January 2021 marked the beginning of the Disney Plus shows within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They have been used to show love to popular characters, further develop previously forgotten characters and introduce new characters who may have gotten a less-warm welcome in the box office. Say what you may about Marvel premiering content important to MCU canon on a streaming platform, but overall, I think it has been a great idea. We truly live in the golden age of superhero cinema and Marvel making shows at or near to the same caliber as their blockbusters has benefitted fans of the franchise greatly.

So far, six MCU shows have premiered on Disney Plus. These shows have given MCU fans canon content almost weekly for close to a year and a half. This much content is sure going to have its critics. Rotten Tomatoes has been rating every show high with the lowest critics score being an 86% and the lowest audience score being an 84%. I would place each of the six shows in the upper half of the MCU, but how do they stack against each other?

Number 6: WandaVision. Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 87%, Audience Score: 88%

WandaVision was the very first streaming service show to be centered on characters first introduced on the big screen. It was full of fun references to different eras of sit-coms as well as an emotional story about battling grief, but occasionally, the creators chose gags over character development or an impactful moment. This is seen when Evan Peters, the Quicksilver of the X- Men franchise, portrayed a man claiming to be Wanda’s brother, Pietro, but turned out to be an actor named “Ralph Bohner.” Choosing a penis joke over a chance to tie to massive franchise together was not taken well by the audience with many people, myself included, feeling robbed by the moment.

WandaVision also had a problem with wrapping up conflict poorly and ending episodes with underwhelming cliffhangers leading to the finale needing to cover a lot of ground in not a lot of time. This caused an underwhelming finale that while setting up a lot of potential for Wanda in the upcoming Multiverse of Madness, undercut much of what the series had accomplished by standing out from the rest of the MCU with a mostly boring very Marvel fight scene.

Number 5: What If...?, Critics Score: 94%, Audience Score: 94%

This show sets itself apart from the rest of the shows on this list and really the entire MCU because it’s an entirely canon animated show. A canon animated show is something that’s tough to pull off but when done well, can create an opportunity for franchises to make more content for less money and time than a live-action show costs. Star Wars has pulled this off brilliantly with Clone Wars and Rebels, but much like those shows many people will think an animated show is meant solely for kids thus hurting how many fans will watch it.

What If...? is probably the show I was most excited for upon the announcement of all the Disney Plus projects because it’s based on a run of comics with the same name originating in the late 70s. These comics published monthly and each issue featured a different marvel character with one major detail of their story being changed. The narrator is a being named Uatu from a race known as The Watchers who are each tasked with a different section of the multiverse to watch over and record the history of but are not allowed to interfere.

The show follows this format well with fun stories featuring beloved MCU heroes and villains who are forced by Uatu to team up at the end and defeat an all-powerful Ultron from a universe in which he defeats the Avengers, claims all the Infinity Stones and sets out to conquer the multiverse. This show is fun, especially for a long-time Marvel fan, and fixed Ultron making him an actual threat unlike he was in his own movie, but the low points of this show are pretty low, and the highs just aren’t higher than any other show. The only reason I have it above WandaVision is because What If...? made call-backs to previous movies and tied together unrelated characters infinitely better than WandaVision.

Number 4: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Critics Score: 86%, Audience Score: 84%

TFATWS struggled with being boring, I can admit that, but the Captain America trilogy is my favorite part of the MCU and this show fits snuggly into it. The shoes of the “First Avenger” are some impossible ones to fill, or they can at least feel that way to a non-super powered individual who is surrounded by spectacular people. TFATWS criticizes racism in a way that has been evident in comic book culture for decades and did it in a well-done and straight forward manner while never subtracting from the show moving forward. I do wish however the show stuck to one villain because having essentially three main villains in such a short show took time away from full developing one. This show may be lower on my list if I wasn’t as big of a Cap fan but I stand by my positioning of it despite a lot of the flack it gets by MCU fans.

Number 3: Loki, Critics Score: 92%, Audience Score: 91%

I know a lot of people would have my head for this being under my next picks, but I have good reasoning... it’s just alright. In all honesty, this is the show I was least excited about back when they were all announced. Loki has never been a favorite character of mine until Thor: Ragnarok and I actually liked him for the first time for showing a decent amount of character growth in one installment after he had shown none in the other three movies he was in... and then he was brutally murdered in literally the next scene he was in. 

Endgame undid nearly a decade of slow burning character growth then launched him into his own show which just felt frustrating to me. This show was fun and cinematically beautiful to watch, but overall hurt Loki as a character by bringing to light just how poorly he was written as an “anti-hero” for the entire duration of the MCU, but the highs of this show are very high. It was funny, well-cast and I genuinely like every character besides the main Loki.

Number 2: Hawkeye, Critics Score: 92%, Audience Score: 91%

Hawkeye has been pretty low on the list for many people I have talked to despite what the Rotten Tomatoes scores say, which I honestly don’t understand because I adore this show. It’s fun, introduces a new and entertaining main character, finally gives some quality screen time to Clint Barton, ties a movie into the show well brings in the potential for more Marvel properties to become officially canon. There weren’t many, if any, moments in Hawkeye I would deem boring. Echo was an interesting villain who room had room left for a sensible redemption arc in her own spin-off. 

Since seeing Endgame in theaters, I have wanted more development of Clint’s time as Ronin, and we finally got to see some from the perspective of his victims. Hailey Steinfeld made the perfect Kate Bishop and has quickly become a fan-favorite character who I am excited to see more of in the future. A common complaint of Hawkeye is how the stakes never felt very high, but I view it as a strength of the show. Seeing more emotional, low stakes and street-level content instead of all world and multi-verse ending blockbusters could be its own whole corner of the MCU that brought many heroes like Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Daredevil to popularity in their original comic book days.

Number 1: Moon Knight, Critics Score 87%, Audience Score 92%

Despite the critics score, I think this show is easily the best so far. I was nervous about introducing such a strange character to the MCU but Moon Knight is just much cooler than he is weird. Oscar Isaac does a fantastic job at playing essentially three different characters since he plays a Marc Spector who has dissociative identity disorder. Moon Knight balances material about supernatural and an action-packed superhero movie well. 

The villain is threatening and sensible while the protagonist is the most chaotic character in the show. The story followed conflict within Marc and his different personalities, with the villain, with Khonshu (the deity who gives him his powers), with his wife and between his main alter (Steven Grant) and all of those other characters. So many relationships can be difficult for a six episode show to balance, but Moon Knight did it so well. I can’t wait to see how he fits into the MCU later on.