Instead of taking real steps to halt the MCU’s bleeding – like ‘convincing’ Kevin Feige to step down, or canceling the rest of the Multiverse Saga while there’s still barely time to course correct – Disney and Marvel’s new time buying strategy is to throw The Marvels under the bus. Between low box office tracking that Disney itself could have helped dent by getting SAG a fair deal weeks ago, an unwarranted press narrative that director Nia DaCosta was too…

All the justified recent teeth gnashing about the MCU won’t stop no matter how Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 turns out. Not only are they far removed from the bigger Marvel picture now – to their benefit if not the MCU’s – mastermind James Gunn is already off to run the next incarnation of the DC universe. As such, Gunn’s Marvel and Guardians’ swan song is less a return to form for the MCU, and more like one last…

On screen, the MCU is hurtling towards a crossroads in the multiverse. But even that pales in comparison to its off-screen crossroads as it enters Phase 5, and the middle phase of ‘The Multiverse Saga.” After Phase 4 had some of the lowest lows in MCU history, and even had its high points come with a few annoying asterisks, the post-Endgame part of this story is ironically running out of time to fully come together.

But with Ant-Man and the…