Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania Continues The MCU's Tired Trend Of Mocking Comic Book Names

This article contains spoilers for "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania."

In the earliest stages of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before any of this was a guaranteed money-maker, Kevin Feige had no choice but to take these superheroes seriously. "Iron Man," the one that started it all, ended with Tony Stark revealing his secret alter ego to the world and, most importantly, embracing that title and everything that it implied. While "Thor" faced more of an uphill battle to win audiences over to such a fantastical premise, even stopping the film in its tracks to explain Norse mythology and including several fish-out-of-water jokes couldn't undo the Shakespearean tone and operatic trappings of the character. And, for crying out loud, director Joe Johnston managed to create a solid foundation for one of Marvel's most beloved heroes with a movie titled "Captain America."

Fast-forward several years later, however, and the MCU that once gave us such earnest, unembarrassed, and maybe even corny (overdramatic gasp!) superheroes now seems more and more like a distant memory.

Although the symptoms of this philosophical change takes many forms, perhaps the most glaring comes from Marvel's reflexive, kneejerk instinct in recent years to poke fun at their own movies before anyone else gets a chance to. The spread of "So, that just happened!" as a meme sums up much of the issue here, but even that wouldn't be so bad if the MCU didn't go further and have its own characters call attention to the unreality of it all. After watching several movies go out of their way to undercut the most fundamental aspect of superhero movies as can be — comic book character names — "Quantumania" took this beyond its breaking point with M.O.D.O.K., the Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing.

And, frankly, I'm sick of it.

Whoa there, average moviegoer! Did you realize you were about to be subjected to incredibly silly concepts when you purchased that ticket to the latest superhero movie about a guy who shrinks really small? Well, allow us to smooth over any concerns you might not have even had in the first place and make sure we point out exactly how ridiculous this all is at every possible opportunity. Wouldn't want you to get immersed in otherworldly settings or emotionally invested in bizarre-looking characters with goofy names, now would we?

As ridiculous as the above preamble might sound, that's basically what Marvel (though certainly not Marvel alone) has increasingly resorted to throughout the past several years. You won't have to exercise those brain cells much to reflect on how wild it is that, in a movie taking place mostly in a make-believe place filled to the brim with some of the weirdest and most out-there concepts that director Peyton Reed, writer Jeff Loveness, and the rest of the creative team could come up with, "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" apparently can't even fathom treating Carey Stoll's M.O.D.O.K. with a semblance of dignity. That's not to be mistaken for seriousness, mind you, since a floating head with baby appendages is, uh, the exact opposite of serious. But since when did that necessitate multiple characters all but breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge that a silly acronym is, in fact, pretty silly?

These heroes have survived attempted genocide by a giant purple man, live in a word where a giant Eternal is frozen in the atmosphere, and regularly shrink smaller than the size of atoms. But hold up, this weirdo villain has a weird name! That's where we have to draw the line. I guess.

I can already hear the fans retort that these movies' tendency to mock comic names isn't such a big deal. After all, Marvel's been doing this for quite some time now and audiences clearly aren't letting minor nitpicks keep them from flocking to theaters on opening weekend. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" thought so highly (or not) of Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) that Sony put Tom Holland's Peter Parker and his friends poking fun at his name front-and-center in the marketing. Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange proceeded to get quippy on us in "Multiverse of Madness," between making fun of Blackagar Boltagon (which is a pretty cool name) and expressing complete befuddlement over the Illuminati (which isn't even that weird in the first place). One could even argue that this is simply tradition for this particular trilogy, as the first "Ant-Man" featured Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) "Is it too late to change the name?" joke.

And yet, all this adds up to feel like a much deeper problem beyond just the surface.

Perhaps Marvel's inclination to feel embarrassed of its own source material and preemptively apologize for it explains why the blockbuster juggernaut is starting to feel a little less impervious nowadays. If even the filmmakers themselves won't buy into the emotional reality of the MCU, then why should anyone else? Without that confidence infused within every creative decision, as seen throughout Phase 1 and 2, the seams are beginning to show. Perhaps that helps explain why the franchise now has two "rotten" movies in less than a year and a half, when it had none in the decade-plus prior.

I miss the days when these movies stood behind its own heroes, when jokes were actually personality-based, and when this MCU felt a little more sincere.