You shouldn't need us to tell you that the Multiverse Saga hasn't exactly been Marvel Studios firing on all cylinders. While it's not been the catastrophe some have declared it as, mistakes have been made that Kevin Feige and company are—hopefully—learning from heading into this Saga's final few projects.
When it comes to "wasted" characters, it would be easy to single out the seemingly random introduction of major players like Blade, Starfox, Hercules, and Clea.
However, we're taking a slightly deeper dive than that in this feature, singling out those that the Multiverse Saga either hasn't done right by or simply dropped the ball on. While a few of them can recover in the coming years, it may be too little, too late for quite a few others.
You can check out which heroes and villains we've singled out by clicking the "Next"/"View List" buttons below.
7. The Abomination
When we last saw Tim Roth's Abomination, he was rampaging through New York for an epic clash of the titans with the Jade Giant in 2008's The Incredible Hulk.
Bringing the character back in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law made a lot of sense, especially with a subplot about more Hulks entering the fray. In the end, Emil Blonsky was neither a cunning mastermind nor a deadly foe for Jennifer Walters; he was a comedic character who, if nothing else, at least got a more comic-accurate design.
Captain America: Brave New World also wasted The Leader, and we still can't quite believe these two weren't in cahoots. It's a major wasted opportunity, though it does look like the idea was for Abomination to join the cast of the now-scrapped Strange Academy series.
6. Spider-Man
Spider-Man: No Way Home was a near-$2 billion box office hit in 2021 and remains one of the Multiverse Saga's best movies. It's also been four years since we last saw the web-slinger on screen, and that's simply inexcusable.
With the likes of Captain America and Iron Man put on the back burner, Marvel Studios had the opportunity to build the MCU around Spidey. We get that Tom Holland wanted a break, but as the world no longer remembers Peter Parker, it'd have been pretty easy to get him to do the voice for a masked Spider-Man.
As things stand, Holland's web-slinger won't even appear in Avengers: Doomsday. Still, the Multiverse Saga now looks set to redeem itself with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. They've kept us waiting a little too long, though...
5. Moon Knight
The excitement surrounding Moon Knight's MCU debut was off the charts, and while his Disney+ series was flawed, Oscar Isaac more than made up for that with his compelling take on Marc Spector and Steven Knight.
Moon Knight ended with the emergence of Jake Lockley, setting the stage for a very different Moon Knight to serve Khonshu moving forward. Unfortunately, the character has been M.I.A. ever since, and there's nothing to suggest that Moony will factor into Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars.
Midnight Sons remains a possibility in the next Saga, but how could you introduce Moon Knight and not link him to Rama-Tut, seeing as Kang and his Variants were originally this Saga's big bad?!
4. She-Hulk
Back to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and yes, we have to include Jennifer Walters here, too. The series isn't as bad as some would have you believe, but Marvel Studios arguably made a fundamental mistake with the MCU's take on this character.
The Disney+ series leaned too heavily on comedy and fourth-wall breaks; there's a precedent for those elements in the comics, but what works on the page doesn't always translate well to screen. So, what should have been the story of Jen becoming an Avenger was instead too concerned with tackling toxicity (which deserves to be ignored) to do right by its lead.
She-Hulk has been left in limbo, and rumours are swirling that Tatiana Maslany doesn't want to come back. A character with the potential to be the MCU's main Hulk as we head into the next Saga has been well and truly let down by all.
3. War Machine
War Machine has never been the MCU's best character, but in the wake of Tony Stark's death, the potential was there to do a lot of interesting things with the hero. That was going to be Armor Wars, a project that went from TV show to movie to not happening.
Ultimately, Marvel Studios decided the best use of the character was to reveal in Secret Invasion that he'd been replaced by a Skrull since Avengers: Infinity War. The series needed that kind of huge reveal, but Rhodey was the wrong choice, especially after what we saw from him in Avengers: Endgame (the fan backlash said it all).
Between that and the failure to get Armor Wars into theaters or on streaming has sidelined War Machine in a way we can't see him coming back from. Sure, he can show up as a supporting character here or there, but his moment has otherwise passed.
2. Red Hulk
This may seem harsh in a movie that also included a wholly disappointing and undeniably abysmal take on The Leader. However, Marvel Studios has dropped the ball on Red Hulk, making him a one-and-done villain in a Multiverse Saga entry butchered by reshoots.
Harrison Ford was superb, as were the VFX used to bring Red Hulk to life. That's really where the positives end, though, as President Ross simply "Hulked Out" in Captain America: Brave New World's final act, got beaten, and was sent to The Raft. A tease for his future ended up being cut (he'd have been shown watching Betty Ross from afar), meaning this is another Hulk-adjacent character in limbo.
Marvel Studios didn't have to go down the route of making Red Hulk's identity a mystery. Still, after being glossed over in Thunderbolts*—imagine the reveal that Ross had been working with Val—we're not expecting to see anything from him in the next Avengers movies.
1. M.O.D.O.K.
M.O.D.O.K. is not an easy character to get right on screen. Making it so that Darren Cross—shrunken down and deformed after being sent into the Quantum Realm—had been transformed into the villain by Kang the Conqueror was actually a very smart idea.
The execution, sadly, was rotten. Once again heading too far into "comedy" territory, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania not only got it wrong with M.O.D.O.K.'s design, but ended up making him too silly instead of embracing and combining the wackiness with the fact that this guy is actually pretty deadly.
Original plans called for M.O.D.O.K. to escape the Quantum Realm, perhaps to become a threat to the wider MCU. Instead, he was front and centre in quite possibly this franchise's worst-ever death scene.