For over a decade, Marvel has been dominating the pop culture landscape. Due to the MCU (and going back even further to include The X-Men franchise), Marvel has ushered in a new era of superhero movies.
Marvel took characters that no one outside the hardcore comic faithful knew about and turned them in a money-making machine. The comic company is top dog at the box office and in the minds of most fans.
Yet that doesn’t mean the universe and characters are flawless. There are certain things about the Marvel universe that just doesn’t add up, particularly in the MCU. The best way to look at these inconsistencies is through the shorthand of the internet, memes.
This isn’t about trashing Marvel or the MCU. It is, though, about having fun at the universe’s expense and recognizing that even the things we love the most are not without problems.
Marvel is all about having fun and it’s only right to have a little bit of fun back at them.
So here are the 15 Memes That Prove Marvel Makes Absolutely No Sense.
Everyone Passes Away, But Not Really
In Marvel Comics, death has become much little more than inconvenience. This is easy to accept though as the characters drive the stories and comics are on cyclical cycle of constant reboots.
In the Marvel movies though, the use of “death” as a twist is becoming rather tiring.
Obviously, not all of the movies listed here are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Although they may retroactively be included if the Disney and Fox deal goes through as everyone expects.)
Still, it proves there’s a long history of characters being killed off in Marvel movies, only for them to be immediately revived or be revealed to have never died in the first place.
Perhaps the funniest and most egregious example is Loki. The God of Mischief has “died” in a big emotional scene in nearly every MCU movie he’s been featured in.
Thor’s Way Out of the Loop
In its typical methodical fashion, the MCU has introduced or fleshed out a lot of characters in the expansive Phase 3.
Most of the cast of Infinity War is going to come from characters that made their debut in Phase 3. While that’s exciting as an audience member, it’s going to be utterly confusing for Thor.
When Thor was last on Earth for an extended period, during Age of Ultron, the world of heroes in the MCU was relatively small.
Since that point though the Marvel Cinematic Universe has brought Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Winter Soldier firmly into the fold. None of whom Thor has interacted with at all and he probably doesn’t even know of their existence.
The first Infinity War trailer had Thor asking who the Guardians of the Galaxy were but, realistically, he should be doing that throughout the movie. Although it’s unlikely that he will.
Fitzsimmons’ Incredibly Long Slow Burn
Thankfully Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has since wrapped up this plotline. Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons are now married and one of the happiest parts of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s dour (but surprisingly solid) corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Yet, Fitzsimmons’ happy ending doesn’t entirely make up for the hard road that he had to take to get there.
Marvel has never been that great at building romance but the long wait between Fitz confessing his feelings for Simmons and her reciprocating them was rather torturous.
Fitz did everything for Jemma. It was clear that eventually the two would end up together. Yet Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. dragged things out for so long that it just made Simmons look way too indecisive and vaguely cruel.
The Reason Dardevil Isn’t in the Avengers
If any of the heroes in Netflix’s Marvel series feel ready for “primetime,” it’s Daredevil. Matt Murdock might not have any powers, per say. Yet he could easily stand toe-to-toe with The Avengers if the MCU really wanted to connect all their properties.
This “reason” is obviously tongue-in-cheek and pokes fun at the fact that Matt Murdock is a blind man.
Really the jokiness of the excuse for why Daredevil isn’t in The Avengers just underlines how there is no good reason for him to not be in The Avengers.
Throughout two seasons of his own show and The Defenders, Matt has had one of the best and most rounded arcs.
The least Marvel could do is give him a cameo, or at least a name drop him, in a tent-pole Avengers movie, even if can’t work with Vision.
Everyone Hates Agent Carter
Thanksto star Hayley Atwell’s performance and its unique time and place, the short-lived Agent Carter is one of the more original and loved parts of MCU canon.
Agent Carter was good-fashioned fun. Although Peggy didn’t have superpowers, she did allow Marvel to tell a story with a female lead, which is something they desperately needed (and still do as a matter of fact).
However, there’s no getting around the fact that the structure of every Agent Carter episode was disappointing similar. Peggy would be doubted, for purely sexist reasons, she’d rise to the occasion and be better than everyone else.
Then everyone would just forget that Peggy was more capable and better than them in almost every conceivable way.
Agent Carter should’ve lasted longer than two seasons, but it wasn’t particularly deep or nuanced.
Tony Forgets an Easy Way to Stop Hulk
The Hulkbuster is such an iconic piece of Iron Man armor that it would’ve been strange if it didn’t make into the MCU in some form.
As messy as Avengers: Age of Ultron was, the scene where Tony takes on Hulk in the Hulkbuster is one of the tensest and entertaining scenes in the movie. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Way back in the first Iron Man, Tony came up against a device that could neutralize him and nearly every other organic being with a simple switch.
Near the end of Iron Man, villain Obadiah Stane uses a sonic paralyzer that completely neutralizes Tony.
It’s downright bizarre that paranoid super genius Tony Stark didn’t reverse engineer this handy device. If not to use on Hulk than at least on Cap or Bucky in Civil War.
The Indestructible Paint on Cap’s Shield
It’s a well-known piece of trivia that Captain America’s famous shield is made from vibranium. Since the MCU’s start the fictional metal has been a cornerstone of the universe.
It’s only become more prominent after Black Panther. Vibranium is basically magic, can do pretty much anything and is virtually indestructible.
It makes perfect sense that Cap has been able to use his shield for everything and it’s not even gotten a dent. Yet it is a little perplexing how the paint has never sheered off the shield after all it’s wear and tear.
We know from Captain America: The First Avenger that the shield didn’t come with its red, white and blue paint job.
The shield started as just a silver plate before getting a lot more patriotic. So, unless the paint is also made of vibranium, it should look much worse for wear if for not other reason than age.
Defenders Forget About Spider-Man
One of the selling points of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that it’s all connected. From Infinity War to The Runaways, everything is taking place in the same universe. In some cases, even the same city.
The four main heroes of Netflix’s Marvel series are the street level defenders of New York City. That would be fine if they acknowledged the other street level hero of NYC, Spider-Man.
Yet neither in The Defenders or Spider-Man: Homecoming was it even mentioned that the five heroes exist in a few blocks radius of each other.
In fact, throughout The Defenders’ first and only season, it was repeatedly mentioned that Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist were the only line of defense against The Hand.
Peter might be a teenage but if he was called for help, The Defenders season 1 would be even less episodes.
The After Credits Obsession
Since Nick Fury showed up after the credits in Iron Man and asked Tony Stark about The Avengers Initiative, audiences have been hooked on after-credits sequences.
The basic etiquette in going to a Marvel movie is to not get up until after all the credits have rolled and the lights come on in the theater. However, this whole practice is ridiculous.
The credits for any movie, but especially a big budget Marvel production, are incredibly long. No one cares about the names listed, except the people whose names are featured. There’s a huge imbalance in how much time the credits last to the teases that are given.
It doesn’t help that, in large part, the after credits moments are almost never satisfying or interesting.
Even if they are a scene from a future movie, they always function better in context of the larger piece, not as a separate tease.
Marvel Government’s Plan
Taken in a vacuum the response of the U.S. Government after Age of Ultron made a lot of sense. Ultron was created by one of the Avengers and he caused a lot of damage, nearly wiping out an entire nation.
The government would want regulations. However, taken in context, the action of the Marvel government is contradictory.
In the first Avengers, when the aliens invaded NYC, it was up to the team to completely repel them.
Matters got even worse though when the government decided to shoot a nuke at NYC to obliterate the invasion but also destroy one of the biggest cities on Earth.
It’s only because of The Avengers’ actions that the city was saved. The nuke went off but not where it hurt any civilians.
Yet a few years, the government wanted to be responsible for all The Avengers’ action. Even they put into a motion a plan that was just as a bad as Ultron’s actions.
Bucky Can’t Beat Spider-Man
As Winter Solider, Bucky cut an impressive path of destruction throughout the MCU. Nearly every hero Bucky faced, he fought to a stand still or outright defeated.
Some of them, like Cap, even had enhanced abilities. Yet when Bucky faced off against Spider-Man in Civil War it took no time for the pint-sized teenager to take him down.
It’s true that Spider-Man catching Bucky’s arm in the big battle of Civil War was a cool moment that quickly established Spider-Man’s relative strength.
However, it’s not an earned moment. As Spider-Man: Homecoming established Peter is in his infancy as a hero and he barely managed to defeat The Vulture, an amateur mercenary.
According to the MCU, Vulture is more powerful than Bucky a trained solider and assassin who killed hundreds of people.
Black Widow’s Perfect Hair
Scarlett Johansson’s performance as Black Widow is one of the highlights of the MCU. The writing and acting of Black Widow has made it not only plausible that she’s a member of The Avengers, without powers, she’s one of the stars of the franchise.
Black Widow should’ve gotten her own movies years ago. There are still times when Black Widow is a little too perfect.
In most of the MCU movies, the male heroes get properly gruffed up. Thor lost an eye, Tony has been beaten to bloody pulp several times and Nick Fury ended up hospitalized on the brink of death.
However, Black Widow always looks flawless. Even when there are literal explosions all around not a single hair is out of place Widow’s head, which is just a little too hard to believe.
SHIELD’s Obsessive Branding
In our world, organizations like the CIA, NSA and FBI are known. They’re all recognizable names but it’s not as if each organization has some emblem or logo that is plastered all over.
You can’t identify a CIA agent or NSA vehicle simply by looking at it. If so, it would defeat its purpose.
In the world of Marvel, SHIELD is supposed to be even more secretive than those famous real-world agencies. Yet they put their logo on anything that will stand still long enough to be plastered.
An organization full of super spies becomes a lot less secretive when its logo is the third most recognizable symbol in the world, behind Captain America’s shield and Iron Man’s arc reactor.
Maybe it’s not such a surprise that SHIELD fell in Winter Solider.
Tony’s Iron Man 3 Back-Up
In the first two Iron Man movies it made sense that Tony went things alone. The Avengers weren’t a team yet. They were just a glimmer in Nick Fury’s singular eye.
After The Avengers though it became a lot harder for Marvel to explain why every solo superhero movie didn’t have at least one other hero in it. (This explains why Phase 3 disbanded the team and/or had movies that took place on far off planets.)
The lack of Avengers’ assistance is very noticeable at the end of Iron Man 3. Tony needs back-up and army but rather than calling a Hulk who he has on speed dial, Tony summons a laughably huge battalion of his own suits.
It’s understood that Tony is a control freak, but a Captain or Thor would’ve done the job just as well and not been nearly as garish and expensive.
Hulk’s Miraculous Makeover
Of all the technical achievements of The MCU, The Hulk is probably the most impressive. The not-so-jolly green giant is purely a creation of CGI and other means, but he looks completely realistic.
Even though, at best, The Hulk is Mark Ruffalo in a mo-cap suit, he really appears to fully occupy whatever space he is in.
However, the look of The Hulk has been the exact opposite of consistent. The biggest change is between Age of Ultron and Thor: Ragnarok but in every movie the look of The Hulk’s face has been altered.
The Hulk that was first glimpsed in The Incredible Hulk looks nothing like the one showing up in Infinity War, regardless of them being played by two different actors.
The reason for the change is probably down to advancements in technology. The current Hulk does look better. It just doesn’t make much sense.
What are some of your favorite Marvel memes that poke fun at the universe? Did we miss any big ones? Sound off in the comments!
