MCU Movies – MCU Movies

When Disney Plus started releasing its own MCU shows, they moved back toward the film formula — these series tend to feel like hyper-extended MCU movies. note: Shows are included on this list if they were MCU-compliant in their day, regardless of whether they’ve since been or will later be retconned out of existence. The show is borderline unwatchable, a dour procession of exorcist and paranormal tropes with only the loosest connection to the comic book characters it’s based on. If you want superheroics, you’re better off watching anything else on this list.

And the story, about a coup in that secret society, has no stakes for the average person. ABC’s series wound up feeling more like the the SyFy Superman spinoff Krypton than an MCU story: It’s technically within the continuity longtime MCU fans care about, but it feels completely removed everything that happens in the MCU. But when Raven Metzner took over as showrunner for season 2, he oversaw a remarkable course-correction by shifting the focus away from Danny and building up the supporting cast.

Agents of SHIELD (2013-2020) ABC’s Agents of SHIELD was the show most closely tied to the MCU before Disney Plus came along. The show’s first season was written to compliment the Captain America: The Winter Soldier revelation that SHIELD had been infiltrated by Hydra, which gives the story an excellent twist, as several main characters show their true loyalties. Unfortunately, it spends a lot of time foundering, taking several seasons to become a true ensemble show, and even then, struggling with separated characters and a rotating cast of varying quality.

And as they learn to work together, the ways their abilities and personalities synergize injects some fresh energy into their individual stories. Luke Cage (2016-2018) The first half of the first season of Luke Cage is nearly perfect, with Mike Colter’s titular hero with unbreakable skin still struggling to make a real difference when fighting against the formidable mix of criminal and political power wielded by Mahershala Ali’s Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes. The series creators play around with that faux-reality, jumping through decades of sitcom styles and generally having more fun with design, direction, and overall style than any MCU show so far.

One way or another, fans of the franchise don’t seem to have engaged with the show nearly as much as they did with some of the series on this list. After the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America’s “best girl” Peggy Carter is mourning his supposed death, but also trying to carry on as a hero in an environment that increasingly doesn’t want female heroes. Daredevil (2015-2018) The first of the Netflix MCU shows, Daredevil established the darker, street-level tone of the venture while still feeling very much like a superhero story, complete with costumes, secret identities, and spectacular fights.