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Felix Quinonez: Commercially they are on fire and the gravy train shows no sign of slowing down. As far as quality, I was a bit worried about the way Phase 2 started. I thought Iron Man 3 was very disappointing, and it felt like they were just depending on Robert Downey Jr. to carry the movie. But Thor 2 regained my confidence and The Winter Soldier knocked it out of the Park. I thought The Winter Soldier was so good that maybe Marvel should have started Phase 2 with that instead of Iron Man 3.

And as far as Guardians of the Galaxy, I think it's a very promising sign that Marvel is willing to embrace such a weird project. It seems that they are trying to make their cinematic universe as diverse as their comic book universe. And if it's as good as it looks, it could help prevent things from getting stagnant.

Reagen Sulewski: It's difficult to think of a misstep that Disney/Marvel has made yet (I mean, wait for it, but...), and it's just been a masterful display of how to build a universe. The whole thing sounds easy in retrospect, but look at how much trouble DC has had in getting things going. It sure seems that someone went to the comic people and actually listened to them about how they build their readership, in terms of creating these interconnecting stories and bringing them to the public in a cohesive way. Different mediums are different mediums of course, but the basic principle seems to have held. And of course, it all falls down if Iron Man isn't pulled off successfully.

David Mumpower: My opinion is that the financial tallies are the end-all/be-all of the conversation. As such, Phase 2.0 has been a spectacular triumph with the inevitable coronation of The Avengers 2 the coup de grâce. Personally, I liked Iron Man 2 a great deal more than Iron Man 3. While the most recent film is a lot of fun, it is also a glorious mess of storytelling, wholly lacking the structure of Jon Favreau's pieces. And I say that as someone who adores Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the prior project that combined the talents of Robert Downey Jr. and Shane Black. For me, Iron Man 3 felt dumbed down to appeal to the masses more than the prior two movies. That tactic clearly worked but speaking as someone who voted Iron Man as the best movie of 2008 (over The Dark Knight, I might add), I feel like the product has suffered from the popularity of the character.

The more important projects in terms of evaluating Marvel as a brand are Thor and Captain America, the less popular superheroes. As I mentioned yesterday, Thor: The Dark World is wholly forgettable yet its revenue boost is still tremendous. The Winter Soldier is poised to become one of the five or six most popular projects of 2014, and it has the quality to match its reputation. Because of that, I consider it the real winner of the three in terms of overall success although Iron Man 3's box office is truly mythic.

While we all agree that Marvel's Agents of Shield is a huge disappointment thus far in terms of viewership, I also feel that we should not dismiss it just yet. Those who have watched The Winter Soldier and the most recent episode of the television series realize that the producers have been limited in what they could do during the first portion of season one. They knew what would happen in the Captain America sequel as well as how it would impact the SHIELD series. Unfortunately for them, they could not address it until now. The final third of this season should be a much more engaging product. My question is whether the people who quit on the show after a handful of episodes are willing to give it another chance now. If that doesn't happen, the series becomes the misstep of Phase 2.

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