MCU Star Addresses Superhero Fatigue After Spider-Man: Brand New Day, & Fans Are Accidentally Proving Her Point
Although many Marvel fans would likely agree that the MCU has had a rocky track record since Avengers: Endgame, there’s little doubt that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a massive achievement for the franchise. In fact, given the number of box office records the movie has already shattered, including the speed with which it passed $1 billion at the box office, it’s fair to say this may go down as one of the MCU’s best movies overall. This raises some interesting questions about what had been said of superhero movies ahead of Brand New Day, specifically as it relates to the idea of “superhero fatigue”—the notion that audiences have grown tired of superhero movies.
While it feels impossible that viewers would ever truly abandon superhero films outright, there did seem to be mounting frustrations among fanbases, be they Marvel, DC, or otherwise, and that was in part, many thought, stemming from the sheer number of superhero stories being pumped out. However, Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel actress Iman Vellani has just addressed her stance on the notion of superhero fatigue, particularly as the idea relates to Brand New Day, and not only are her insights on point, but also, the reaction to her comments is confirming what one of the major issues with modern day superhero movies really is.
Iman Vellani Is Right About Superhero Fatigue, But Comments Are Revealing Why That’s Frustrating
As shared by the Revenge Of Instagram account, Vellani has just addressed the hot button issue of so-called superhero fatigue head on, saying, “People showed up [to Brand New Day] on the first week. Like nobody really believed in the superhero fatigue, that means. Nobody really believed that this movie was going to fail and they were over it. They wanted it to succeed, and I think we’re so used to being cynical and assuming that like every thing new coming out is going to suck and, you know, it’s all propaganda or they’re just trying to, like, whatever. People’s attention spans are low. No, like, we can appreciate a good thing when we see it.”
Unfortunately, while Vellani is making a great point—that superhero fatigue itself is not a genuine issue but rather that audiences want good stories and will support the projects they want to see succeed—the comments beneath that post are making it clear why the latter has become such a problem for the MCU. Specifically, many comments are taking Vellani’s words and twisting them to criticize either Vellani, her character Kamala, or the projects that she’s been in (particularly The Marvels, which continues to be overhated). One such comment reads, “Nobody cares about Ms. Marvel,” and another says, “There is no super hero fatigue. There is ONLY poorly written movie and dud character fatigue. And Kamala Khan IS a dud character. Hope to never see the character again.”
Rather than a good faith discussion about whether Ms. Marvel, The Marvels, or other MCU projects met audience expectations (about which there could actually be a rich, productive conversation), some comments have simply shifted towards attacks on the actress that lack substantive criticism. And therein lies a major problem with the types of MCU projects that some in the fanbase don’t want to see succeed. Ms. Marvel and The Marvels were always going to have an uphill battle, for example, in part because they are women-led or, as some in the same comment section have already argued, “woke.”
Unfortunately, what that quickly devolves into is not a sincere conversation about good stories, as Vellani is trying to have, but rather an immediate rejection of certain projects that has made some of them doomed to fail before they even had a chance.
