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Yeah, Marvel had actual chairs with actors’ names on them. I watched it. You probably did too. And as ridiculous as it sounded, more than five million people tuned in by the end. That’s not something a “dead franchise” pulls off.
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Still, I couldn’t help but feel torn. Because as much as I loved seeing Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and even Channing Tatum’s Gambit teased for the next big crossover, I kept asking myself the same question: how did we get here? From Endgame to endless livestream gimmicks? If this was the MCU’s grand comeback, it felt more like a last-ditch nostalgia play than real momentum.
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And let’s be honest—the signs were all there. The Marvels tanked harder than anyone expected. Secret Invasion butchered one of the most iconic Marvel comic arcs of all time. And somewhere between Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Echo, the audience stopped feeling like they were in on the joke. The tone? Wobbly. The quality? Inconsistent. The stakes? Barely there.
But here’s the thing: Marvel still had juice. That livestream proved it. Whether it was curiosity, hope, or pure chaos, fans stuck around for hours. And it wasn’t just old-school names that kept us watching. It was the sheer possibility that Marvel might actually pull it together this time. That Phase 5 could clean up the multiversal mess and give us a reason to care again.
Because for years, the MCU kept tossing spaghetti at the wall — expecting nostalgia and cameos to hold the weight of storytelling. And for a while, it worked. WandaVision felt fresh. Loki had a bite. Even No Way Home hit the fan-service sweet spot. But after that? The sparkle wore off. What we got felt more like content than cinema.
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That’s why this chair stunt hit different. Sure, it was slow. Sure, it was weird. But it reminded us of something we’d all forgotten: Marvel knew how to control the room. Even in silence, with zero footage, just names and empty chairs—they made fans sit up and watch. The studio still had its grip on the culture.
And maybe that was the point. Phase 5 wasn’t about clean slates or bold reinventions. It was about restoring faith. Reminding us that no matter how messy things had gotten, this universe still mattered. These characters still mattered. And maybe, just maybe, Marvel still had something left to say.
Whether Avengers: Doomsday delivered on that promise was another story. But on that strange May afternoon, as the names kept rolling and the seats kept filling, one thing became crystal clear: the MCU hadn’t lost its spark completely. It just needed a damn good reminder of where it came from.
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