10 Divisive Marvel Movies To Rewatch Before ‘Avengers: Doomsday’
Not every superhero movie is created equal—the best entries in the genre, like Black Panther (2018) or Superman: The Movie (1978) thrive because of their ability to blend the comic inspiration with the culture of the time with a unique perspective on both. Plenty of comic adaptations, especially for Marvel, have threaded that needle pretty well. However, there are also plenty that have stumbled in key ways over the years that make them bizarre, drab, and fascinating in their own way.
Some of them are just poor adaptations in general, making fans frustrated and failing to impress audiences. Others try too hard to bring the action and fantasy directly onto the big screen, failing to balance the adaptation with the inspiration behind it. Others are just messy, with good ideas that simply don’t come together in the end. With the Marvel Universe forced to unite if they want any hope of surviving the events of Avengers: Doomsday (2026), here are the ten most divisive Marvel movies you can watch now on Prime Video, Disney+, and more!
Technically, the first cinematic adaptation of the Marvel Universe, Howard the Duck is such an openly bizarre and strangely unfunny comedy that it remains the most infamous entry in the Marvel cinematic canon. Executive-produced by George Lucas, the film is a loose adaptation of the Howard the Duck comics by Steve Gerber.
A bedrock of comic book satire, the comic’s tone wasn’t quite matched by a film that seemed far more interested in the comedic potential of a story where a walking and talking duck landed on Earth, was hunted as an alien, and fell in love with a human woman.
The result is a strange film that most audiences and critics at the time of release found off-putting. That strange sense of humor is exactly why some love it; audiences who love infamously weird “bad movies” like Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) or The Room (2003), have developed a love for the movie in the years since it was released. While your mileage may vary on how silly the film really is, Howard the Duck still stands out as one of Marvel’s weirdest movies.
A long time before Benedict Cumberbatch brought the sorcery to the MCU with Doctor Strange (2016), Phillip DeGuere's version of the character came together in Dr. Strange as part of the CBS Marvel adaptations alongside The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) and The Incredible Hulk (1978), Dr. Strange takes a lot of liberties with the source material, and at times feels like a completely removed mystical action film.
However, there are just enough consistent elements with the source material—and even a few elements from the comics that have been largely dropped from the MCU films—that make it an interesting early adaptation of the Marvel Universe. While you may be torn on the film's overall adaptation, it's worth checking out just for Arrested Development (2003) and Archer (2009) star Jessica Walter's turn as the villainous Morgan Le Fay.
One of the most infamously bad superhero films of all time, Captain America can’t hold a candle to the films starring Chris Evans in the lead role. More an oddity than anything else, Captain America’s grounded visuals and generally campy tone stands in stark contrast to the more over-the-top but enthralling approach that Tim Burton took with Batman (1989), which makes this one only pale further in comparison.
Captain America stands out as a cheapie contrast to the bigger blockbuster adaptations that most takes on the Marvel Universe in movies come across as. This puts it alongside other infamous adaptations like Roger Corman’s unreleased Fantastic Four (1994), which speaks to the very cheesy era of superhero movies that was eventually broken by the black leather and cool presentation of Blade (1998) and X-Men (2000).
Marvel’s Jade Giant has found more success as a supporting character over being the star of the story, something that’s been consistent with the character’s cinematic appearances since Hulk. The Eric Bana-led film has some interesting visual flair courtesy of director Ang Lee, who approaches the comic book medium on film with as much enthusiasm as he does martial arts tropes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).
He has better luck in the latter, with Hulk’s inconsistent approach to blockbuster action, character breakdown, and wonky special effects hindering it in some key ways. The Incredible Hulk (2008) is better but still struggles to fully bring the giant brawler into the spotlight. Instead, the best examples of Hulk on screen lately have been in team-up movies like Thor: Ragnarok (2017), crossovers like The Avengers (2012), or spin-offs like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). If you love a conflicted Bruce Banner though, then you’ll probably appreciate the complexity that Bana is playing with.
Ben Affleck’s Daredevil (2003) was a modest success, with a better eye for casting more than anything else—including casting Jennifer Garner as his assassin lover, who got her own film in Elektra. The spin-off follows Elektra after she’s been resurrected by the mysterious Stick, pitting her against a horde of dangerous new warriors removed from Daredevil.
The movie struggles with a very bizarre script that wants to be R-rated but is trapped in a painfully PG-13 mode. The action is similarly lackluster, especially compared to the more campy and entertaining action of Daredevil. Garner is at least still engaging in the lead role, which makes her return in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) all the more gratifying in retrospect. If you like action movies of this era, like Underworld (2003), you’ll probably have fun with this otherwise bland action flick.
An attempt to replicate the youthful revamps of the X-Men and Spider-Man film franchises, Fantastic Four is a strange mix of good ideas, incomprehensible sci-fi, and poor choices. Leaning more heavily into the sci-fi concept than the superheroes of Fantastic Four (2005) or The Fantastic 4: The First Steps (2025), Josh Trank’s adaptation has a murky visual hue that doesn’t quite reflect the stylish aesthetic of the original comics.
While some casting choices are on-point—seriously, Michael B. Jordan as Human Torch is a terrific call—it’s all undercut by a fairly underwhelming script that mistakes complicated for compelling. The movie feels like an especially disappointing turn after the strength of his prior film Chronicle (2012), which had a similar style but a much more effective character depth. By way of the grimy stylings inspired by The Dark Knight (2008), Fantastic Four is at least a fun stumble to debate over.
One of the last X-Men films to be produced before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, there’s a really good idea in The New Mutants that struggles to stay focused. A superhero story reimagined as a teen horror story, The New Mutants has some very solid casting and some interesting emotional beats, especially the romantic subplot between Rahne and Dani. However, the horror elements are too underdeveloped to be really effective, leaving the film feeling like a wasted opportunity.
It’s definitely a better send-off for the cinematic X-Men franchise than the franchise's low point that was X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) or the slightly better but still very misguided Dark Phoenix (2019), but The New Mutants could have really carved out a good niche for itself in the history of Marvel adaptations if it had nailed the horror tone. While there are some audiences who are going to love it for its quietly effective romance and its horror elements, this Marvel movie isn’t quite able to realize its full potential.
One of Marvel’s most ambitious swings—and arguably one of their biggest misses—Eternals is a big sci-fi epic that has trouble matching the grounded touches that make the MCU so engaging. Eternals introduces a host of powerful new characters, gives them an epic backstory, and tasks them with confronting some genuinely complex questions about the cost of life and the value of breaking natural systems.
That headiness might have had room to breathe in a TV show like Loki ((2021), but the truncated nature of the film means Eternals has to rush through a lot of exposition and juggle too many characters, ultimately making the stakes feel hollow. The film was meant to help keep the momentum post-Avengers: Endgame MCU growing, but it proved to be divisive enough for MCU fans to largely push back against it. If you like the more ambitious sci-fi stuff like Dune (2021), this MCU film will likely land better with you than the more quippy bubblegum action of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), but its disconnect in the larger audience sank most plans for future Eternal stories.
Being the follow-up to Captain Marvel (2019), WandaVision (2021), and Ms. Marvel (2022) put a lot of pressure on The Marvels that it couldn’t live up to, which is a shame because there’s a lot to love about the film itself. The sequel sees Carol, Monica, and Kamala all linked together via their powers, forcing all three of them to take a cosmic mission together to prevent a genocidal Kree Acusser from destroying the world.
There’s a lot of colorful action and charming characters in the film, including a musical sequence that’s just the right level of strangely silly to be perfect for the proudly weird corners of the Marvel Universe. However, the lackluster villain and required context to engage with the film meant that audiences didn’t have easy stakes to latch onto, playing into the film’s dismal box office compared to the heights of the franchise. This is an MCU film that’s worth revisiting with open eyes, but that inglorious flop makes it one of the franchise’s more divisive releases.
The Sony Spider-Man films were typically a bunch of wild misfires and surprise successes—seriously, the blockbuster success of Venom (2018) was something of a surprise, even given the character’s popularity—with the most inglorious being Madame Web. The film, meant to be a side-story/prequel/reimagining of the Spider-Man mythos centered around many of the characters who go by Spider-Woman in the comics, Madame Web quickly became meme fodder for its awkward dialogue and bonkers story.
If you’re looking for a more character-focused Spider-Man story, then you should probably skip this one, but unlike Kraven the Hunter (2024) or Morbius (2022), this one can be fun if you let it be. If you’re looking for a campy action movie with weird touches like Adam Scott as a young, attractive Uncle Ben, then the unintentional comedy, strange touches, and fun cast of the typically divisive Madame Web can deliver an entertaining time.
