After years of false starts and failed flights, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally took form in 2008 with a movie about a man in a metal suit. The MCU—an initialism now as ubiquitous as the UN or ESPN—burst out of its chrysalis and spread its wings relatively quietly at the time. Perhaps even Marvel didn't anticipate its planned universe of superhero films to eat the film industry itself. Eighteen years and 38 bland and boring and sexless movies later, the butterfly effect of the MCU's ascendance has not only altered the grammar of the summer blockbuster, but also flattened tastes beyond films.