New mask. Same podcast. MCU Diaries breaks down what matters in the MCU—why it works, why it doesn’t, and how it all points to Doomsday and Secret Wars.
The MCU Diaries is Blake Larsen’s craft-first Marvel podcast and essay series for fans who love the MCU but want more than recap, lore-dumping, cameo hunting or empty hype.
This is Mary & Blake’s front door for Marvel storycraft, Avengers: Doomsday, Secret Wars and the Multiverse Saga — including Doctor Doom, incursions, anchor beings, Loki, Spider-Man, Deadpool & Wolverine, Doctor Strange and the story choices that actually matter.
The Road To Doomsday
The MCU is moving toward Doctor Doom, collapsing realities and Secret Wars. Our job is not simply to predict who walks through which portal. We want to understand the argument underneath it: what happens when heroes who refuse to sacrifice the people they love are confronted with a crisis where reality itself appears to demand a cost?
That is the story we are tracking now.
If you are trying to understand where Marvel is heading next, these are the pieces I would start with.
The MCU Diaries
Each MCU Diaries episode is basically an essay you can listen to: Marvel storycraft, character pressure, theme, structure, consequence and whatever ridiculous rabbit hole Blake has decided deserves several thousand words this week.
Doctor Doom is not interesting because he is powerful. He is interesting because he believes he is right. The best version of Avengers: Doomsday does not simply give the Avengers another opponent they have to punch harder. Doom should attack the beliefs that make these heroes who they are.
That is why we are tracking the road to Doomsday through moral debt, control, incursions, alternate realities and the impossible choices Marvel has been quietly priming across the Multiverse Saga.
New · The Doomsday Assignment
Marvel’s official Doomsday watchlist runs from X-Men and The Avengers through Loki, No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine, Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. We think the choices reveal more than which characters matter.
They appear to be priming the beliefs, relationships, rules and unresolved costs Doctor Doom can attack.
The MCU’s multiverse only matters if it creates pressure. Anchor beings, incursions, variants, timelines, the TVA and the Sacred Timeline are not interesting simply because Marvel gave them names. They are story rules, and good story rules eventually force somebody to choose.
Secret Wars should not be cameo bingo. It should be the point where Marvel’s multiverse chaos finally costs something.
The story becomes interesting when broken worlds, Doctor Doom, Loki’s burden and collapsing realities force heroes to decide whether saving existence gives them permission to choose who gets sacrificed.
What Is Secret Wars?
Why the multiverse needs to become Marvel’s moral engine. →
Secret Wars Explained Through Loki
How Loki Season 1 begins building the MCU’s multiverse engine. →
Listen: What Secret Wars Really Is
The MCU Diaries podcast version of our Secret Wars argument. →
Not everything has to be about the fate of the multiverse. Some of our favorite MCU Diaries pieces take one scene, relationship or craft choice and ask why it works — or why it absolutely does not.
The MCU Diaries Rule
A portal opening is not automatically a story. A familiar face is not automatically a payoff. Lore is useful only when it creates pressure on somebody we care about.
The bigger Marvel’s movies become, the more important character becomes.
The Deeper Room
Support Mary & Blake and join us for bonus podcasts, deeper story analysis, community conversation and all the extra nonsense we keep making because apparently we do not know how to behave.
MCU Diaries is an unofficial fan podcast and essay series from Mary & Blake Media. We are not affiliated with Marvel Studios, Disney, or the Marvel productions.
If Sadie Sink is playing Jean Grey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day may be using her to expose the wounds behind Punisher, Hulk, and Peter Parker’s power — while quietly setting up the control problem that leads to Doomsday and Secret Wars.
Deadpool & Wolverine should be empty sugar. Instead, it becomes one of the more meaningful Marvel movies in years. In this episode of The MCU Diaries, Blake breaks down why the film works beneath the blood, the jokes, and the multiverse chaos — and why the Honda Odyssey fight is the scene where the whole argument finally clicks shut.
Quantumania is a messy movie with a sharp moral engine: when fear spikes, who gets to choose? In this entry, Blake defines The Consent Line and shows how Janet, Kang, and Scott turn that question into the saga’s clearest test of agency.
Loki Season 2 turns the multiverse into a load-bearing system. Once you see the failure point, you understand how a villain like Doom gets leverage—without ever winning a fair fight.
Doctor Strange is the saga’s multiverse spine because Marvel keeps rewarding his control… then charging him for it. This entry tracks the receipts that make a Doom alliance feel inevitable instead of random.
The first Brand New Day trailer works because it turns Peter Parker’s erased identity into a physical problem. This is a Spider-Man story where the mask starts consuming the man, and that gives Marvel a real clock again.
Secret Wars isn’t a multiverse encyclopedia — it’s a story engine built on pressure, impossible choice, and irreversible consequence. Loki Season 1 is the cleanest on-screen blueprint for how that engine actually works.
RDJ returning as Doctor Doom isn’t nostalgia—it’s storycraft. This entry breaks down the mirror-villain move, the Tony Stark DNA it’s built from, and what it teaches us to watch for on the road to Doomsday.
The MCU Diaries Host Blake Larsen chats the LOKI season 1 finale: episode 1.06 – For All Time, Always.
Blake discusses why we have to go back to the beginning to understand the end, why Jonathan Majors is exceptional as He Who Remains, and why this episode feels like a Smashing Pumpkins song…
YouTube
Apple Podcasts
iHeartRadio
Spotify