I think what doomed the MCU quality-wise was deciding to leave it open-ended and keep going. Continuity and characterizations don't stand a chance when there's no endgame in mind. Pun somewhat intended. Endgame wasn't a good movie but it took Phase 4 for a lot of people, myself included, to realize that. I think Endgame's legacy - and the MCU's for that matter - would be a lot more favorable if that movie HAD been the actual endgame.

That's an on-going point really against the current MCU: Endgame had been set up basically as the finale of Phases 1-3, meaning it feels like a perfect conclusion to everything that had been set up...but of course, cause the MCU refuses to end, even Endgame sets up stuff that we see in Phase 4, Loki being a obvious example, but instead of going back to his whole, "The sun will shine on us again." thing to Thor in Infinity War, we just...go into a Loki show in Phase 4 that in itself is just setting up Kang. And then you got the Gamora thing the movie set up that...doesn't even seem to be getting explored in the new Guardians movie as she's already with them again, as even Love And Thunder showed Thor leaving the guardians at least to do his own thing again.

And with the mention of Love And Thunder: 'Thor will return.'- again, they very confident that they'll give Thor another movie that they didn't even tell the director or Chris Hemsworth who as we know, has decided to take a break from acting due to wanting to spend time with his family after discovering he has two APOE4 Genes, making him ten times likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. Like I will point out: Disney couldn't predict this, but the fact remains that they refuse to just plan stuff out before going ahead, meaning they jumped instantly to 'Thor will return' in the same phase that already has various open endings to plots to come, with I think only WandaVision's open ending concluding....in the train wreck that was Multiverse Of Madness that in itself has ANOTHER open ending.

And yes, I know they claim to now have two plans, aka Multiverse stuff and Kang plans, but here's the thing: they entered Phase 4 by that logic with zero plans beyond doing random crap with open endings, because they couldn't just take a break to do planning so they set up random stuff we may either get or may not get. Like, if they really wanted to continue the MCU so badly after Endgame, they should have just rebooted at best or waited to do planning, as now we in a mess that's quality is showing as we see with the reactions to No Way Home, Multiverse Of Madness, Love And Thunder and now Ant Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (which is literally meant to start off the planned phase 5 too ironically).

It astounds me how often the MCU has been contradicting itself lately so they can justify making more movies or shows.

"The Mandarin? Yeah, he's just an actor playing a figurehead, and the real big bad of Iron Man 3 is someone else, even though the Mandarin is supposed to be Iron Man's arch-nemesis. Oh wait, actually, the Mandarin does exist, only its another character with magic rings that are nothing like they are in the comics."

"The multiverse? Yeah, that was a story made up by Mysterio even though the multiverse is a common thing in the comics. Oh wait, actually, it's real now and plays a key role in Spider-Man: No Way Home."

"The Skrull? Yeah, they're not evil and the Kree are the evil ones even though the Kree-Skrull conflict is meant to portray neither side as being good or evil. Oh wait, actually, they're evil now because we're going to adapt Secret Invasion."

And people say they're not running out of ideas.

To be fair, I didn't mind the Mandarin correction....but maybe that's cause of all of phase four so far, Shang Chi is my favorite film and I actually wouldn't mind seeing the seven rings organization again at least in the future, as long as they bring the film writers with them. But also, yeah, at the time, it was a definite let down and uh, obvious bad whitewashing at the time....gives me vibes still of them almost making Shredder in TMNT 2014 a white guy.....and by Shang Chi time, it was obvious they couldn't make him an Iron Man Villain, as Iron Man ten feet in the ground, but we did again, get Shang Chi out of it, so like....ehhhh?

But yeah uh, the No Way Home one is absolute bullshit. Like, we literally continuing a plot from Far From Home, aka the identity reveal....but the multiverse??? Nah, its real! We just made you think it was something Mysterio pulled out of his ass, he was actually ahead of the game! Like, MCU couldn't be showing they were desperate to rip off the king, Into The Spiderverse, anymore if they tried, as there was no need to make Spiderman a multiverse film, they just decided to for a, rip off reasons and b, probably to absorb the prior two Spidey franchises so they can act like Tobey and Andrew are now not canon-canon, the MCU is.

I don't know much about kree or skrull from the comics, but like, from my research, it really is reaching. You can't fucking show the skrull as good in one thing and then adapt a storyline that was them being evil and taking the places off various characters, its actually bullshit to do that. Like, my friend theorized its them trying to get to dark Avengers....but they lacking Norman Osborn, so already they gonna fail there. Like, its way too obvious they wanna adapt every single huge event from the comics without any thought at all, and the fact that people just....let it happen??? Like, you cant come and diss the DCEU for their movies when MCU does shit like this.

And like, we not even mentioning the fact that they couldn't keep Wanda's history straight, let alone Black Widow's history straight as they kept changing her backstory and remember how Shuri is meant to be sixteen apparently, therefore in What if...?, should be six since IM1 was ten years before hand??? Yeah uh, either that's a tall six year old or no one told What If...? anything on Shuri's age. And then there's the shit show of how the MCU has handled the Hulk's film, with no one seeming to give a shit for Ross' crimes by Civil War, and oh fucking boy, do we got a treat with Eternals suddenly saying Celestials are alive after all. Oh, the Guardians films said they were dead? No, no, no, they alive! Like....just admit you wanted to justify a already continuity breaking team, MCU, we all know you want to justify ongoing existence.