MCU phase 5 wrap-up.

Acquired these last time here.

Watched them that day, but haven't had time to post my thoughts here until now.

Again, they are...

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Thunderbolts* (*AKA New Avengers) (2025)

Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

"Brave New World" was a lot of fun.

We get our promised callbacks to "Eternals" and "The Incredible Hulk".

Action, humor, intrigue, beloved characters; all our usual Marvel goodies are on point.

I'd rank it in between "Winter Soldier" and "Civil War".

The CHUD-o-sphere tried to scream it down and prayed for its failure because of the black protagonist.

While screaming that it wasn't because of the black protagonist.

They tried with every drop of their lifeforce to make that the whole conversation.

Fuck off, CHUDs.

Glad I got to see it after they tired themselves out, and fucked off to the next fake-outrage.

Without that crap in the way, it's great.

Note to my future self; avoid all social media discussion before I see one of these.

"Thunderbolts*" was even better, 

With this and "Brave New World" instead of the Obama optimism that the first "Avengers" had going for it, now the government sucks, the internet culture sucks, everything is just miserable, and now our heroes are literally fighting depression.

I was down on Marvel and superheroes as a genre, but Disney/Marvel feels the same fucking way, and is like "tell me about it!".

And yes, this is Marvel does "Suicide Squad", and even though this one can only go hard PG-13, it crushes both of those. With its pinky.

Fight me, Snyder-bros.

And finally, "Venom: The Last Dance".

Sony-verse, but still MCU-adjacent.

Same dumb fun as the first two, but on a more global epic scale, and (seemingly) a bigger pile of money to play with.

Easily the best of the three.

It's the "Return Of The Jedi" of Venoms.

Kinda wish I'd seen it at the theater now.

So, yeah, I surprisingly had a really good time with all three of these.

Hey!! Now I get to review all of phase 5!!

Last time, for Phase 4, I bitched about how the larger meta-story was a mess that lost its direction.

Is the larger meta-story gelling this time?

Though I loved "Quantumania", it and "Guardians 3" were a messy start.

I've taken multiple cracks (2, 3) at G3, and I still don't dig it.

"The Marvels" is fun, but it's just kind of there.

"Deadpool & Wolverine" "Brave New World" and "Thunderbolts" are all solid.

They really turned it around finally.

Everything I bitched about before feels fixed now.

So, yes, Phase 5 is doing a much better job than Phase 4.

Both in films, and the larger meta-story.

Phase 4 will always be remembered as the worst for telling the meta-story.

Sadly, people will keep blending 4 and 5 in their minds. 😓

But, that's on Marvel for not carving out their identity better like they did with Phases 1-3.

🤷‍♂️

So, looks like Phase 6 is only going to be "Fantastic Four: First Steps" "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" "Doomsday" and "Secret Wars".

Stay tuned for those!

And coming right up: Phase 5 compilation!