After the world-breaking success of Avengers: Infinity Wars and Avengers: Endgame, I felt like the Marvel Cinematic Universe should wrap it up. They already brought together most of their iconic heroes, intertwined over a decade of movies into a cohesive whole, and managed to tell an epic storyline that actually delivered on all of its promise. The climax has been reached; what’s the point of doing more? Surely, I thought, everything else will seem underwhelming in comparison.

In a way, Marvel Studios and MCU head honcho Kevin Feige felt the same. For the next phase of their MCU, instead of trying to build up for another decades long epic story line, they looked around at the myriad colorful characters and outlandish possibilities of the comic book world and said, “Let’s have some fun.”