Imo that's more the lack of general direction that is difficult to follow and makes it less interesting. Everything feels totally disconnected, while there were ways to connect everything together to create a more coherent storyline.
I mean, there have been three stories about the multiverse (Loki, Spider-Man NWH, Dr Strange Multiverse), yet none of them were connected. I could understand for Loki, but NWH and Madness being linked only by one sentence and absolutely nothing else was weird af. There was just as many links between NHW and Madness as between Shang-Chi and Madness (i.e. 1, very minor, unless I missed others).
And then you have storylines leading to nothing
so far. So far, as we have yet to see the rest, but opening one billion storylines with no clear conclusion doesn't help in keeping people engaged.
- All Loki matters. Kang will probably be continued in Quantumania, Loki potentially in Thor 4 ?
- Photon, White Vision from WandaVision ?
- A freaking Celestial appearing in Earth's orbit and grabbing 3 people while another one nearly hatched from earth didn't seem to sparkle the smallest interest.
- Shang-Chi was probably a one-off, spin-off-like, but the Rings were hinted at being something crazy.
- Black Knight (Eternals' credits scene)
- US Agent (Falcon's ending), even Captain Falcon is nowhere to be seen yet
All that shit just feels like Marvel is throwing as many storylines as possible to see what sticks, and then they'll plan accordingly. At this point, Eternals just feels like non-cannon
, and as much as I didn't enjoy it to say the least, I prefer when the story keeps some degree of consistency
It's a lot less engaging to watch an endless serie of spin-offs rather than a consistent storyline spanned over several movies. That's also what made Marvel more successful than DC, movie-wise. DC has several great movies but they're standalone, while Marvel has many shitty movies but at least they're part of a huge story.