I’m not arguing the fact, it’s just interesting to see how little (comparatively) some films made. But they carried forward anyway instead of being reactive. By Phase 2 it was clearly in the groove.
Right, that rejection of the reaction/correction impulse - at least to an ostentatious degree, as we’ve seen multiple times at Lucasfilm, both during the George and Post-George eras, is a big key to Marvel’s ongoing success. They’re not aiming at the reactionaries in the first place, and they’re not altering course based on those reactions. They make corrections and re-adjust as they go, obviously. But they’re very careful not to cede control to any real degree to the very vocal minority of their audience. They don’t do anything that makes their films THAT fragile/precious, basically.
It’s funny to look back at Captain America’s reception from here in 2020. The movie didn’t do poorly at the box-office, and it wasn’t badly-reviewed, either. But it came out just before people started to understand what MARVEL could be and how it was going to rewrite box-office rules, and was being judged against the conventional wisdom of what these movies were supposed to be, and it suffered for that. But you rewatch now and it’s like a Phase Three movie grabbed the time-stone and snuck back into Phase One. It’s got a lot of style, doesn’t adhere to the "Marvel Formula’ as people like to think of it, and makes some pretty bold choices along the way. I believe it’s still the only Marvel Movie to have a musical montage in the middle of it.