It’s been five years since “Avengers: Endgame”, viewed by many as one of the greatest movies in the history of Marvel, was released. Since then, Marvel has been releasing project after project but fans can’t help but wonder if they are meeting the hype that “Endgame” did.

The first project for Marvel’s Phase Five was “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”. This film was highly anticipated, as fans were not only excited to see the return of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, but excited to see into the Quantum Realm. The Quantum Realm is described as a parallel dimension that exists on a subatomic scale. As we saw in “Endgame”, the Avengers used the Quantum Realm to travel through time and space to retrieve the infamous infinity stones to bring those who dusted in “Avengers: Infinity War” back. “Quantumania” ended up being mildly disappointing. The plot was messy and the CGI could have been better, as the CGI in past Marvel movies has been great. Although, there were some good points of the movie, including Scott’s desperate need to protect his daughter Cassie from the strange but dangerous threats of the Quantum Realm. Another high point of the movie was Johnathan Major’s performance of Kang the Conqueror.

The next project released was “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3.” This movie was spectacular, with the plot, the writing, and relationships all on point. This was to be expected, as the past two “Guardians” films had also been excellent. This movie was heartfelt and kind of soul crushing as it takes the audience through Rocket Raccoon’s backstory. This movie also showed the important values of a found family and how despite their differences and issues there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. In the end, the Guardians ended up going their separate ways and making Rocket the new leader of the team. This movie was the first movie since “Endgame” that felt like the old Marvel movies. Unfortunately this was the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie though the end credit let us know the Star Lord, aka Peter Quill, will be making a return to the MCU.

“Loki Season 2” is a currently active project with four episodes released (as of Oct. 26) and two more on the way. This show is so well written and well crafted. The visuals, storyline, plot, and dialogue are beyond expectation. On a personal note, this may be the best project of Phase Five yet, outranking “Guardians.” Loki is continuing the story of trying to fix the TVA after Sylvie eliminated He Who Remains, aka Kang, and timelines started to branch off one another. It’s up to Loki and Mobius to find a way to keep the branching timelines from causing complete chaos and keeping the variants of He Who Remains at bay. Not only did we get the return of the infamous God of Mischief but we also received a new writer for this season. Perhaps the new writer for the show is the reason behind why it’s so good, as the previous writer for Season 1 was not so great. Season 1 was something most Marvel fans prefer not to talk about. The act of making Loki “fall in love” with himself was just absurd. Moving on from the fact last season was not so promising, it’s being made up with the current season.

Moving away from Phase Five, as the other projects have yet to be released, I’d like to talk a bit about Phase Four projects. The first project of Phase Four was “Black Widow,” a movie that was very long overdue and should have been a film years ago. Knowing Marvel they could have fit that into the budget ten years ago, besides the point of it being overdue this movie was…mediocre. I always feel bad for saying that because the topics in the movie are very real and very serious but I just feel that it wasn’t done the way it should have been. The film takes place a couple months or so after “Captain America: Civil War” where Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, is on the run from the United States Government for going against the Sokovia Accords. She gets attacked by a trained weapon of the Red Room that they call Taskmaster and Natasha soon realizes that the Red Room is still very much active. She gets in contact with her sister Yelena who helps her, along with her adoptive parents who worked for the Red Room, take down the entire establishment and free all the widows. It wasn’t that the plot or story was bad, it just could have been written better considering the fact it’s on the topic of child trafficking.

“Falcon and The Winter Soldier” along with “WandaVision” were the best projects of Phase Four. Both of these projects were well written and thought out with detail. “Falcon and The Winter Soldier” takes place a few weeks after the events of “Avengers: Endgame” and touches on the topics of racism as Sam Wilson, Captain America, formerly known as Falcon, struggles to accept the role as Captain America as he feels he wouldn’t be accepted because he’s black. This show was heartfelt and eye opening as the audience watches not only Sam’s struggles but Bucky’s as well as he navigates life free of the Winter Soldier and comes to terms with the pain he caused as the Winter Soldier. “WandaVision” also takes place a couple of weeks after “Avengers: Endgame.” This show takes the audience through Wanda Maximoff’s grief after the death of her lover Vision. Her grief becomes so overwhelming that she uses her magic to create a false reality in a small town called Westview, New Jersey. Through this false reality, Wanda turns real life into popular sitcoms she enjoyed as a child. These sitcoms range from ones that aired in the early 50s to ones that aired in the late 2000s. In the finale she proceeds to become the Scarlet Witch, take down the false reality, and disappear to a cabin by a lake where the audience finds her reading the most powerful and evil spellbook, the Darkhold.

So while there were some iffy projects as of recent, I don’t think Marvel is as bad as it seems. I really feel they just need to find a way to get into the old groove of things and find consistency. They really need to focus particularly on writing better scripts. Something that could also make it better is not adding so much action, it gets hard to focus when there’s so much fighting going on every five minutes or so. I’m excited to see the upcoming projects and where they’ll take the story of the new villain Kang.

I am hoping the upcoming movie, “The Marvels,” is better than some of their other recent movies and that the MCU can pick itself up. “The Marvels” comes out November 10 and the season finale of “Loki” premiers Thursday, November 9.