From ‘She-Hulk’ To ‘Armor Wars,’ Marvel May Finally Be Beginning To Understand TV

While I’d argue that Marvel’s foray into television on Disney Plus started off relatively strong, it seemed to eventually get lost the further they got, a problem they’ve also run into with Star Wars, on occasion.

For many Disney projects, it seems like the philosophy has been “take an overly long movie and chop it up into six episodes,” but now, that may be starting to change.

There are two examples now that Marvel may finally be starting to learn their lesson with Disney Plus, She-Hulk and Armor Wars.

To my eye, She-Hulk is the first series all the way back since WandaVision that actually feels like a true television show. It’s nine episodes, not six, firstly, and the episodes are self-contained, Ally McBeal-styled stories with a superhero flair. I’m not going to claim that She-Hulk is my favorite MCU production, but it’s the first one in an exceptionally long time that actually feels like the people involved wanted to make a TV show, not a movie hacked into bits.

Now, to avoid that, Marvel has also indicated they’re willing to move the other direction. They’ve just announced that Armor Wars, with Don “War Machine” Cheadle, will be retooled from a TV show into a full movie, slotted into its theatrical MCU release schedule. So, nothing has to be chopped up, rather the project can be streamlined and turned into what it probably always should have been, an actual film.

You can debate which Disney projects also would have benefitted from this move. Off the top of my head, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel all feel like they could have benefitted either from being more like a TV show with an extended season and better edited storylines, or simply made into movies instead. On the Star Wars side, it’s even easier to see with the recent Obi-Wan production that was literally once a movie they cut into a show. Now, Disney also seems to be fixing that somewhat with Andor (although that show does not remotely understand TV episode break timing).

This has been a new era for Disney and the MCU especially, and that’s evidenced by how so many of these shows were treated, as one-off little miniseries. Only Loki is confirmed to be returning for season 2 right now, though rumblings are that Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight also may get follow-up seasons. So overall, things may be changing for the better, and She-Hulk and Armor Wars are the best evidence I’ve seen of that to date. I hope we see more moves in these directions, as TV shows are allowed to be TV shows, and movies are allowed to be movies.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.