The Reel Rejects - COY'S COMIC CORNER: All 36 MCU Movies and Shows Ranked! (W/ Thor Love & Thunder + Ms Marvel)

Episode Date: July 16, 2022

Now that Thor Love And Thunder is out and Ms Marvel has concluded, Coy ranks the films & series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe up to this point. Included in this list is Iron Man, Avengers Infinity War, Avengers Endgame, Black Panther, Spider-Man No Way Home, Captain America, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Loki, Doctor Strange Multiverse Of Madness, Wandavision, Moon Knight, Shang Chi, Black Widow, Ant-Man, and wayyyy more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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paradise doesn't always have palm trees. Corona, La Playa awaits. Get yours at order Corona.com. Relax responsibly, Corona Extra Beer, imported by Crown Import, Chicago, Illinois. Reject Nation, in honor of Thor, Love and Thunder, the newest installment in the MCU. We are going to rank the entire MCU. Now, this is favorites.

This is my experience, not best because artist's objective, so we're going to go through this journey. But we are going to include the television shows. I asked Greg, he said, no, no, film. And I was like, Greg, it's important. He's like, okay, that doesn't make sense. Because the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier are affecting Captain America for because now it's Captain America in the Winter Soldier. Just like in the comic books, the events of Spider-Man, affect Daredevil, affect the annuals, affect the big events like Secret Wars. So, too, to the shows, build up to the movies.

It's all one shared universe. So we're going to rank everything, all 36 properties. We're going to be going through the whole thing. And if you enjoy this, please do leave a comment. Let me know what yours are as well. And as always, like, subscribe, hit that notification bell. Do all the things on YouTube that I always forget to say. And Greg's like, yeah, that's the thing.

Follow me on TikTok. I'm going to do a lot of these. I'm going to do a lot of rankings. I give you lots of comic book news, movie news, all sorts of things over my TikTok, 15, one minute, three minutes, all sorts of links. I love TikTok. I love you guys more. Let's get into it. at number 36 surprising absolutely no one and if you know me you know i defend this movie i'm not

saying the movie's bad but something had to end up at the bottom for the dark world now i think this is a movie that really struggles with tone changes and experiencing one linear story i think a big problem with this film is that loki was so good in avengers they added that whole plot which cost us a lot of interesting details with malikin i think maliketh has a lot of potential as a dark health to be a very interesting villain but when you combine that with trying to build out the Asgardian myth, building out Alan Taylor's version of this medieval world we've built into, I think it did cost us a lot of very interesting storyline. That combined with the Natalie Portman Jane Foster having various degrees of chemistry, plus balancing a lot of comedy

with Cat Dennings and the comedy of Thor, while Thor's evolving from his fish out of water into this warrior, which then changes entirely. I think it's a very difficult film in the entirety of the MCU. This film does, however, benefit from some later on changes retroactively, making a lot With a family element so important, it's an important film, but something had to end up last, in my opinion, Thor the Dark World. Number 35, and I am so sorry, I wanted to love this a lot more than I actually did. This movie made a billion dollars, so I am probably in the minority here. It is Captain Marvel. This movie, to me, was one of the experiences where I was a little worried about the shape of the MCU.

It did a lot of things where it felt like it didn't necessarily trust the audience. There were a lot of moments where there's her rising up through montages over and over again, and I was like, yes, I love this. empowerment story i love what we're going for but that's not you don't have to tell me again i understand and i feel like it didn't trust the audience it also felt like two different versions of a story i love these directors mississippi grind is incredible and it's kind of a funny story is one of my favorite dromedes it didn't land for the mccu it's also one of the first times the film looked cheap it looked like a telegraph the twist that didn't feel like a twist and we were supposed to feel like it was a twist it does however have one of my all-time favorite stan lee cameos

it also features some very beautiful dragon ball z s action and i really like brie larsson as Captain Marvel. I want Captain Marvel 2 to be all the things I wanted Captain Marvel 1 to be, and I think now that we've met her, we'll have that opportunity. Highest hopes for Nia Acosta to take over, to be honest. All right, coming in at 34 and hopefully showing it's not a recency bias. This is a phase 4 experience, which means it's more recent, and yet it didn't land for me. I try to look at the MCU as a whole. This is serialized almost television. There are so many installments. It does affect the hole. And we'll talk about that more as we get into the middle of this whole run. But what if for me lands at about 34? I think it was.

was trying to do two things. It was trying to build out the universe with these really high stakes, but unfortunately the flaw of it was, I never felt like there were stakes. It was trying to grow things out cosmically. It was trying to expand the universe, but it never felt like anything that could happen in what if could affect where we went with the MCU. And I think we really saw that after with Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness teased zombie Strange. Wasn't the same one. It teased a undead Wanda, but that was oil from Ultron on her face. It teased a lot of the things we thought were visual cues from what if, but it kind of undermined what if by not using those characters. There were moments that absolutely sang. I love the animation, especially in the

Captain Carter episode. I loved Iron Man Cap. I really, really enjoyed the storyline with Tchalla as Star Lord and all of those possibilities. But unlike the what if comics, I never felt like those events would matter. And I feel like in the MCU, everything needs to at least matter. What if didn't quite land for me. Never felt connected week to week. Didn't feel like an event series like the others did. Coming in at number 33 and now we're into the comfortable bees. I feel like these are all beesing up. Unfortunately, something had to be at the bottom of the bees. And that is Iron Man 2. A lot of the things people don't like about this movie, I actually enjoy. It is a bit chaotic. It is a lot of high energy. It does feel spontaneous. But I think a lot of that

spontaneity, though it costs the film being 32 or higher, is fun to revisit. I do think after armor wars, this film would be more important. Just like Endgame and Infinity War made Thor Dark World better by retroactively adding importance. I feel like Iron Man 2 will do the same. At the end of the day, it is still Tony Stark having a good old time. But it is John Favro hanging out, having a good time with Iron Man. It has maybe my favorite Iron Man suit up of the entire cinematic universe. That suitcase suit is very cool visuals, but the lack of weight, the lack of overall importance, and the overall rushed, this came out two years after Iron Man won, makes this about 33 and makes this the lowest B ranking of the entire MCU for me. All right, number 32, another B

minus for me is the first four. This movie I do think is better than a lot of people give it credit for. It is a very fun buildout of both Shakespearean and comedy, but it does. suffer from having to be a lot of things at once. After Iron Man and Captain America, we'd had more traditional comic films. Iron Man is groundbreaking in a lot of ways, but we'd seen that type of movie before. Tony Stark and Batman are pretty similar kind of guys. Captain America is a war film kind of like the Rocketeer. These are familiar elements. We're adding a thing that is different from those elements in this god world. We're adding a literal god of thunder. That is a hard thing to build out of. So I give this movie a lot of wiggle, because it does balance the gods. It does

balance the visuals of what Kenneth Branagh was building with the Shakespearean lore and it does add a lot of comedy think about the scene where he wants to buy a horse big enough he can ride or a bird or what have you think about the another think about all those things and then think about what they do build out from and I think it's a lot stronger than people remember but 31 other things are better number 31 and still a B minus is incredible Hulk the incredible Hulk I do think is slightly better than these other ones for me including Thor I think we were going to have a really interesting Edward Norton Hulk but I do think the studio and Edward Norton saw the Hulk differently if you hear and i'm not comparing this movie to things that didn't get made but

if you hear any stories about what hulk was going to become an incredible Hulk too with edward norton wanting to do this kind of spiritual walkabout this existential movie pondering i think that's where they wanted to go but that's not exactly a team movie i think mark ruffalo's hulk is an incredible team hulk i love mark ruffalo's hulk edward if you're going to do the solo endeavors if you're going to have it feel like the 70s comics if you're going to have it feel like the show i think this is an incredible spiritual sequel to the hulk show and i think edward norton is an incredible Hulk. And I also think it's a really fun time with the villain. I also think the world building is so important that they brought back Thunderbolt Ross and certain characters. One of the strengths of

what if was building out this world. I just think this world didn't fold in as neatly as it needed to for the greater MCU and it gets cost, kind of getting eliminated in the process. And number 30, another recent edition, another show for me, Hawkeye. Hawkeye did a lot of right things by having the aha run and fractions reflected on screen. It did a lot of great things by bringing us Cape Bishop. It had an incredible bridge sequence, but it did suffer in a lot of the ways that what if did for me where it kind of built up a lot of stakes and then undermined them. I do enjoy some of the twists and turns Marvel does with playing with characters.

I don't necessarily love how Kingpin landed after all that setup. Kingpin we saw in the same actor, in the same portrayal, in the same universe, now technically with Daredevil, as that dark R-rated crush a guy's head in the car door, it's very hard when we're immediately trained from a major character that's been built up the whole season. Maybe if he wasn't built up for six episodes, it would have felt differently, but since we had all that buildup, it did undermine things. This is as high as it is, because the chemistry with Kate Bishop and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is incredible.

I did enjoy a lot of the action and choreography with Ronan. I did think having the bros as much as we did was the right move. Imagine if the ending was hammerheaded. He was the cartoonish version we got of Kingpin. How much better the show would have landed? And that put it at this 30 spot. And my number 29 is the first Ant Man. I am one of the folks that do enjoy Ant Man on the Wasp a little bit more than Ant Man.

the first Antman gave us a captivating Scott Lang and introduced us to a very fun Michael Douglas tank on Hank Pim but it did suffer for me from a phase one villain problem and it was a little too deep in the MCU to let that just go I love Corey Stoll the actor I never really felt all too threatened by Yellowjacket and I did feel like it was doing the thing they did in phase one where it's like what if the villain shows this turn instead but not landing it a lot of the fun of these villains is that they're mirrors of their character a lot of the fun of these characters is that you understand where both the villain and the hero are coming from. I do unfortunately feel like the limited screen time,

the overall plot of the technology, and all of those things they were building to, and the corporate espionage, led Corey Stoll to give us in the editing room, maybe not even on the day, a little bit too mustache twirling. And the mustache twirling made this film feel like it was just an okay side mission,

and Ant Man's a hard enough character to land, so the Paul Rudd charm and all those things make it where it does, but the villain puts this in the lower range of the bees. And the next one up, 28, Antman, and the watch. To me, this is an improvement over the first because the villains work a lot better for me. We have even less screen time with ghosts, but I was invested in Ghost. I cared about her journey. I was very invested in Lawrence Fishburne and Goliath.

I was super interested in the dynamic between Ant Man the Wasp more this time, because in the first film, I felt like they kept saying like, I'm the one that trained for this. I could do great at this. And then they're like, but we're not going to let her. Like, there was like three sets of jokes about the Wasp being more prepared and not doing it. And then in this move, they're like, oh, we should probably let the Wasp be the Wasp. So that's already an improvement over the first one for me.

I thought the fight choreography is so great in this. I thought the use of the fun visual aesthetic, a la honey, I shrunk the kid with the giant Hello Kitty exploding, the use of the car. David DeSmallchon got more to do and more to play with here. The supporting cast felt like they'd already formed the team that's so important in that fun run in the comics. The team felt like they were as important as Ant Man.

And to me, when you've got an ensemble cast like this, that's essential. So you add an ensemble cast, the charm of Paul Rudd, the greatness of the Wasp and villains that actually work. I do think Ant Man in the Wasp is a solid beast. and above its predecessor. Another solid B and my 27th pick. This one's interesting. This one's very recent.

Is Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness? And I think this movie is largely subjective of your experience of the style of filmmaking. On one hand, it's been really tricky phase one through three where you've had to live in between these walls of the sandbox following in the MCU and making sure your artistic style kind of ebbed and float. But if you look at what James Gunn did with Guardian,

he was able to make it his while also working in the cosmic parameters of Marvel. I do think this is very much. an incredible Sam Ramey film. It is a solid B for me because Sam Ramey got to flex his creative muscles that he uses so well and he got to tell an incredibly captivating story. Unfortunately, that incredibly captivating visually, very apparently lush story that stylistically sang sacrificed for me, Scarlet Witch, who had been on a journey with for so many, so many years. We'd seen one through six of her 10 moment arc and then it felt like we went to 9 and 10. I needed to see 7 and 8.

I got to enjoy 1 through 6 and then 9 and 10, but she literally did a heel turn visually into a color palette and it felt like it sacrificed too much for this to be higher. While enjoying the film, I think it didn't work within the MCU. If this was a what if and they made the what if an anthology series, it might be in my top 15 more. Number 26 and probably a lot lower than other people putting this on their list, maybe one of my most controversial. Age of Ultron. Avengers Age of Ultron is a lot like Dark World in that it retroactively has solved a lot of problems. But it's like five movies at once, and unlike Avengers 1 and Infinity War and endgame, it feels like it. It suffers a bit from a mix of tonalities.

There are so many moments that were vision-wielding Molnir, them all talking in the barn. The scene with Thor and Hawkeye's family is one of my favorite all-time MCU scenes. But unfortunately, a lot of those moments feel like a series scattering of things, and Ultron didn't really feel like he had an age. It was like the moment of Ultron. And I understand why they had to do that. And I understand what the Ultron character was trying to represent. I love the concept of AI and these overwhelming odds and what it means to be self-aware. And I love the headier concepts.

But because it was already juggling so many things and because it killed the fastest man alive, I get he was sacrificing it for Hawkeye was a great moment. It didn't feel like the characters all got their time to shine in the right way. It all felt like they were trying to share. It felt like they were all in a play and everyone wanted the last line. And no one could have the last line. And that went on for far too long to make this any higher for me. Number 25, another very strong solid B for me is Dr. Strange 1.

I rewatched this recently and it actually went up a few numbers in my ranking because I realized the visuals and the world building and everything they had to accomplish with the mythology is so dense and so much. And also really looking at it compared to what I think they've been doing with Phase 4, I was really impressed that it was so different. Unfortunately, and this is no one that actually worked on the film's fault, Tony Stark and Dr. Stephen Strange have very similar origins. And a lot of times I found myself, even on rewatches, wanting to watch Iron Man,

especially because the villain in this, Casilius never felt like it was doing a lot for me in the film. I dug the ancient one. I dug the long. I dove the entire world of Dr. Strange. But without the villain really working, I kept wanting to go back to the cloak of levitation I just felt more drawn to than this. And I love the Inceptionist visuals. And I love that the mythology felt real. I feel like I could pick up a book from within this world and learn about it because Scott Derrickson built such a lush world.

But I also feel like because the villain wasn't higher, I couldn't rank this higher than 25, as much as I love Dormammu. I think if you took out Casillas, just had the Dormamo story and his training, it'd be in my top 15. Number 24 and one of the first Marvel films to make me cry, Guardians of the Galaxy 2. This film is just shock full of daddy issues and they all really landed because you were already so emotionally invested in these characters. That's how you do a sequel. You build up the emotional investment in the first, and then you tell an insane larger than larger than life story in the second. I never thought we'd see Ego the living planet in the MCU. Now, that seems almost normal after the events of Dark World and all the things we've had.

But this time, five years ago, 2017, that is just such an abstract concept. And as played by Kurt Russell, there are so many scenes that are the most absurd thing spelling them out, and they work so well in this film. The reason this film is so high up for me is because it grabs the absurd, it grabs the visuals of James Gunn. It adds the irreverent humor of James Gunn, and it puts it all in a box that feels like it is both in the MCU, like the most gardens the galaxy from the obscure comics of the 70s thing i could ever imagine it is the

perfect amalgamation of tones if you're into this world while not being as good as the first one but still building out the universe i think this film really works in a lot of ways i just don't find myself rewatching it as often and that's why it's so low 23 here we are with black widow this is a film that i think if it had come out in phase two or phase three would also be higher and i think me personally reading comic books continuity's a real question mark like i can accept watching a black widow movie after she already died maybe more than people that are just in the film and tv versions of marvel like it didn't bother me nearly that much what did bother me is that i was so so in for the jason born tone i was so in for florence pew getting her time to shine and and do that soft reboot

so we get her as the black widow i was so in for david harbour i was so in for the action set pieces but i didn't love that we got all of the brutality in some scenes and didn't get the brutality of Taskmaster and others. I love the idea of Taskmaster being from her past like she was. I love the idea of the Taskmaster Twist. I think her being a female villain is interesting because she wouldn't have to be physically a certain way, especially in that kind of suit.

But making it robotic, removing the power set of Taskmaster studying, undermines a very important character of the greater MCU, and this villain kind of messed up the comic continuity in a way that I couldn't really let this movie be higher, even though my experience of why. watching the movie and the other nine-tenths of the movie was something I really, really enjoyed. This is a strong B-plus for me personally. Another B-plus is Captain America, the first Avenger.

This one lands right here because it builds out a very interesting world. This was so early in the MCU, and it's still so interesting. You get the Red Skull on screen as Hugo Weaving, which is so captivating, but I do feel there are some moments of, I don't feel the menace of the Red Skull, and that's one of the reasons I'm excited for Dr. Doom is I feel like where Marvel didn't know what to do with overarching villains they did do great work with bringing back an infinity war but i did feel like the red skull of the comics is so ominous and i felt some of that in the movie but i loved the character design i love the vehicle and weapon design i love the entire world

built this over extreme rocketeer world and the relationship with bucky and steve is incredible the transformation of steve rogers from that skinny steve to the steve we need to this day holds up visually the things they're able to do with visual effects practical effects and cg i know two of those are redundant but putting that all together into one beautiful thing this movie holds up so well and i think the strength of this movie is a huge part that the mc u has done as well as it have because we trust and we need captain america another solid b plus and this one's interesting because it's kind of a twist if you guys have noticed i've really had faults with the villains that have knocked the movie down for me because i think a movie is only as good as it's

villain a lot of things can work but if the villain doesn't that personally affects my experience to the film this one is interesting because to me spider man is about new york and spider man hasn't been in new york much especially in far from home spider man far from home we'd do we'd been to space we'd touched on new york but then we went to europe and a lot of that didn't really work for me i really wanted some small town spider man we'll get to the most recent spider man because of its improvements as we go along but a lot of the comedy didn't quite land with some of the relationshipy stuff but overall it is a very very pleasant experience some of the best visuals i've ever seen for Spider-Man Hard Stop and the best villain I could imagine for a Spider-Man sequel.

I think Jake Shillan Hall's Mysterio is one of the few prophetic villains in the MCU. We're going to see more and more drone culture. We're going to see more and more deepfakes. We're going to see more and more that we won't yet understand if it's real or not. Mysterio played on a character written in the 60s, modernized it, made it prophetic, and managed to incorporate it into the greater MCU. That is the best magic trick you can pull in the MCU. You make it a seed you've already planted.

You make it something that's going to be even more relevant in the future. You cast Jake Gyllenhaal getting to do his most theater kid performance. Like he, I, it's the combination of Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal, day after tomorrow, Jake Schillenhall, and nightcrawler Jake Schellenhall and one character. And you put that in a CGI spectacle with that incredible Rimita sequence. I loved Mysterio on this. I love the visuals in this. Some of the things didn't work, but it's still a very high B plus for me, far from home. Number 20 is Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

I don't know why retro. This has become like not as beloved, but week to week this was such a journey. This was such event television and especially there's a sequence and I believe it's the fifth episode where a US agent literally decapitate someone with his shield and I thought that was a fascinating commentary on the world today Comic books. I'm sorry for any people in this chat that are going to get mad at me for saying this are political. There's this guy Captain America. He's punching Nazis in the 40s and still punching Nazis today. I thought using a show about Falcon becoming Captain America and address certain brutality and addressing certain current events was very very brave and very important storytelling add to that you get an actual therapy session all of phase four is about therapy all these characters need therapy bucky goes to fucking therapy and it's required i love that this invested in white uh white wolf i love this invested in winter soldiers separately i love that this invested in falcon and in captain america separately this kind of has four leads and of

their civilian identities i loved all of the stuff in new orleans i love that anthony macky felt like he got to bring his nests to sam wilson and i especially loved baron zemo i never thought i'd be as invested in the daniel brule take on baron zimo after civil war and now he's up there of my all-time favorite villains and why i think thunderbolts will work is because of this show 19 and guaranteed to get me into hot water with mc u fans is thor ragner rock you heard me thor ragner rock i know a lot of people love it and I really enjoy it, but to me, it is a lot of leaps in my approachability to the character. I think that Ragnarok gave us the best story we've ever had an Infinity War and Endgame because it bounds the drama and the comedy. But while it's just comedy, Ragnarok is a lot

for me. I do think there's a lot of things that feel like they're done for the joke, not for the story. I feel like at points, it does feel improv troopy, which doesn't fit the rest of the MCU for me. Doesn't necessarily fit the comic book for me. But what it does do is give me spectacular visuals. Give me World War Hulk. Build out the universe. Give me the best possible Jeff Goldblum. This movie is so insane that Jeff Goldblum at an 11 doesn't feel out of place. I love Thor screaming going through that tunnel. I love Thor dealing with a very cantankerous Hulk. I love all of these things, but it didn't feel like it was the character I'd been living with or the character that I know from the comics. Again, if this was a what if, if this was removed, or if this came after, I don't

know, a different Thor 3 that gave us a little more common. It just, it felt like a lot to go from two to this three a lot worked grandmaster the villain hella is on my rushmore of villains what it did for sadness what it did to continue thor's walk about journey of figuring out who he is by removing his very people he's the god of asgard and they took away most of asgard who are you as a man without your people if you're a king it asks a lot of important questions does a lot of fun things but overall isn't as high as a lot of people for me number 18 and right above ragner rock for similar reasons and you've heard me talk about this a lot recently is thor love and thunder you know i some issues with some of the tonality. I do enjoy the second half of the film quite a bit. I do have

some problems with the first half of the film. But some of the things I especially enjoyed were the family aspects. I really enjoyed the way this movie lands. I do think the last five minutes are amongst my favorite five minutes at the end of any MCU film. Post credits were absolutely that phase one post credit glory. But the movie itself did feel like it was figuring itself out as it went along. I feel like we got a very different movie that landed in theaters than the four hour assembly cut, which we don't need to see. It's not the Snyder cut. The thing that went into the edit i feel like might have been a very different movie i could have used some more butchering i could have used some more jane foster i could have used a lot more king valkry as it stands

now it's it's in the middle of my marvel experience but what made it so interesting was everything they did to make me feel for gore i really loved gore i really think tyke is two for two with villains i really understood where he was coming from i really empathized with him and i really liked all the choices they made visually around him but some of the comedy didn't work for me so it's about the middle for marvel higher than people would expect number 17 is moon night I know a lot of folks didn't love how this landed, and that kind of colored their entire experience of the film. It did change my experience. This had been a little bit higher.

I didn't necessarily love episode six, but I did adore episodes one through five. I love the psychology. I love the talent of Oscar Isaac on display every episode. The scene outside the steak restaurant is some of the best acting in Marvel, and I'm not letting that go because it didn't have the exact end I wanted. I also think if they made the post credit scene actually part of the show, like just tie it in, that would have elevated the whole experience. It's weird little details and choices.

The CGI on some of the fights didn't quite work for me. I know there's budgetary constraints. I know it's a TV show, but those little things chipped away at it. But everything else worked for me. I love that there's a Moon Knight show that feels like Moon Night. This feels like Lemire Smallwood Run come to life. This feels like Ellis. This feels like Declan Shalvey.

This feels like the things I've always loved about Moon Knight with the mythology, with the world building, with the insane fight club elements, and Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke acting their eyes. eyeballs out at each other and introducing very obscure characters I never thought we'd see on screen this is very high for me because it showed mythology as well as gods as well as superheroes is absolutely possible and we got a fucking boom night guy pierces the guy from memento and I really think up until he got that mustache truly fire breathery stuff at work I'm also one of the folks that really liked the twist with the mandarin I think it evolved even more using the one shot I think that stuff really worked I love the idea of iconography being perverted into something wrong I like the idea of us using these symbols of heroes to make things not as trustworthy I think all that sings especially in the world of the comic books i think iron man three we're going to look back on in years as one of the most important comic book films it is certainly one of the best made and i think one of the best acted and it's absolutely an a minus for me i love iron man three

number 15 is the tv show that i would argue changed comic book television wandavision wandavision started as this beautiful commentary on tv and comic books themselves it's both a commentary and comic book characters and television as a medium and it evolved both i love the characterization of where they took scarlet witch from scarlet witch into wanda maximoff and back i love her dedication to her children i love that we told this heartbreaking story of humanity through a witch and a robot i love their love i love the supporting cast i love the mystery every single week everyone was talking for the entire six-and-a-half day span about what had just happened on the show because we were wrapped up in this mystery i love that it had philosophical concepts like the ship of

theseus brought to our attention if everything changes in a person are the they still that person? But by way of vision, I love that this was the Cat Dennings character. I always wanted to see it get some more time to shine. Every character in the show worked, every beat of action and comedy, not every 90% beats of action and comedy worked. And it was so close to perfect. The end for me was a slight foible because I, a fumble, because I do feel like it went to punching and kicking when it had just been so philosophical, but we kind of needed to see where it would escalate with these characters. This show is a solid A minus for me, and I think it's one of the best experiences I've had week to week with Marvel fans.

you invest in the beginning in the practical martial arts of sheng chi that bus scene is some of the best we've seen a fight be in the mc u but by the third act you're in an entirely new world you're dealing with creatures we've never seen before you're dealing with the reemergence of the guy you thought was the mandarin in a beautiful new creative and funny way and you're watching them fight a dragon and it all still feels like it's in the mcc and you want a shung chi too as much as you want him to be in the avengers that's a very important distinction for a lot of phase four films i wasn't as the greater MCU or i wasn't as invested in the solo story this walked both lines and introduce us to a new hero and did it perfectly love shang chie all right you know how hotels sometimes don't

have the number 13 in their elevator we're not going to technically have a number 13 in this list because miss marvel's not over yet as of filming this we haven't seen episode six of miss marvel as of right now miss marvel falls somewhere after wanda vision after shung chi but if it lands if it sticks the landing i think that might put it around shung chi so i'm not exactly sure where it lands But I as of right now consider Miss Marvel the A that I consider Shung Chi and Wanda Vision. So it's in this range. It might be 13. It might be 16, but it's in this span. Miss Marvel, for me, is doing something really, really difficult. It's making an audience that's lived in this world for 14 years, appreciate something that might just be for 14-year-olds or 40-year-old. This show appeals to a young audience as well as the audience that's grown up with this world. This is the first show where someone in the universe knows about the universe. There's an AvengerCon in this world. With the wrong set of hands without the gloves they used on this this could be a disaster self-referential stuff is very hard to walk she's literally a fan of captain marvel and cards yourself miss marvel it's doing a great job building out humanity it's doing a great job building up family stories it's doing a

great job really remastering a character's power set to work in a different medium which you have to do sometimes and it's introducing us to a brand new actress this is her debut performance a lot of american audiences including myself don't know most of these actors on screen and we love them we're so invested in them. Internet, it is future coy, as promised. I just finished the Miss Marvel finale, and it did stick the landing I had said. I hoped it would land somewhere in that 13 to 16 range,

and it has. That is a beautiful A range. This to me is before Moon Knight and just after Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 begins my God tier. This is right there in that beautiful sweet spot. It stuck the landing. It introduced lots of new plot.

It gave us loving characters. It gave us so much emotion. While also building out the world, while also giving us some very interesting power sets, and it gave us a cameo from Greg Alba. It is about 16 for me, I'd say. What do you think, Greg? 16.

Don't don't. Not you. No. It's too big. Top 12 are into the solid A range. These are films that would be between a 93 and a 96 if we're grading it like American school system. And my most controversial take, this is for Greg. These comments, they're for you, Greg. The SEO. You ready?

Eternal. Eternals is number 12. I love this movie because it did what in my opinion no team comic movie had been able to do without prior team movies. None of these characters were known to anyone except the most diehard comic fan. It introduced 12 characters effectively because I'm going to count the Black Knight. I'm going to count some of the sporting cast that are so important to this. It introduced all of them and they were so well characterized that even when they were off screen,

I knew how they would, in their essence as a character, be affected by the events. And it didn't have to be redundant. It didn't have to respell things. And it did all that while subverting expectation by having the villains be effectively what we would be perceived as. Those humanoid things as they evolved had sentience, had intelligence. And in many ways, the Eternals, who we just met, who we just invested in, are the villains. The way this lands is they threw off billions of lives potential to exist while saving us as Earthlings. We were cannon fodder, and yet billions of lives were sacrificed by these hero villains.

because they're both in a way and they're above us and it established a hierarchy of gods and it gave us so many very, very powerful visuals and moments that grew out the MCU and it really showed much like Iron Man 3 the different type of movie

an MCU film can be. This film is an art house film about what it means to be human by way of what it means to be an eternal and I cannot wait to see where the ramifications of the third act of this film go into phase four and beyond this movie I really think

and hope with time will grow in people's hearts because it is so special. Number 11 is a movie I honestly can say I waited most of my childhood for. It was a movie that gave me a Spider-Man that sometimes did heroics for a churro. It gave me a Spider-Man that felt like, at least in the first 20 minutes, had a burrow to take care of. And the reason this one is as high, admittedly as it is,

because this one's a little tricky, is the villain. Fulcher is one of my Rushmore Marvel villains. In a couple glances, Michael Keaton is both intimidating and paternal. You understand he's fighting for his family. You understand how it ties into the MCU, Just like Mysterio, I think honestly, the Spider-Man films as a trilogy are the greatest tie-in to the MCU, which is ironic because there are Sony Marvel collaboration, but they invest you in the past while moving you forward in the future. He's a guy that's cleaning up.

It's a different take on damage control that I think they've had to remaster a bit because they were going to do a show. But it makes you invest in the fallout of super heroic elements. That's something that is huge in the comics is not addressed enough in the movies. Those fallouts are things that made him a vulture. He was a scavenger of tech, and he became a villain, and he cared about his daughters. That invests you in both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. That's the thing about Spider-Man. What makes Spider-Man unique is you're as invested as Peter as you are in Spider-Man,

and that's what the Vulture Broughts. And Tom Holland is the pitch-perfect cinematic Spider-Man. I argue Andrew Garfield is a comic book adaptation come to life, and Toby McGuire is exactly the one we needed in the 2000s. The best MCU Spider-Man, just like Ruffalo, is the best MCU Hulk, is Tom Holland, and he really got to debut very strong here. The moment you met him in Civil War, you wanted this movie, and then this movie delivered.

And it's honestly one of the most impressive and authentic high school casts i've seen they feel real they feel grounded and that allows the elevation of spider man love this movie number 10 we're into the top 10 these are all comfortable a bordering on a pluses i got black panthers my number 10 i love this movie i love what it did to the world of marvel the people that love this movie aren't just marvel fans the people that celebrate this movie are everyone from rappers i love to grandparents and killmonger again the theme of villains here is someone that has a lot of just American ideals. There's a lot of just like, that guy makes sense to a lot of people. And what's beautiful is Black Panther learns from Kilmonger. Killmonger says we need to share this.

We need to explore bringing this out to other people. And Black Panther actually ends up agreeing with him. The way this movie ends is the hero learning from the villain. Killmonger makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways and not in the Thanos was right way in a practical sense. So yes, in a lot of ways you need to keep Wakanda protected. And a lot of ways you need to share the world what your gifts are so it's a beautiful story in a hundred ways there's a lot of beautiful metaphors about the underground railroad that are used in the third act a lot of people have some problems with the third act and some of the cg i if the story is as good as the story is it doesn't bother me this movie is from its sound design to its score to its soundtrack to its visual effects for the

most part to its cast to its science to its world building to its supporting cast to every element of this film to the designs in the embroidery in the black panther suit this film is damn near perfect and I think that the world of cinema is better for it and I think that the stakes on Black Panther too couldn't be higher because how do you follow Black Panther this movie change cinema

and it certainly changed the MCU if number 10 changed cinema number nine changed television and that you could make a superhero show that was an existential crisis that was literally a think piece that felt like you were reading some of the densest philosophy

made out of the dense philosophy from your college professor Loki dealt with what it meant to be a human by dealing with what it meant to be outside of time and be a god. Thor is fascinating because it's a story of humanity by way of a god. Loki is arguably more fascinating because he's someone that wants to belong that's also a god of mischief that feels like in some ways he's been mislabeled. How do you get your superpowers and then kind of judge what those imply?

How do you figure out who you are as a person if you're inherently deceitful? How do you shape your reality if you don't believe in a necessary reality? Add time travel to that. That is beautifully well done. Add an incredible element of government regulation. that's outside of any government because it's about time itself in very fun referential ways add owen wilson as mobius giving some of the best work of his career some of the dialogue back and forth between tom hitleston no one wilson is is amongst the best character scene work you'll see

in film or tv and then the difference between this and for me wanda vision is episode six where wanda vision was a plus one through five i did feel like six fell off a bit loki is a plus one through six it ends with a shakespearean-esque monologue from our brand new kang jonathan majors isn't even kang yet He's the one who remains. This shifts everything in the MCU, and it feels important, and it feels huge, and we haven't even technically met Kang yet, because the writing is so tight, so strong, cannot wait to see where Kang goes, cannot wait to see this role build out, cannot wait for more Loki. This show is as close to perfect as I think a show can get.

Final countdown, you lovelies, this is eight. This point on any of these can be on number one, depending on my mood. This is one through eight or kind of a number one shuffle. These are tied for first. We're going to be A pluses. I know Civil War doesn't get talked about enough anymore, but if you're going to follow of Winter Soldier. How do you do that? You make the first at the time comic book double spread page come to life. The airport fight was the first time in my life. I ever felt like I did that

like double fold out and was like, they made a comic book. Everyone fighting in that environment, feeling exactly like their characters, doing exactly how I'd wanted those characters see come to life. And the characterization was fascinating. You've got hero versus hero in a way that evolves from the comics. This isn't a translation of the comics. It's an adaptation of the comics, making it more Relevant to our world. You understand where Iron Man's coming from. You've fallen in love with that character. You understand where Cap is coming from. You've fallen in love with that character. And then your heroes who are perfectly characterized have to pick sides. Every punch in this movie lands twice. Because you feel the person hitting and you feel the person getting hit. And it introduced Black Panther and it introduced Baron Zemo. And it gave us one of the best translations of Spider-Man I think we'll ever see on screen all in one movie while you're invested in someone who never has to fire a bullet really. Baron Zemo does all of this behind doors like Emperor Palpatine, while still being more charming and impossibly captivating, leading us into phase four and beyond and giving us some of the best action the MCU has ever had Civil War a plus. Number seven, Avengers Endgame. This movie delivered an impossible promise. Hey, we're going to follow up Infinity War and we're going to tell the conclusion to three phases of filmmaking. We're going to conclude 12 years of cinema and we're not going to let you down. We're going to give you the biggest action you could conceive of. We're going to give you comic panels come to life and the characters that aren't their comic counterpart.

The film, sorry, they are the comic counterpart. These are the film versions of the characters we've lived with long enough that they're doing different things that are their comic counterparts might because that's who they are. I love that this movie goes completely different ways. This movie is a beautiful conclusion of the Infinity Saga, but I as a comic book fan didn't feel like it was color by numbers. I got to experience an entirely new story with characters I've loved for 30 years. And they did it with style, with Panash, and with consequence.

The reason this movie is so high is there are still consequences to this day. The Infinity Saga has Iron Man go from selfish to selfless. He sacrifices himself at the end of end game. It has Captain America go from self-lish to selfish, and I know that's in English a bad word. It's a swear, but sometimes you need to choose yourself, and that's what I mean by selfish. He's finally done fighting. He's a soldier that served his time. He's going to Peggy.

He has chosen to choose himself, and then all through that journey, you've got Thor finding his sense of self. The big three are all on a journey of self, and this somehow sticks that landing and brings 20-some odd characters to the fold. Never do any of them feel like they're just serving the plot. Thanos handled beautifully. We'll talk about Infinity War in a second, but Endgame is a movie that shouldn't be possible. Number six, I don't know how this exists. This was before we were into the MCU that deep. This movie came out in 2012.

We're only four years into the MCU, and they brought five different franchises to get. This movie is the Avengers. This movie is some of the funniest, catchiest, most comic-accurate dialogue from these characters. I personally enjoy the dichotomy of Doth Mother Know You Weareth Her Drapes. That Thor, opposite Iron Man so much, because he is that Shakespearean character in a lot of continuities, and that dichotomy works so well in this movie. Captain America is a guy that's doing more rag-tag stuff as a helicopter, helic carrier drops out of the sky. They're all doing what they are as comic book entities to a level that this allowed. us to evolve into them being their movie versions of themselves. This movie brings comedy, brings action, brings vibrant, bright colors. To this is still my favorite Hulk. I think Hulk looks so good here, and I feel like Hulk is so Hulk here. And you've got every other element of the movie bringing this all together. Shield feels like a real thing. All of these characters feel like they're fully people you could somehow meet, and it's the first of its kind. The imagination and ingenuity of this cannot be overstated. A lot of people that are in their

teens now don't understand how big a deal this was. Movies didn't combine with other movies. You didn't go watch Keanu Reeves in one movie and he meet John Wick, Keanu Reeves, in another movie. We do that in this movie. It's a bad example. You don't combine franchises. This movie put different heroes

from different franchises together into one thing. That seemed impossible and they nailed it. This movie is a miracle. Truly interchangeable. Seriously, these eight, but this one at the top five are insanely number one. Iron Man started all of this. Iron Man was the biggest gamble

maybe in the possibilities of the MCU. You've got an actor that wasn't known for this kind of work. You've got John Favro who isn't yet the John Favro that we trust to just do whatever and they trusted him to do whatever. This is a movie that is so rock and roll every song is ACDC. This is a movie with a character Stanley invented to be unlikable. It was like a challenge to himself. He was like, I'm going to make this guy that's aggressively selfish and is kind of a warmonger. I'm going to turn him to a hero. And they cast a guy that is that and they turned him into a hero. Like Downey Jr. Stark wouldn't work if anyone else said those lines. The reason

Sam Rockwell got cast in Iron Man 2 is because he went out for Iron Man 1. Tony Stark is Downey Jr. Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. That is a one-of-one experience. And this movie is so effortlessly cool. Everything about this movie absolutely rocks. And it was the first, so they got away, especially with Jeff Bridge's Ironmonger. It makes sense for the industrial complex, capitalism, all the things that turn someone into that greed is Ironmonger. And it actually works better for me than in the comics. This character works opposite its villain. The movie works beat by beat. The comedy is spectacular. And it gives us the birth of the MCU and holds up 14 years later.

With all the advancements and superhero stuff, it's hard to make a movie that's timeless and Iron Man absolutely is. Okay, we talked about endgame being very hard to top Infinity War. It's because Infinity War, to me, is number four. This is a movie. Infinity War is a Thanos movie. Avengers brought the Avengers together and showed us you can combine genres. Infinity War showed us, hey, you know those people you like? We're going to give you a villain that, yes, I'm going to say it, is better than Darth Vader.

We're going to give you a villain you identify with that some of you think might be right, and we're going to make you invest in someone that's willing to get rid of half the population. There's moments where you're like, that is rational thought, and you're fighting the people you've loved for so many movies. This does what Avengers One did exponentially. It brings in infinitely more characters. It gives you some of the greatest fight scenes in history. It has that moment where, like, Thor lands and you're just, like, overwhelmed with, like, how did this even happen?

I love the Mjolnier Capsine in Endgame, but I love even more. that this movie gives you so many of those moments and it doesn't have to feel like a conclusion end game needed to end everything this made you like on the edge of your seat i remember the credits rolled in this film and i couldn't imagine where things could go and for an entire year marvel had the balls to make us wait part of my love of this movie is the experience of that year where i didn't know what was possible and then somehow end game didn't let us down but it's because of infinity war's launch that i think the mc u is as strong as it is infinity war a plus i would change not a single frame. So we're going to get a tree. We're going to get a raccoon that talks. We're going to get a

character named Star Lord. And we're going to convince you this isn't just a cheap ploy to sell toys. We're also going to get a director. Most of you haven't heard of and we're going to make it a lot of very, very almost R-rated joke. And we're going to keep this all in space. And we're going to do this into phase two so it doesn't actually connect to the characters you care so much about. And we're going to make one of the best comic book movies of all time. Guardians of the Galaxy One is insane. It's Pure madness. You care about an entire team in one movie. You care about a team of miscreant degenerates in one movie. You are so invested in them that when a giant tree dies, you cry with him because we are Groot. Everything about this movie is emotionally manipulative. And I say that as a compliment. Everything about this movie pulls at every heartstring you have while giving you insane cosmic visuals. I maintain without Guardians of the Galaxy, they weren't going to go cosmic. I think they were going to let James Gunn make a little. little side mission with guardians and then the movie was as good as it was and they were like let's uh let's see if we can steer the ship and now we have eternity in the mc u now we're going to have the living

tribunal and maybe secret wars all of these things are possible because i think of the little movie that could one of the braver choices next to iron man in the entire mc u and one of the best how does this exist and it stuck the landing guardians of the galaxy number three this movie was number one for seven years this was the movie i didn't think could be dethroned this is 2015's we're going to make an espionage thriller that you your dad your grandpa, your grandma, your aunt, your cousin, your dog walker, everyone is going to go, fuck yeah. Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier brought back Bucky, and that is a new to this time comic book story and made me care about Bucky more than the comic ever had. It gave me a badass villain

that is very similar to its hero, again, a trope in Marvel that this master. Cap and Winter Soldier are so similar. They just went off one path, fell off one train in this case, and you're so invested in what this character's journey is, and you love Cap, and that's without talking about the action, the elevator sequence, the knife fight on the street, the stuff they're able to do with crossbones. The way this movie is about not trusting the systems you've trusted from the jump. This is seven years in the MCU, seven years of like shield are our people, they're protectors. They're the organization that keeps us shape. We're going to assemble a special team. We just had the Avengers defend us from cosmic threats, the Shatari, and now the threats

are coming from within. How do you top a space demon coming at you? That's the god of mischiefs wielding them. You make the threat inside. You make it the system. that you trust not being trustworthy and you make captain america go wait a second in his second fucking solo movie winter shoulder did all of the things exactly right and gave us to this day in my opinion the best action in the mc u love winter soldier it's only topped by one film it finally happened and this is an interesting thing because i know a lot of this is my own bias i never thought i'd see a spider man on screen that felt like everything i love about spider man and i never thought I would be like, wait, a six-movie origin story?

It took the exact perfect storm of the MCU thriving and Sony rebooting Spider-Man to allow something as insane as a six-movie origin story to exist. It lets Spider-Man become not the Spider-Man of the comic books, but the Spider-Man of the movies. And I've always said that Tom Holland is the best movie Spider-Man. He represents all of the things that make Spider-Man work cinematically. I said a little while ago, Andrew Garfield, to me, is comic book Spider-Man. To me, Toby McGuire Spider-Spiderman is foundational to get the gateway into comic book movies.

to work. He's a great gateway into what the Samarami movies needed to do. Those are foundational. The Samarami movies, the X-Men movies and Blade movies are how any of this exists. But Tom Holland managed to make all of that work in this movie by delivering one of the most gripping performances. I swear if he was playing a soldier or a cop or anything that wasn't someone that worked tight, he would have been up for an Oscar here. If Willem Defoe wasn't wearing a guy that wrote a glider and was just playing like a crazy business magnate, he might have got an Oscar nom here. The performance in this are incredible. And this is a movie that uses the best of metamodernism. It incorporates some nostalgia. Yes, but it doesn't

weaponize it. It doesn't fan service it. It doesn't make you go, ha ha, that's a reference. It uses literally a reference like the point. A meme that shouldn't work twice and both times it serves the story and both signs it gives you a moment of levity because of how dark the film is. Spider-Man is a dark character. I'm sorry, Gwen Stacy dies. Him and Mary Jane break up half the time because of Mephisto. There's lots of people always hunting him. He's always laid on rent. He's always chasing a balance of two lives. He's always alone. and losing people he's lost uncle ben he's lost aunt may spider man's about loss and in this he lost literally everything and the opening of this film is him judging his choices and him being a little

selfish by like oh dr strange change this change this and it's that moment of not only spider man being quippy and funny not only not realizing because he's naive which is spider man but by the end sacrificing everything because he felt like it was his fault he has to be the one that says okay i lose everything that's spider man with great power comes great responsibility in this universe we got to have that delivered by other spider-men we got to improve on the spider-verse story into the spider-verse one of the greatest films all i say that's not what i'm saying i'm saying the spider-verse story got to involve the medium of film it got to combine the medium of film with the medium of comics with the multiversal impact of a shared mcc with sony with five spider-man villains

this movie made a sinister six effectively work and you cared about everyone it used everything we've loved about superhero movies to build the perfect film it brought us 20 years of filmmaking to one beautiful crescendo with comic book accurate visuals, with all the Easter eggs you could want, but most importantly, the heart of Spider-Man. My number one MCU film is Spider-Man No Way Home, and it made me believe I would have loved it as much at age eight as I'm going to love it at 88, and it truly is revolutionary, and it's a near-religious experience for me. There's nothing that makes me feel the way No-Hale makes me feel. Spider-Man has meant the world to me since I was a kid, because I've always felt like liking comics put you over here, and the irony of Spider-Man being so

popular and bringing you in, like people are sharing comic book love now, but it didn't used to be that way. And because of these movies, people share that. So the beautiful irony of Spider-Man making a billion dollars and bringing people together from the pandemic, I didn't even include in my review because that's not the movie. It's just life happened to give me the gift of bringing the world back together to celebrate Spider-Man after Spider-Man was the thing that made me feel like I was part of the world. And comic books used to make me feel like I wasn't welcome, and now they make me feel the most welcome because I get to share this as you guys. So this franchise means the world to me

Spider-Man means the world to me I accept my bias I know you're gonna get uppity I know you're gonna be like That movie just came out No Way Home's overrated And they use nostalgia I don't give a fuck

It affected me To a level that I can't describe And I only hope That you ever Dear audience feel The way I feel about that movie About anything in your life So thank you for watching this whole

I assume very long video Thank you for giving a single about my opinion of movies I've invested my life into the comic books that inspired these movies and these movies have given me almost 15 years of joy, happiness, and belief that these dreams can come true. So, this video is a culmination of all of that.

And this video is me sharing with you my own personal opinions. I would honestly love to hear yours. Please leave a comment. I'm going to read them up until they get angry. I'm going to read them up until they get toxic. It's inevitable because opinions are personal. This was personal to me. Thank you to Reject Nation for being so supportive.

I hope you continue to be. Enjoy this list. Let me know your thing in the comments below. Like, subscribe. Hit that bell. to be doing lots more videos if you guys like this list and you watch this whole fucking thing let me know that as well because there's a lot more lists we can do and i love ranking stuff and it's not about what's best it's about your experience with art and that's all we can

hope for in life is to experience art much love