Sure enough, the MCU is currently developing according to the plans announced by Kevin Feige, one movie at a time. And Age of Ultron proves to be a great success, although it is way behind its predecessor, as far as the US box office is concerned.
But there are voices being heard, even those of the fans, saying that Marvel forgets an important part of building a cinematic superhero universe: the MCU lacks the threat of real antagonists. And we agree with that, since from the first Iron Man the villains haven't been what we expected of them, with maybe two exceptions.
MCU - underdeveloped villains
Ronan the Accuser – what, have you already forgotten about him?
And this is the problem which plagues almost all the villains of the MCU - even if they are the ones that give the superhero his/her status, we know very little about them. Until now, the MCU presented no less than 11 major baddies in its movies (excepting Thanos, of course, of whom we only caught a couple of glimpses).
But only Loki and the Winter Soldier seem to be above the rest - why is that? Well, that is because they are the only major villains to be alive at this moment. Marvel tends to kill them all at the end of their first movie. This has happened to the Iron Monger, Whiplash, Red Skull, Killian, Malekith, Ronan and even Ultron. There is too little time to have them flourish and test the superheroes.
The comics
Can we expect to see Ultron again, just like in the comics?
In the comics, even if a villain is defeated, he still has the chance of posing a threat further down the road since, well, these are comics. And we know that this cannot happen in the MCU, who is already plagued by fake deaths.
But still, maybe they shouldn't be so hasty into sending them off. For example, Red Skull had quite a lot to offer to the audiences. But his adventures came to a halt before the first Captain America movie's credits rolled. The same goes even for Ultron himself.
Despite James Spader having lent his voice to the character, the MCU's Ultron falls short to the fans expectations. Sure enough, his personality is pretty much shaped (and we are being generous at this moment). However, most of the fans believe that this path was a wrong one from the start, since the threat and the menace of a comic book Ultron was never felt.
What can be done?
What can be done?
This is a pretty easy question to be answered: the MCU needs to stop killing its major players. For that matter, and quite surprisingly, the only superhero that hasn't killed his enemy from the solo film is the Hulk. That is right, the one superhero who is prone to destroying everything in his path is the one to let Abomination live.
Abomination – yeah, HE is alive and well
On a different topic - is it that surprising, at this moment, that Superman killed Zod? It might be just a bit. However, looking into the MCU, where the superheroes have all the necessary experience, we cannot even frown at a simple broken neck.
Forgetting that this is the MCU
Yeah, this was a good comedy… or not
In this way, it can be said that Marvel is actually forgetting that this is supposed to be a cinematic universe, where everything needs to be interconnected. Sure enough, there is a host of villains from the comics which could be adapted for the big screen. But does that mean that they need to be?
We don't believe so - the MCU has already introduced some terrific villains, just to have them swiftly killed. We can only say that, so far, the Winter Soldier and (maybe) Loki haven't disappointed. In the latter case, the fans' reaction was the one that kept him in the MCU.
Maybe Marvel needs to change things and maybe they shouldn't be so trigger-happy.
