History ShipToShipCombat / MarvelCinematicUniverse

Considering [[Characters/MarvelCinematicUniverse the number of characters present in the]] ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'', [[ShipToShipCombat it's not surprising that fans would also butt heads over how to best to pair them off]].

Considering the number of characters present in the MCU, it's not surprising that fans would also butt heads over how to best to pair them off.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' further intensified the war between Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony shippers with them bitterly arguing about whether or not Steve was right to side with Bucky over Tony and being united only in their mutual hatred of Steve/Sharon, which the Steve/Peggy shippers also joined in to hate on. Meanwhile the uneasy truce between the portions of the Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha fandoms who did not accept peaceful coexistence or the [=OT4=] compromise began to deteriorate, as while Bucky/Natasha shared a brief exchange that could be interpreted as a ShipTease reference to their comics romance, the overall likelihood of it being canonized in the films continued to decrease, causing its fans to become bitter towards those Steve/Bucky fans who had in turn begun treating Bucky/Natasha as an increasingly baseless CrackShip. The film also launched the Sam/Bucky ship due to their VitriolicBestBuds dynamic, half of whose fans shipped them as an extension of the previous [=OT4=], the other half of whom were [[ShipMates Tony/Steve fans]], causing the ship to war with ''itself'' as a proxy for the aforementioned Steve/Tony vs Steve/Bucky war.

Considering the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters present in the MCU, it's not surprising that fans would also butt heads over how to best to pair them off.

** The second and as notable major continuing rivalry also concerning Simmons is Ward/Simmons in the {{Friendly Rivalry}} and {{Foe Yay}} departments and Skye/Simmons for the {{LesYay}} and PseudoRomanticFriendship. Both have a snowball effect in terms of fueling material, and chemistry overall.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' further intensified the war between Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony shippers with them bitterly arguing about whether or not Steve was right to side with Bucky over Tony and being united only in their mutual hatred of Steve/Sharon, which the Steve/Peggy shippers also joined in to hate on. Meanwhile the uneasy truce between the portions of the Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha fandoms who did not accept peaceful coexistence or the OT4 compromise began to deteriorate, as while Bucky/Natasha shared a brief exchange that could be interpreted as a ShipTease reference to their comics romance, the overall likelihood of it being canonized in the films continued to decrease, causing its fans to become bitter towards those Steve/Bucky fans who had in turn begun treating Bucky/Natasha as an increasingly baseless CrackShip. The film also launched the Sam/Bucky ship due to their VitriolicBestBuds dynamic, half of whose fans shipped them as an extension of the previous OT4, the other half of whom were [[ShipMates Tony/Steve fans]], causing the ship to war with ''itself'' as a proxy for the aforementioned Steve/Tony vs Steve/Bucky war.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' kicked off a new spate of shipping wars, most of which involve [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Steve Rogers/Captain America]]. As though the Steve/Sharon foreshadowing and [[OfficialCouple Steve/Peggy]] weren't enough, the number of Steve/Bucky shippers exploded since the film's release, challenging the long pre-eminent Steve/Tony ship, which is also under attack from the [[BirdsOfAFeather Sam/Steve]] shippers, who defend Steve's choice to go to Sam instead of Tony in the movie. [[RedOniBlueOni Steve/Natasha]] also became a popular ship due to the actors' chemistry and a mild amount of in-universe sexual tension, but because their relationship was established as a platonic one in canon with Natasha as a ShipperOnDeck for Steve with other women, it managed to avoid the wrath of other shippers. Potential wars between Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha shippers were mostly defused at this point in time by the decision to TakeAThirdOption and pair all three together as part of an {{OT4}} collective along with Sam, which had the benefit of placating the Sam/Steve and Sam/Natasha fans too.

** The second and as notable major continuing rivalry also concerning Simmons is Ward/Simmons in the {{Friendly Rivalry}} and {{Foe Yay}} departments and Skye/Simmons for the {{LesYay}} and {{Romantic Two Girl Friendship}}. Both have a snowball effect in terms of fueling material, and chemistry overall.

* ''Series/AgentCarter'' kicked off a slew of ships between Peggy and [[DudeMagnet all her various male suitors]] as well as Jarve and a few of [[LesYay the women]], but the most vocal battles usually between fans of the OfficialCouple Peggy/Sousa and FanPreferredCouple Peggy/Angie.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' kicked off a new spate of shipping wars, most of which involve [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Steve Rogers/Captain America]]. As though the Steve/Sharon foreshadowing and [[OfficialCouple Steve/Peggy]] weren't enough, the number of Steve/Bucky shippers exploded since the film's release, challenging the long pre-eminent Steve/Tony ship, which is also under attack from the Sam/Steve shippers, who defend Steve's choice to go to Sam instead of Tony in the movie. [[RedOniBlueOni Steve/Natasha]] also became a popular ship due to the actors' chemistry and a mild amount of in-universe sexual tension, but because their relationship was established as a platonic one in canon with Natasha as a ShipperOnDeck for Steve with other women, it managed to avoid the wrath of other shippers. Potential wars between Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha shippers were mostly defused at this point in time by the decision to TakeAThirdOption and pair all three together as part of an {{OT4}} collective along with Sam, which had the benefit of placating the Sam/Steve and Sam/Natasha fans too.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' kicked off a new spate of shipping wars, most of which involve [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Steve Rogers/Captain America]]. As though the Steve/Sharon foreshadowing and [[OfficialCouple Steve/Peggy]] weren't enough, the number of Steve/Bucky shippers exploded since the film's release, challenging the long pre-eminent Steve/Tony ship, which is also under attack from the [[NotSoDifferent Sam/Steve]] shippers, who defend Steve's choice to go to Sam instead of Tony in the movie. [[RedOniBlueOni Steve/Natasha]] also became a popular ship due to the actors' chemistry and a mild amount of in-universe sexual tension, but because their relationship was established as a platonic one in canon with Natasha as a ShipperOnDeck for Steve with other women, it managed to avoid the wrath of other shippers. Potential wars between Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha shippers were mostly defused at this point in time by the decision to TakeAThirdOption and pair all three together as part of an {{OT4}} collective along with Sam, which had the benefit of placating the Sam/Steve and Sam/Natasha fans too.

Considering the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters present in the MCU, it's not surprising that fans would also butt heads over how to best combine them all.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' kicked off a new spate of shipping wars, most of which involve [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Steve Rogers/Captain America]]. As though the Steve/Sharon foreshadowing and [[OfficialCouple Steve/Peggy]] weren't enough, the number of Steve/Bucky shippers exploded since the film's release, challenging the long pre-eminent Steve/Tony ship, which is also under attack from the [[NotSoDifferent Sam/Steve]] shippers, who defend Steve's choice to go to Sam instead of Tony in the movie. [[RedOniBlueOni Steve/Natasha]] also became a popular ship due to the actors' chemistry and a mild amount of in-universe sexual tension, but because their relationship was established as a platonic one with Natasha as a ShipperOnDeck for Steve with other women, it managed to avoid the wrath of other shippers. Potential wars between Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha shippers were mostly defused at this point in time by the decision to TakeAThirdOption and pair all three together as part of an {{OT4}} collective along with Sam, which had the benefit of placating the Sam/Steve and Sam/Natasha fans too.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' further intensified the war between Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony shippers with them bitterly arguing about whether or not Steve was right to side with Bucky over Tony and being united only in their mutual hatred of Steve/Sharon, which the Steve/Peggy shippers also joined in to hate on. Meanwhile the uneasy truce between the portions of the Steve/Bucky and Bucky/Natasha fandoms who did not accept peaceful coexistence or the OT4 compromise began to deteriorate as, while Bucky/Natasha got a small amount of ShipTease, the likelihood of it being canonized in the films decreased, causing its fans to become bitter towards Steve/Bucky, whose fans in turn had begun treating it as increasingly baseless. The film also launched the Sam/Bucky ship due to their VitriolicBestBuds dynamic, half of whom shipped them as an extension of the previous OT4, the other half of whom were [[ShipMates Tony/Steve fans]], causing the ship to war with ''itself'' as a proxy for the aforementioned Steve/Tony vs Steve/Bucky war.

* ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'', a spin-off TV miniseries starring Sam and Bucky, created a schism between fans who jumped aboard the steadily growing Sam/Bucky ship, fans who jumped aboard Bucky/Sarah instead, and fans who stayed loyal to Steve/Bucky, Bucky/Natasha, or other extant Bucky ships. The show also gave rise to [[FoeYayShipping Bucky/Zemo]], which received a healthy dose of HoYay, but was also very much NoYay for fans of Bucky with anyone else.
* ''Series/Loki2021'', which canonized Loki's bisexuality, also created a rather vocal war between fans of Loki/Mobius and Loki/Sylvie with it.

* Clintasha (Clint/Natasha) shippers were [[DieForOurShip spewing preemptive Mockingbird hate all over the Internet]] before Mockingbird [[Series/AgentsOfSHIELD even existed in the MCU]] while Hawkingbird (Hawkeye/Mockingbird) shippers shrilly declared their love of their OTP and [[ShippingGoggles disregarded any support for Blackhawk.]]
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' kicked off a new spate of shipping wars, most of which involve [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Steve Rogers/Captain America]]. As though the Steve/Sharon foreshadowing and [[OfficialCouple Steve/Peggy]] weren't enough, the number of Steve/Bucky shippers exploded since the film's release, challenging the long pre-eminent Steve/Tony ship, which is also under attack from the [[NotSoDifferent Sam/Steve]] shippers, who defend Steve's choice to go to Sam instead of Tony in the movie. There's also the [[FoeYayShipping Rumlow/Steve]] and [[RedOniBlueOni Steve/Natasha]] fans, though they usually stay out of it.
** Another shipping war was created between Clint/Natasha and Bucky/Natasha fans, as Bucky is Natasha's main love interest in the comics, with Clintasha fans preemptively declaring Bucky to be a violent abuser, although it turns out Bucky's romantic past with Natasha was ultimately adapted out of the films (not to mention Bucky was revealed to have been mind-controlled as opposed to merely amnesiac).
* ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' touched off new shipping wars. It [[ShipSinking sank]] Clintasha by giving Clint a previously unmentioned wife while [[BrokenBase controversially]] pairing Natasha with Bruce.
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' further intensified the war between Steve/Bucky and Steve/Tony shippers with them bitterly arguing about whether or not Steve was right to side with Bucky over Tony and being united only in their mutual hatred of Steve/Sharon, which the Steve/Peggy shippers also joined in on.

* ''Series/AgentCarter'' kicked off a slew of ships between Peggy and [[DudeMagnet her various male suitors throughout]], as well as a few of [[LesYay the women]], but the most vocal battles usually between fans of the OfficialCouple Peggy/Sousa and FanPreferredCouple Peggy/Angie.
* ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'', a spin-off TV miniseries starring Sam and Bucky, created a schism between fans who jumped aboard the already steadily growing Sam/Bucky ship, fans who jumped aboard Bucky/Sarah instead, and fans who stayed loyal to Steve/Bucky, Bucky/Natasha, or other extant Bucky ships. There's also a solid contingent of [[FoeYayShipping Bucky/Zemo]] fans who tend to keep away in their own corner.