History Main / ArcFatigue

** The ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' arc lasted nearly fifty issues, or a year and a half in real time. By the end, even people who had liked the premise were pretty tired of Spider-Man acting like a jerk and [[IdiotBall normally competent characters completely failing to notice Spidey was acting nothing like himself]] [[spoiler:due to being [[GrandTheftMe possessed]] by [[Characters/MarvelComicsOttoOctavius Dr. Octopus]]]].

'''{{Myth|Arc}} Stall:''' The story has been going on for a long time. A ''loooooooong'' time. Teenagers in the present time weren't even born when the story began, and yet the characters are no closer to their final goal than they were five years ago. Sometimes, the story is riddled with storylines which may be little more than a prolonged MonsterOfTheWeek story with no significant CharacterDevelopment or Plot Advancement at all. In extreme circumstances, the series might "[[NoEnding end]]" [[DiedDuringProduction only when the author does...]] This is, naturally, most common in "quest" stories where the characters have an over-arching goal to achieve or MacGuffin to claim. See TheChrisCarterEffect.

** Summer vacation and the fourth Palace arc against the Pharaoh of Wrath in the Pyramid Palace take quite a while of the middle section of the game. The Pyramid is [[BreatherLevel one of the shortest and simplest Palaces in the game]], but it also has the longest deadline -- access to the Palace starts in July, and the deadline isn't until late August. Since the overarching plot won't progress until the Palace's deadline has passed, this leads to a long stretch of time without much to do once you've cleared the Palace. And the fact that you can't go to school locks you out a decent chunk of your Confidant progress as well, leaving you with little to do but stat grind and visit the same set of Confidants over and over.
** The Hawaii Trip would be fine in isolation, but the fact it comes right on the heels of the aforementioned Pyramid Palace and summer vacation can make it feel as though summer vacation is going on even longer and players who want to just hit Mementos and do the Confidants and Requests that have just been unlocked are instead forced to spend still more time on the beach.

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has summer vacation and the fourth Palace arc against the Pharaoh of Wrath in the Pyramid Palace. The Pyramid is [[BreatherLevel one of the shortest and simplest Palaces in the game]], but it also has the longest deadline -- access to the Palace starts in July, and the deadline isn't until late August. Since the overarching plot won't progress until the Palace's deadline has passed, this leads to a long stretch of time without much to do once you've cleared the Palace. And the fact that you can't go to school locks you out a decent chunk of your Confidant progress as well, leaving you with little to do but stat grind and visit the same set of Confidants over and over.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia'' has a major problem with this in its second half of the game. While it does resolve the plot threads and character arcs for all of the side characters, all you do is just retread the same dungeons you cleared in the first half of the game. This lasts until the last hour or so, and even then, TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon is little more than a BossRush with the TrueFinalBoss at the end.

* Summer Vacation, or the Fourth Heist/Palace arc, in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. The Palace itself is [[BreatherLevel one of the shortest and simplest in the game]], but you're given the ''longest'' deadline in the game to complete it (it opens up in late July, and the deadline isn't until ''late August''). Since the plot can't progress until the deadline is up, this leads to a ''long'' stretch of time without much dungeon action. And not going to school locks you out a decent chunk of non-dungeon content as well, leaving players with little to do.

%% ** The "Risen Reaper" arc was the same thing, only replace "Justin, Susan, and Nanase" with Ellen, Nanase, Mr. Raven, Magus, and [[spoiler:Pandora/Chaos]]. Again, reactions were mixed.

** The "Risen Reaper" arc was the same thing, only replace "Justin, Susan, and Nanase" with Ellen, Nanase, Mr. Raven, Magus, and [[spoiler:Pandora/Chaos]]. Again, reactions were mixed.

* In the ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion'' adaptation in ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'', it takes the Avengers seven episodes longer than the viewers to realize one of their members became replaced by a Skrull, and another five to discover ''which'' Avenger fell victim.[[note]]It's Characters/{{Captain America|TitleCharacter}}, by the way.[[/note]] This wouldn't feel as bad if not for Disney XD taking inexplicably long breaks in between certain episodes, or the possibility that this arc contains more filler than any from the first season. Disney's [=DVDs=] arrange the episodes in production order. Because of this, the Avengers discover eight episodes in that an alien lives among them and take another five to find out who exactly the alien replaced. The viewer doesn't get to see what happened to the victim until after they notice a member has been replaced.

** The main romance between Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Cat Noir has been incredibly slow to progress, not helped by the {{Flanderization}} of Marinette. As of its fifth season, the show has had THREE WhatIf episodes [[StatusQuoIsGod but has never allowed the two's relationship to progress in the 100+ episodes aired in that timespan]]. This led many to either [[AbandonShipping drop the duo]] or outright drop the series. Said fifth season didn't do much to alleviate the issue, as the duo ends up being hit by an UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo: Ladybug begins to fall for Cat Noir, who is {{oblivious|ToLove}} to her hints and now only sees Ladybug as friend because Adrien is crushing on Marinette... who is denying her longtime feelings for Adrien due to [[spoiler:falling for a TwinSwitch between Adrien and his cousin Félix in [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E26StrikeBackShadowMothsFinalAttackPart2 the S4 finale]] that ultimately cost her all but two of the Miraculous]]. [[LampshadeHanging The show itself seems to be aware of how drawn-out this aspect of the story is becoming]], as [[spoiler:Alya, who became Marinette's SecretKeeper in the fourth season, repeatedly bemoans Marinette's avoidance of Adrien when he's ''finally'' showing an interest in her and pokes holes in the "logic" behind her sudden infatuation towards Cat Noir]]. [[spoiler:Marinette and Adrien actually ''do'' [[RelationshipUpgrade hook up for real]] midway through Season 5 and stay together after, but a good portion of the fandom felt that, while this was long overdue, all the narrative zig-zagging (as well as inconsistent characterization for both halves of the couple) caused the pairing to lose quite a bit of steam. Not helping matters is how ''WesternAnimation/LadybugAndCatNoirTheMovie'', a NonSerialMovie in [[AlternateContinuity its own canon]] that released around the time S5 had wrapped up, ends with the two learning each other's {{Secret Identit|y}}ies and implicitly getting together, a development that was much better received by fans.]]

** The main romance between Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Cat Noir has been incredibly slow to progress, not helped by the {{Flanderization}} of Marinette. As of its fifth season, the show has had THREE WhatIf episodes but has never allowed the two's relationship to progress in the 100+ episodes aired in that timespan. This led many to either [[AbandonShipping drop the duo]] or outright drop the series. Said fifth season didn't do much to alleviate the issue, as the duo ends up being hit by an UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo: Ladybug begins to fall for Cat Noir, who is {{oblivious|ToLove}} to her hints and now only sees Ladybug as friend because Adrien is crushing on Marinette... who is denying her longtime feelings for Adrien due to [[spoiler:falling for a TwinSwitch between Adrien and his cousin Félix in [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E26StrikeBackShadowMothsFinalAttackPart2 the S4 finale]] that ultimately cost her all but two of the Miraculous]]. [[LampshadeHanging The show itself seems to be aware of how drawn-out this aspect of the story is becoming]], as [[spoiler:Alya, who became Marinette's SecretKeeper in the fourth season, repeatedly bemoans Marinette's avoidance of Adrien when he's ''finally'' showing an interest in her and pokes holes in the "logic" behind her sudden infatuation towards Cat Noir]].
** Many believe that Hawk Moth has overstayed his welcome as the main villain and the show's repeated attempts to justify his actions come off as [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic hollow]]. If that wasn't enough, he's drawn ire from those wanting the [[TwoPersonLoveTriangle love square]] to progress, since two of the aforementioned WhatIf episodes ([[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E22CatBlanc "Cat Blanc"]] and [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E22Ephemeral "Ephemeral"]]) all but spell out that he is the single biggest obstacle to Marinette and Adrien getting together. [[spoiler:Season 3's [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E19Timetagger "Timetagger"]] reveals that Hawk Moth will not retain his position as the holder of the Butterfly Miraculous in the future, but how long it would take the show to catch up to that moment, or [[AmbiguousSituation what that moment would even entail]], was anyone's guess until the season 5 finale, which saw Gabriel's death and Lila's claiming of the Butterfly Miraculous to become the new Hawk Moth]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'': This is ultimately what spelled the doom of the MythArc of the identity of Archer's father. Way back in episode 6 of season 1, Nikolai Jakov (head of the KGB) is established as Archer's father, but then the finale backtracks on this and has him as only one possible candidate of three. Then in part one of season 2's two-part finale, Archer flies to Russia to get a DNA test with Jakov, but Boris ruins the test, so we still don't know if it's Jakov. Then in season 3, after Malory starts dating Creator/BurtReynolds, the show drops a few hints that he might be the father (he wasn't one of the other two original candidates). Then in a later episode in that season, Malory brings up a completely different guy to any of the other candidates that she believes might be the father. And then (still in the same season) Jakov gets killed off by Barry in a way that leaves no DNA behind, so if Jakov was the father, Archer and the audience would never know. Then in season 4, when Archer is bitten by a cobra, he flashes back to a memory of meeting his real father when he was a kid, only to forget who it was immediately, and since we never saw his face, we don't who it was either (the only clue is that it doesn't seem to be any of the pervious candidates, and that is if the memory was even real). After three and a half seasons and 6 candidates, you will probably be more annoyed than you ever were intrigued. This is what lead series creator Adam Reed to abandon the arc as he felt that the fans no longer cared to find out the answer. After the season 4 episode, the question is never brought up again.

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-->-- Walt Kelly, at the end of a ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' Sunday page

** The Arrancar Arc spanned Chapters 183-423, four publication years and an additional four anime years. The arc slowed down to a crawl as even minion fights were given lavish screen time. The arc spawned the meme "Are they still in [[{{Spexico}} Mexico]]?" and the anime often interrupted the canon storyline in mid-action to insert {{filler}} arcs whenever it caught up to the manga.

** In truth this happens to several different characters once they are separated from the War of Five Kings. Bran in particular has wandered around accomplishing nothing.
** Daenerys' prolonged arc in Essos, while teaching her a lot of useful lessons about effective rulership and politics, has got a lot of readers tearing their hair out waiting for the dragon battles already!

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] rather than the SecretTestOfCharacter it was supposed to be -- even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between a small hamlet and a secluded hut, just far apart enough and with enough enemies in the way that the trips are annoying but not enough that skipping the return by teleporting is worth the gil, trying to get someone to please just give you a Goddamned bottle of wine already. What's more? At the end of this, you barely even get to ''see'' the banquet that ''you'' spent all that time singlehandedly preparing (you get a short scene of your character taking one bite of the meal as the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' victory jingle plays before the cutscene ends), and your advice for dealing with Titan ends up amounting to little more than "do your best". Many players felt they ''had'' to take the option to [[CatharsisFactor tell the Company of Heroes they will not be throwing a banquet this time around]] when they returned for ''Endwalker''[='s=] role quest for Melee classes.

* The original FingerpokeOfDoom was hard to swallow; it reset the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]] storyline back to where it was in 1996. No wonder it was the beginning of the end for Wrestling/{{WCW}}.

* The ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' arc unfortunately went down this path. The introduction of a wholly new population of Kryptonians was a strong and daring idea. The entire status quo of the Superman family was reworked and people were pleasantly surprised that writers had actually done something with the eternal MacGuffin that was the Bottle City of Kandor. But at some point along the way, it became apparent that the story was not going anywhere, that the entire World of New Krypton title was in a holding pattern while the associated titles (''Superman'', ''ComicBook/ActionComics'', ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'', later ''Adventure Comics'') were engaged in crossover storylines. In the end, most of the arc served as setup for successive event stories.
** Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} was killed off because ''[[Series/LoisAndClark Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman]]'' was in production and the executives wanted to have them marry at the same time in both media leading to a stalled marriage arc. This led to ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' which, if you include the return, ran over a year generating huge sales and leading the writers to run long event arcs for the remainder of the decade at which point the fans were finally tired of it.

** [[spoiler:After 25 real-life years, Ash's adventures finally come to a head in ''Anime/PokemonJourneysTheSeries''. He becomes recognized as one of the eight strongest Trainers in the world within the World Coronation Series, and ultimately ends up ''beating the undefeated Monarch Leon in the finals'', dethroning him and taking the title of Monarch for himself, thus now officially being recognized as [[WorldsBestWarrior the strongest Trainer in the world]]. An 11-episode special series will mark Ash's final chapter into becoming a Pokémon Master (aptly titled ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeriesAimToBeAPokemonMaster Pokémon: Aim to Be a Pokémon Master]]'').]]

* In ''Literature/TheBadGuys'', Prof. Marmalade is introduced in the second book as the BigBad -- and almost every book until the tenth book involves him trying to one-up the titular Bad Guys, only to end them all on a CliffHanger that something has gone wrong or he has something new. After a few books, this can get a little annoying, despite all the [[HilarityEnsues wacky hijinks]] and CharacterDevelopment our heroes get up to in the meantime.

* ''Literature/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'': While it does give some valuable backstory to Ryu Lion, the Calamity Arc carries on for a long period of time in the fourth season of the anime. What doesn't help matters is that there's an endless feeling of gloominess and despair in many of the episodes, stretched out over the course of 17 episodes in a 22 episode season. And many of those episodes basically amount to Bell and Ryu or Bell's Familia going through endless stretches of the dungeon, facing never-ending hordes of monsters, and suffering from fatigue and debilitating injuries over and over again. While one may appreciate the idea of Bell and Ryu getting more time together, the formula used to bring them closer in this arc can start feeling downright tedious after a while, especially since the franchise has generally been pretty good at avoiding ArcFatigue and the feeling of fun one might normally get from the Danmachi series can quite easily turn into a feeling of bleakness and agitation for the story arc to finally wrap things up.

* ''Literature/IsItWrongToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'': While it does give some valuable backstory to Ryu Lion, the Calamity Arc carries on for a long period of time in the fourth season of the anime. What doesn't help matters is that there's an endless feeling of gloominess and despair in many of the episodes, stretched out over the course of 17 episodes in a 22 episode season. And many of those episodes basically amount to Bell and Ryu or Bell's Familia going through endless stretches of the dungeon, facing never-ending hordes of monsters, and suffering from fatigue and debilitating injuries over and over again. While one may appreciate the idea of Bell and Ryu getting more time together, the formula used to bring them closer in this arc can start feeling downright tedious after a while, especially since the franchise has generally been pretty good at avoiding ArcFatigue and the feeling of fun one might normally get from the Danmachi series can quite easily turn into a feeling of bleakness and agitation for the story arc to finally wrap things up.

*** Several of the episodes consist of just characters speaking or flying from one place to another, with very few fight sequences to break it all up (since the story is like a game of chess, told 22 minutes a week). One episode, "Bulma and the Crabs", is complete {{filler}} - it starts with Bulma tricking two of Frieza's henchmen into looking for the Dragon Balls, then turns into a BizarroEpisode after the henchmen are gone since it has no impact on the saga's plot at all. Part of this pacing is because the anime was constantly at risk of [[OvertookTheManga overtaking the manga]]: when Goku first went Super Saiyan in the anime, it was a scant three chapters behind the manga, so Toei had to constantly write in excuses to delay the events unfolding. After this point, they opted to take weeks off and insert filler arcs wholesale to give the manga a chance to get further ahead, resulting in the ten-episode Garlic Jr. Saga after Frieza's defeat and the five-episode Other World Saga after the Cell Games.

** Fishman Island in the anime. Due to the anime's "one episode equals one chapter" pacing, Fishman Island really drags on TV. All subsequent arcs fall victim to this too, or worse--some episodes in the Punk Hazard arc use only ''half'' of a chapter's worth of story. One such episode consists almost solely of Sanji, Nami, Franky, and Chopper running across a day care room with little happening besides banter.

** Whole Cake Island is something of a drag to get through, largely because the initial objective - retrieving Sanji - is accomplished midway through the arc. But Sanji doesn't want his family to die, despite their actions toward him earlier (save his sister), so a wedding crash is planned for Sanji's upcoming wedding in order to kill Big Mom. The plan somewhat works (they save Sanji's family), but they fail to kill their target, forcing the heroes to flee. Overall, the finale of the Whole Cake Island gets the worst of it, as it's a ''really'' long EscapeSequence of the Straw Hats trying to escape the island that goes on for about 30 chapters. Luffy gets pulled into a literal mirror dimension to fight one of Big Mom's eldest children, Katakuri, and Sanji decides to bake a cake to appease Big Mom that ends up taking ''10 hours'' to prepare, leaving the rest of the crew having to survive against Big Mom and her forces till then. Harrowing? Yes. But many fans likewise grew frustrated how long it went on before it eventually ended.
** The Wano Country arc dwarfs Dressrosa with a ''four-year'' story that takes a while to get to its climax. And said climax dominates a majority of the arc, with shifts in fights either getting interrupted or swapped out with different opponents. Similar to Dressrosa, it's somewhat excusable in that there were a ''lot'' of characters to cover, but by the time Luffy and Kaido reached the climax of their battle, a good chunk of readers were more than ready move on. It didn't help that the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic happened around this point, causing a number of breaks in-between chapters.

* In ''Literature/TheBadGuys'', Prof. Marmalade is introduced in the second book as the BigBad - and almost every book until the tenth book involves him trying to one-up the titular Bad Guys, only to end them all on a CliffHanger that something has gone wrong or he has something new. After a few books, this can get a little annoying, despite all the [[HilarityEnsues wacky hijinks]] and CharacterDevelopment our heroes get up to in the meantime.

** Wrestling/{{Layla}} and Wrestling/SummerRae's storyline was heading in this direction when they decided to team up and make Wrestling/{{Fandango}}'s life hell. For four weeks they just appeared at ringside to interfere in his matches - and it was obvious there would be no pay-off match since it's a women vs man feud. Thankfully it actually was ended pretty quickly and the two were integrated into the women's division as a tag team.

** One of the first cases is the very specific instance of dealing with Titan in ''A Realm Reborn'', because you spend much of the arc performing several quests dragged out far longer than they need to be (21 quests in total, even after the ''ARR'' storyline was slimmed down in a later patch) for what appears to be little more than [[SkewedPriorities an ill-timed banquet]] rather than the SecretTestOfCharacter it was supposed to be - even the dungeon you do during this part of the story is simply trying to help a goblin gather cheese, followed by too many quests spent simply walking back and forth between a small hamlet and a secluded hut, just far apart enough and with enough enemies in the way that the trips are annoying but not enough that skipping the return by teleporting is worth the gil, trying to get someone to please just give you a Goddamned bottle of wine already. What's more? At the end of this, you barely even get to ''see'' the banquet that ''you'' spent all that time singlehandedly preparing (you get a short scene of your character taking one bite of the meal as the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' victory jingle plays before the cutscene ends), and your advice for dealing with Titan ends up amounting to little more than "do your best". Many players felt they ''had'' to take the option to [[CatharsisFactor tell the Company of Heroes they will not be throwing a banquet this time around]] when they returned for ''Endwalker''[='s=] role quest for Melee classes.

* The fan comic ''Blog/AdventuresInLurning'' had the ''Colin is Dead arc'' that started on August 4th, 2017 and keep going until October 10th, 2018. Many fans felt like the Story Arc was going for too long for what was originally just a fun ask fan-blog; even the author admitted he was tired of the arc and renamed it in the Story Arc Guide as ''Colin is Dead Arc - The Never-Ending Story Arc''. Thankfully, after the arc ended, the blog returned to its origins.

** Many believe that Hawk Moth has overstayed his welcome as the main villain and the show's repeated attempts to justify his actions come off as [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic hollow]]. If that wasn't enough, he's drawn ire from those wanting the [[TwoPersonLoveTriangle love square]] to progress, since two of the aforementioned WhatIf episodes ([[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E22CatBlanc "Cat Blanc"]] and [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E22Ephemeral "Ephemeral"]]) all but spell out that he is the single biggest obstacle to Marinette and Adrien getting together. [[spoiler:[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E19Timetagger "Timetagger"]] reveals that Hawk Moth will not retain his position as the holder of the Butterfly Miraculous in the future, but how long it will take the show to catch up to that moment, or [[AmbiguousSituation what that moment will even entail]], is anyone's guess.]]

* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'' has been suffering this for a while regarding the primary question of the series- which member of his UnwantedHarem is Kimihito going to marry? It's become increasingly ridiculous as the series has gone on since things have progressed from human-liminal relationships being forbidden to the point where there are now dating services and singles' events specifically geared toward interspecies relationships. It's not helped by the side arcs that have focused on the supporting characters or the fact that publishing has slowed from roughly a chapter per month to one every four to five months.

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' head writer Bob Thompson intended the franchise to have RotatingArcs, a few years dedicated to present-day arcs split up by occasional [[FullEpisodeFlashback prequel years]]. The 2004 Metru Nui arc was such a prequel, but Toys/{{LEGO}} and Advance put so much money into designing the Metru Nui setting, an intricate island metropolis, that [[ExecutiveMeddling execs wanted them]] reused for another year to save up on costs. Hence 2005, aka the "Hordika arc" became a {{interquel}}, an extension set during the final scenes of the 2004 story that fans already knew the ending to, with the main present-day plot stalled for a year. Several books, comics, one movie and a series of online short videos told a loose, meandering story which reportedly confused kids so much that LEGO banned any more flashback arcs. This necessitated cramming prequel material into books, comics, short stories and web serials, but never fleshing them out into full year-long arcs as Thompson envisioned. All this did have the beneficial side effect of making prequel protagonist Vakama and his Toa Metru team some of the series' most developed and relatable characters, in start contrast with the meager focus their present day selves received.

* ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'': Instead of moving the plot forward, the anime keeps introducing girls to Ichika's harem and putting too much focus on the harem antics. [[spoiler:By the end of Season 2, the heroes are no closer to stopping Phantom Task than they were at the beginning, and the ''World Purge'' OVA is just an extended romantic fantasy almost entirely disconnected to the main plot.]] Not helping at all are {{Schedule Slip}}s caused by the author's health problems. As of 2016, the franchise hasn't released any new content.

** The story is built on the premise of the eponymous HeroesRUs organization [[OrderReborn rebuilding itself]] years after disbanding to bring justice to the villainous forces that have been running amok unchecked in its absence. Being an exclusively multiplayer title, this story is told through [[AllThereInTheManual external materials]] released sporadically online, the first of which debuted roughly two months before the game officially launched (in March 2016) and established a recall order had been issued to [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether reunite all the former operatives]], with at least two confirmed to be onboard. It took ''seventeen months'' to get confirmation that even a single character would join them, as the focus has been kept on characters' backstories, not what they are doing in the "present" day. Due to the ''huge'' cast, constant flashbacks/backstories, and that the game just kept adding more and more heroes before fully fleshing out the existing ones, the narrative is always in a state of introducing plot threads and then leaving them hanging to introduce another one, likely to be just as neglected. This has had the effect of making the story so far feel more like a prolonged opening act. It took until ''five years'' after the game was announced (and a bit under four years until after its launch) for a MissionPackSequel that would supposedly focus on the plot to be announced for a 2020 release date (later pushed back multiple times into 2022). Even then, the game released with the advertised PVE element missing, delayed at least another year further.

** Phase 4 was quickly hit with arc fatigue. After the release of ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'' in Summer 2022, quite a few people began to complain about how aimless and meandering the next saga of the MCU was starting to feel, with no clear plot emerging beyond some extremely vague, confusing, and sometimes seemingly conflicting [[TheMultiverse multiverse]] stuff after nearly 70 hours of total runtime between the movies and [[Creator/DisneyPlus shows]] that made up Phase 4 up to that point. This wasn't helped by how Phase 4 is collectively longer than the previous three Phases ''combined'' and [[ContinuityLockout even heavier on continuity]] -- in order to keep up with everything would viewers need to have not only watched the previous 23 films prior to Phase 4, but also the various TV shows found on Netflix and ABC (''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', ''Series/Daredevil2015'', etc.), and past Marvel properties that weren't part of the MCU like the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' and the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' [[ArchiveBinge in addition to]] staying on top of any new releases.