Under the idea of dangling carrots, I really shouldn’t say any of what I’m about to say, but I have to be honest.

Every day that passes with Wanda and Pietro retconned out of being Magneto’s kids, and denied the chance to interact with their sister Lorna and father Magneto as a family, I find something new wrong with Marvel that I didn’t even realize before the retcon. Now, as much as I’ve said I’d come back to trying out the MCU if things were fixed… I’m honestly not sure anymore if that’s true. I’m not sure if I’m going to want to watch another Marvel Studios movie ever again.

I tried to watch Winter Soldier again recently and it was boring as hell to me. I literally cared so little during the opening that I stopped it and switched to something else. This is a movie I liked the most out of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe when I saw it in theaters, and the single character I liked most out of Marvel until I discovered Polaris. And yet… I saw nothing about it worth watching.

That’s not in any way to say the cast and crew are not dedicated. That’s not even to suggest the writer or director didn’t care about the work they put into making the film. Yet, whatever care they had in making the film, it’s just… empty. The stakes feel empty. The intended sense of loss with things like not being with Peggy or what happened to Winter Soldier feels empty. I’ve been playing Resident Evil: Revelations 2, and a five minute (or less) scene with Barry Burton and how he feels about his daughter at the beginning of episode 3, purely dialogue, had a lot more value and emotional depth than all of Winter Soldier. And Resident Evil is a franchise I don’t expect to bring such depth because it’s always been about B-movie style silliness.

Which goes into Iron Man 3; Tony’s PTSD is incredibly shallow, and in many cases rings false. This is not the fault of Robert Downey Jr in any way. He did great work with his part. The problem is all the way in the script itself. I suspect this is largely because the film is made primarily to sell toys to kids, not to tell a story.

And more recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about why certain actors and directors do not stay on, some of which I’m only learning about now. There’s Marvel’s remarks about Edward Norton. There’s cutting away much of what Mickey Rourke did for Iron Man 2. Kenneth Branagh walked away from the director’s chair after Thor. Joshua Dallas chose not to reprise his Fandral role. Hugo Weaving didn’t want to come back for Red Skull, and this is a guy that has come back repeatedly for The Matrix as Agent Smith and the Lord of the Rings films as Elrond. And of course, there was the “creative differences” issue with the original director of Ant-Man, Edgar Wright. I even find myself wondering if Anthony Hopkins will be bowing out soon.

This isn’t a planned out, thought out, structured essay. If it was, I’d have links everywhere. I’m just saying what I’m thinking, and what I’m increasingly thinking ever since Marvel retconned Wanda and Pietro out of being Magneto’s kids isn’t very flattering for Marvel.

I should be keeping all of this to myself for the moment, but you know.. it doesn’t feel right to do that. What feels right is making this post.