We were watching Spider-man: No Way Home today as a family and I got thinking about something — why have the Spider-man films largely remained well received, while the rest of the MCU has, comparatively, fallen off a cliff?

And, as I tend to do with everything, I tried to formulate some kind of system to understand the fall (relatively speaking) off the MCU. So let’s skip the preamble and get right to it!

Story Deposits

Here’s the basic idea. When you read, watch or listen to a story, that story is making deposits in a bank account in your brain. As you get to know a character or world credit builds in your mind. You have knowledge about the world or person and a certain level of affection towards them.

Eventually, the story will draw on that credit. Typically this is a part of the story where what we know about the character pays off — and it feels really good when we anticipate it.

For example, Steve Rogers falls on a grenade to protect his squad mates during training in the first Captain America — that’s a deposit. We now know just how selfless Captain America is. When we see that a bomber is flying towards New York and there’s no way to stop it automatically, we know what Steve Rogers is going to do before he does it — he’s going to sacrifice himself to stop it . That’s the payoff — and it’s also a withdrawal. We didn’t learn something new about Captain America, the story drew on the credit we already had.

Stories typically are doing one of these two things — either they’re making deposits in the form of us learning about the characters, or they’re making withdrawals in the form of what we know paying off.

The implications of this model

So this model, which I’m officially going to name … Narrative Capital. Yeah, that sounds fancy enough.

Anyway, in Narrative Capital theory (oh yeah, that feels right) we see an explanation for why the first Marvel Films felt special, and why the first Avengers film felt REALLY special.

The first Marvel films were, well, regular ol’ films. They didn’t have a massive connected story. They had the occasional comic-related reference, but the film makers wanted the stories to appeal to mainstream audiences, so they weren’t too heavy on that.

So Iron Man (the first film), for example, had lots of deposits and a few withdrawal. Think about that for a second. What did you know about Tony Stark at the beginning of the film? Basically nothing — there were very few big “Iron Man” super fans.

By the end you had a REALLY good idea of who he was. And the payoff at the end of the film was pretty great.

As films that featured Iron Man went on, though, something changed. There were fewer deposits, and more withdrawals. Part of the reason for this is simply that there was less that could be deposited. Once you know a character, you know them.

When that happens, new deposits comes from one of two places — either they introduce something from the past that we probably should’ve known already, which can feel a little weird, OR it comes from character growth and change. Essentially rewriting stuff you already knew. If the character already went through a really satisfying arc, that second one also feels less satisfying.

Iron Man is, again, a good example of this. Each film felt a little less vital because there was less to discover. In the second one we find out what he’s like when he’s dying (apparently). In the third one we find out what he’s like when he has PTSD. Interesting wrinkles, but just wrinkles (and the third one is a perfect example of rewriting a character — making someone who was defined by their confidence suddenly not confident at all. It’s an interesting take, but it is a smaller deposit).

So Narrative Capital Theory tells us that, over time, the payoffs for any character will feel less meaningful because there is less to deposit as time goes on. Smaller deposits, less to withdrawal.

But what if you only withdraw?

I said most early Marvel movies were like typical movies, but Avengers marked a new phase. Instead of having deposits and withdrawals these team ups didn’t really have time for that — instead they are almost all withdrawal.

I mean, think about Avengers for a second. Which character did you learn the most about? Which did you come out almost rooting for?

Odds are good it was Loki! The Villain! Because he had most of the character development in that film.

I mean, really, think of the arcs of the other characters. Iron Man learns that he can sacrifice himself just as good as Cap. Hulk learns to smash, but for good this time. Black Widow and Hawkeye are … there. I guess Captain America became a little more cynical?

The only deposits have to do with Loki, and the rest are all withdrawals.

Now, it was a really successful movie because there had been a lot of deposits before this point. There was surplus Narrative Capital in our collective brains. But what happens when you withdraw too much?

Narrative Bankruptcy

Remember, a sequel is going to generate less Narrative Capital compared to learning about a new character. So while phase one had five films leading up to the Avengers (only Iron Man 2 as a sequel), Phase Two of the MCU had only four films leading up to the next avengers film, and only one (Guardians of the Galaxy) introduced new stories.

And, if you recall, Guardians didn’t have anything to do with Age of Ultron, which might explain why Age of Ultron wasn’t as well received (though I actually quite like that one — Ultron is a great villain).

(technically phase two ended on Ant-man, which is so weird)

Phase three had eight films leading up to the two-film finale (Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: End Game), and of those eight, four introduced new characters, plus we finally included both Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-man, which means the two part Avengers finale had six original story-lines that fed into it. And those two Avengers films were massive hits (of which I was NOT a big fan — I know, I’m a weirdo. I like Ultron but don’t like Endgame? But that’s a different blog).

Large deposits, large withdrawals that felt fulfilling. Although you could argue that the cracks were starting to show here, given their reliance on characters who, at the time, had been around for quite a while.

But now we enter the “Multiverse” saga, and this is where we start running into problems.

The first three films were relative flops: Black Widow, Shang-Chi and Eternals (two of those I actually liked a lot, one I was meh on, we’ll let you guess which one).

But Spider-Man: No Way Home was a massive hit, and it does something that Marvel will lean into really hard in coming films. It makes withdrawals from the deposits of other stories.

So we get multiple spidermen, multiple villains, none of which have been part of the MCU until now, but our Narrative Capital related to those stories is getting drawn on to pay off this story. And it works! Partly because we’re still learning about our own Peter Parker, and partly because there was still plenty to withdraw from those other stories. In fact, you could argue that a beloved story left alone long enough will earn Narrative Interest. But that’s also a different blog.

But they do the same thing in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and it is slightly less effective.

Then we have a well received Black Panther film, a poorly received Ant-Man film, a well received Guardians of the Galaxy (which has remained relatively isolated from the rest of the MCU), a well received Deadpool film (which also leans into multiversal hi-jinks for payoff, but of another beloved property), and a poorly received Captain America film and Thunderbolts* film (although I actually quite liked Thunderbolts).

Although people still show up for these movies, there isn’t the same excitement around them. They aren’t the events that they once were.

Part of that is that the world, and how we consume media, has changed, but part of that is because the MCU is making way more withdrawals than deposits these days. They are running a deficit. They may, in fact, be bankrupt.

Or maybe the movies just aren’t as good?

Also maybe yes. But I think you can argue that Thunderbolts* is probably as good as, say … Iron Man 2? I might argue that Shang-Chi was better than Thor: The Dark World.

But I think Narrative Capital Theory (oh yeah, that’s real fancy) also explains why some of the modern films haven’t worked as well. Something like Eternals should have been really good, except it introduced SO MANY characters you didn’t really get a chance to know any of them super well.

What Eternals looks like, from a NCT perspective, is an attempt to make a big deposit just for the deposit sake. To say “I’m throwing these things in here so that I can draw on them later.” Eternals was the Venture Capital of the Narrative Capital Theory world — as have several of the new films been.

So what should Marvel do?

It’s interesting to look at the exception that proves the rule — The Spider-Man films.

Tom Holland is a great Spider-man. The films are generally pretty good as standalone films. Maybe that’s because they uncomfortably straddle two cinematic universes (Marvel’s and Sony’s), but whatever the case, these films generally have strong character development around their hero. They make plenty of deposits.

(I mean that both in Narrative Capital theory terms as well as literally. They make gobs of money.)

Having a younger hero helps that — they naturally have more room to grow as time goes on, and thus the ability to make more deposits. Does it make sense for Thor to be learning and growing as a character after thousands of years (or however long little-g gods live)? Not really. That character can only deposit so much before it starts to feel forced.

It also helps that the films have been relatively standalone (only Iron Man and sort-of-Nick-Fury shows up consistently from the main MCU, and the other spider-mans, again, are drawing on different banks).

The other movies just can’t replicate those things. Thor is old. He’s enmeshed with the other movies like crazy. He doesn’t have an external bank to draw on.

In my opinion Marvel has two real options:

1. Use Doomsday as an excuse to reset the multiverse (which is generally fools gold for anyone except spider-man) so you’re down to just one universe again, and then focus on a small group of those characters in standalone stories.
2. Again, use Doomsday to get rid of the multiverse, and reboot your main cast with younger actors

It all depends on if you think people are or aren’t going to show up for the Thunderbolts avengers films. If you think they will then great, use the new team you’ve been building, and spend some time on those characters.

If you think you NEED Iron Man then eject the baggage and make a new one. And a new Thor. And we’ll just do this forever. I mean, it’s worked for Comic Books.

Or just keep doing what you’re doing and watch your returns slowly whither.