Henry Simmons’ Mack and Jeff Ward’s Deke among the core cast, which matters because those are the kinds of characters Disney could still build from. (Marvel)
That is the part Disney keeps missing.
Not everything has to be an event.
Sometimes the better answer is a repeatable television structure.
Bring back the agency idea. Bring back the ground-level Marvel world. Bring back the idea that not every story needs Thor, Doctor Strange, or a multiverse portal. Sometimes you just need competent agents, strange cases, weird technology, a few super-powered complications, and a team that people want to watch every week.
You could bring back Mack as the anchor. You do not need to bring back everybody at once. Bring back Mack as the strong central figure. Bring in new agents. Bring in old characters as support when the story calls for it. Deke is still sitting there as a usable loose thread from an alternate timeline. That is not a problem. That is a story generator.
And that is what Marvel needs: story generators.
The Netflix-era shows proved another version of this. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher were eventually brought over to Disney+, along with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. That tells you Disney understands the library has value. (Marvel)
But the lesson should not just be, “Put the old shows on the service.”
The lesson should be, “Look at why those shows worked when they worked.”
They had lanes.
Daredevil was street-level crime and Catholic guilt with fists.
Jessica Jones was trauma, investigation, and hard drinking with super strength.
Luke Cage was community, Harlem, music, and power.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the workplace version of the Marvel universe: missions, mysteries, betrayals, weird science, alien leftovers, and people trying to clean up the mess after the superheroes left town.
That is a useful model.
Marvel does not need every Disney+ show to look like a chopped-up movie. That has been part of the problem. Too many of these streaming series felt like someone took a film idea, stretched it, chopped it into episodes, and then called it television.
Television is not just a long movie.
Television has rhythm. Television has structure. Television lets characters breathe. Television lets side characters become fan favorites. Television lets you have a bad week, recover, and come back with a strong episode. A $200 million movie does not get that kind of forgiveness.
And maybe, just maybe, Disney needs to stop making everything look like they are either spending too much money or somehow still cheaping out.
That is the strange part. Technology is better. Production tools are better. Virtual sets, digital workflows, cameras, editing, effects pipelines — all of that should make it possible to produce better-looking shows with smarter budgets. But if every show is treated like a mini-blockbuster, the budget gets eaten alive before the story gets room to matter.
A new S.H.I.E.L.D.-style series could solve a lot of problems at once.
It could lower the stakes without lowering the quality.
It could use Marvel’s massive world without requiring every episode to shake the universe.
It could bring back familiar faces without making nostalgia the whole product.
It could introduce new characters slowly instead of forcing the audience to care immediately.
It could give Disney a repeatable Marvel show instead of another six-episode “event” that disappears after the finale.
That is the difference between content and a series.
Content fills a calendar.
A series builds a habit.
That is what Marvel lost after Endgame. It lost the habit. For years, people showed up because the machine was working. The characters were connected. The stories mattered. The audience felt rewarded for paying attention.
Then the machine got too big.
And when the machine gets too big, the audience does not feel rewarded anymore. They feel assigned.
That is where fatigue comes from.
Not from superheroes.
From obligation.
So my answer is simple: stop trying to make every Marvel project the next major chapter. Make some of them good television. Make some of them smaller. Make some of them procedural. Make some of them character-driven. Let the movies be movies. Let television be television.
Bring back the agents.
Bring back the street-level stories.
Bring back the weird Marvel corners that do not need to save the universe.
And for the love of all things profitable, stop treating the audience like they need a flowchart to enjoy a Tuesday night show.
Marvel can come back.
But it does not come back by beating the same IP into the ground until nobody cares, then buying another IP to keep the machine fed.
It comes back by remembering that comic books were never one thing. They were war stories, detective stories, science fiction, horror, comedy, romance, fantasy, street crime, cosmic nonsense, and people in ridiculous outfits trying to do the right thing.
That is the playground.
Use the whole playground.
Have a safe, fun, and profitable day — because if it ain’t safe, it ain’t fun, and it sure as hell is not going to be profitable.