The growth and expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is genuinely something of, well, marvel at. It all started with Iron Man in 2008 but, by the time that its second sequel had rolled around, Marvel Studios had created a complete shared universe capable of producing billion-dollar phenomenons. Within a decade, they sought to replicate that success on the small screen.
Disney Plus provided them with the tool to do that and they very quickly found success. WandaVision did that, bringing the franchise its very first Emmy Awards. And from there, a litany of shows set within the MCU all followed; each one either spotlighting an underrated MCU character (or two) or introducing us to a brand new hero we had yet to meet in the franchise.
We’ve even reached the point where the MCU has officially welcomed the heroes of the Netflix Marvel shows into its own canon with the likes of Hawkeye, Echo, and Daredevil: Born Again opening the doors for that.
Nearly five years on, there have been plenty of ups and downs in the MCU’s TV days. From Loki to Agatha All Along, WandaVision to Daredevil: Born Again, let’s rank all of the MCU’s Disney Plus shows and find out which one is really the best of them all.
Honorable mention: I Am Groot
Everyone’s favorite Guardians of the Galaxy star finally got his chance to shine in Disney Plus’ I Am Groot. A series of shorts devoted to the little guy, they bridge the gap between the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, showcasing how Baby Groot grows up in a universe full of possibilities.
Vin Diesel reprises his role from the films, with the first set of shorts giving us a glimpse into how the lovable character took his first steps, made some mistakes, and learned more about the world (and galaxy) around him. And it all made for quite the enjoyable adventure.
In an original incarnation of this list, we didn’t include I Am Groot on it as it was just a series of five shorts, but now that Marvel Studios has released a second season of them, we can count it as a TV series (albeit a mini one at that).
I don’t want you to look at I Am Groot‘s placement on its list and assume that it’s bad, because it’s not. It’s actually really fun. However, it’s hard to rank it above any of the other shows considering every single one of them have far more to work in terms of narrative and character development.
I Am Groot excels at its purpose of making us all love Groot more, and we really couldn’t ask for more than that.
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