

As the latest trailer made clear, there are a ton of reasons to be excited for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with the arrival of Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror at the top of the list. However, there’s also a bunch of reasons why fans might be skeptical about it, from its dodgy CGI to the massacring of our boy MODOK. Another way the new trailer has got us worried is in its promise that the incoming threequel, and Phase 5 at large, will continue the most frustrating trope of the MCU’s Phase 4. Namely, our heroes being at the root of their own problems.
Perhaps out of a desire to subvert the typical depiction of superheroes as Superman-like paragons of virtue, the MCU has always been interested in pitching its protagonists as flawed individuals who are often their own worst enemies (see all those villains who are dark mirrors of the hero). However, this predilection took over to an obnoxious degree in Phase 4, much to the detriment of the characters and their reputations. In short, Marvel has started to make its own heroes look like short-sighted idiots.