The Definitive Marvel TV Show Ranking
Ranking every TV series in the Marvel canon: from the ones you've heard of to the ones you probably haven't.
A decade ago, Marvel Studios was just starting to really figure out its universe on the big screen side. The Avengers was released in May 2012, and went on to gross more than $1.5 billion at the box office. Later that year, Marvel Television launched a spin-off series on ABC, Agents of SHIELD, which promised to pick up the pieces and prove vital to the big screen adventures that audiences were becoming so invested in. A couple years later, Netflix also launched its own small-screen universe that promised to intertwine with Tony, Steve, and Friends. None of this ever really happened, and by 2021, Marvel Television had gone bye bye.
In its place, Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige took over, launching a number of series on new streaming platform Disney+ that promised to be different; these shows would star big screen talent and truly, meaningfully, impact what happens in the movies. While WandaVision did lead into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the real impact has still yet to be seen. Without question, though, we've seen the level of small-screen star go up; Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, and Oscar Isaac have graced Disney's silver screen in just the last two years.
The latest entry in the MCU's TV canon is She-Hulk, which takes a rather unique approach. It's not like Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which largely served as, essentially, movies told in six parts. Instead, it comes as 9 highly-comedic, 30-minute episodes of legal dramedy with Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) as the central figure. Marvel played with format previously in WandaVision (which created a reality where Wanda Maximoff and Vision could exist in a different sitcom style almost every episode)and What If...? (which took a quasi-anthology format for its animated tales), but She-Hulk is its first real attempt at either a procedural or a out-and-out comedy. But that's a good thing: Marvel is often at its best when looking at a very specific genre. Think the political thriller nature of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
2023 will see Marvel revert to old form on the TV side, albeit in a star-studded and quite promising way. We don't know what will come out when just yet, but Secret Invasion—based on the wonderful comic arc of the same name—looks to take a spy thriller-style approach, with Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn's Talos the Skrull lead the way. And that's not to mention the fact that acclaimed, big-name actors like Emilia Clarke and Olivia Colman will also be part of the cast. The first half of 2023 also promises second season's for a few of the MCU's established hits—What If...? will continue its hypotheticals deeper into the ever-expansive universe, and Loki will continue to fly through time with Season 2, likely dealing with the fallout of the whole Kang the Conqueror situation.
But while Marvel is still promising a mix of changing the game and running back old favorites on the TV side, it's worth noting that other shows have done their jobs and done them well in the years before, even if the universal synthesis never quite happened. Some of these shows were great, and others, well, not so much. But that's why we're here.
So, without further ado, we give you every Marvel show, ranked from the bad—something called Helstrom—to the OK, to the very, very good.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
Watch Next
All About the 'Secret Invasion' Super-Skrulls
That 'Secret Invasion' Episode 3 Death
Here's When Every Episode of Secret Invasion Airs
Kinglsey Ben-Adir Brings Terror to Secret Invasion