At this point, The Electric State has established itself as one of the worst movies of 2025. The movie is a failure with critics and viewers alike, even by Netflix’s famously obscure standards. What’s less clear is what, exactly, went wrong.
Some might point to the incredible $320 million that Netflix spent to make The Electric State. Not only is that price point unheard of for Netflix, which tends to churn out cheapies for people to put on while folding their socks, but the streaming service only gave it a brief and limited theatrical run, meaning there was little chance to recoup expenses.
However, the bigger question is about the creative team that Netflix hired. The Electric State is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the quartet behind some of the biggest, most profitable movies of all time. That includes 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which grossed $2.799 billion. The Russos even filled out the cast with MCU vets, including Chris Pratt, Anthony Mackie, Stanley Tucci, Giancarlo Esposito, and Ke Huy Quan.
And yet, despite this slate of people who’ve made culture-defining mega-hits, The Electric State is a big nothing. The failure suggests that the MCU’s success had less to do with the Russos, Markus and McFeely, or even big names like Pratt. Instead, it had everything to do with Marvel’s characters or, more accurately, the writers and artists who made those characters compelling in the first place—the very people who Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios have rarely treated with respect.
A History of Exploitation
In a remarkable bit of bad timing, The Electric State hit theaters just three days after venerable comic book artist Dustin Nguyen took to Instagram to rant about Marvel’s mistreatment of its creators.
“Everyone I’m not working with at Marvel can fuck themselves,” he declared. “I’ve asked nicely for the past 15 years on behalf of every artist. Stop fucking creators over.” In the comments to his post, Nguyen expounds upon his complaints. “Between them and DC, they are the ONLY one that DOESN’T pay a royalty for overseas sales,” he asserted. “Also, merch? Lunch boxes and tees? Good luck.”
Nguyen is hardly the first person to complain about Marvel’s poor treatment of creators. In fact, the company’s exploitation of Jack Kirby is the stuff of industry legend. Kirby not only had a dynamic style and an incredible work ethic that allowed him to establish the look and style of the first Marvel books published throughout the 1960s, he co-created some of the company’s signature characters, including the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. And yet, Kirby has had his contributions forever downplayed, not least of all by Marvel editor and pitchman Stan Lee, whose work on the characters for which he claimed creator credit didn’t go beyond dialogue.
Kirby wasn’t the first either. In 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $130 by National Publications (later DC Comics) for their story about Superman, who then went on to launch the entire superhero genre. Siegel and Shuster were paid for the comics they wrote and drew, but only saw a sliver of the revenue generated from the other comics, radio shows, movies, and merchandise their character generated, leading to rights conflicts that continue to this day.
A year later, writer Jerry Robinson transformed artist Bob Kane’s idea of a blond guy in red pajamas with Leonardo Da Vinci-inspired wings into the Batman we know and love today, and went on to create some of the most important villains in comics history. And yet, Robinson died a pauper, while Kane, DC Comics, and Warner Brothers have made billions off of his ideas.
Lest anyone think that this type of behavior is a product of the comics industry’s past, when it existed to quickly produce cheap and disposable children’s entertainment, these practices continue in the era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2005, writer Ed Brubaker and artist Steve Epting created the Winter Soldier, transforming long-dead sidekick Bucky Barnes into not just a popular mainstay, but one of the core members of the MCU. Yet, in 2021, Brubaker called the “thank you” money that Marvel offered “insulting,” especially compared to the revenue generated by the Winter Soldier’s movie and merchandise appearances. In fact, Brubaker stated that he makes much more from his brief cameo as a scientist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier than he does for writing the story that inspired that entire film.
At this very moment, writer Peter David—whose legendary run on The Incredible Hulk inspired the MCU’s version, including the Smart Hulk that Mark Ruffalo portrayed in Avengers: Endgame and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law—has to use GoFundMe to pay for his medical bills.
Nguyen recently followed up on Instagram to say that someone from Marvel reached out to him about his concerns. Although he’s certainly measured in his comments, Nguyen is hopeful that “the conversation has started.” Obviously, that’s great news for creatives working at Marvel and other comic book companies, but it’s also great news for those of us who love superhero stories in other media.
Unelectric and Uninspired
Even beyond its phoned-in performances and unsuccessful humor, the biggest problem with The Electric State is that it’s completely rote in both plot and character.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Millie Bobby Brown plays a rebellious teen who’s actually smarter and morally superior to all of the adults. Chris Pratt is a sarcastic guy who hides his inner hurt behind snark and pop culture references. He pals around with robot buddy Herman, performed by Martin Klebba and voiced by Anthony Mackie; the two express their affection for one another by trading verbal barbs. Giancarlo Esposito plays a cool and calculating villain while Ke Huy Quan plays a sweetheart oddball.
Brown’s Michelle, Pratt’s Keats, and Herman team up to make their way across a wasteland torn by a civil war. Along the way, they discover that we all actually have a lot in common, building to an emotional speech delivered by Michelle urging everyone to get out of their comfort zone and get to know one another.
Familiar as it is, The Electric State does have some occasionally striking visuals. There’s something unnerving about Cosmo, the robot with the smiling yellow face that carries the memories of a brilliant young boy. The wasteland of rusting robots feels vaguely sad, as do images of a gigantic animal robot peering down at the humans as they enter an abandoned mall.
These moments work not because of anything that the Russos or Markus and McFeeley have done, but because they come directly from the movie’s source material, the illustrated novel by Simon Stålenhag. But because the novel wasn’t nearly enough to fill out the running length of a feature film, the Russos, Markus, and McFeeley have stretched it out by plugging those images into the best plot they could come up with—which turns out to be something empty and completely derivative.
This unsuccessful act of adaptation reveals exactly what went wrong when the Russos, Markus, and McFeeley went from making crowd-pleasing blockbusters for Marvel to dull nothings for Netflix. Their success hasn’t simply been a question of making good movies. They’ve been translating good stories to the screen.
Think about the best moments from the quartet’s Marvel oeuvre: Steve Rogers reacting in horror to the revelation that Bucky is the Winter Soldier; Cap and Iron Man duking it out; Hulk smashing into Doctor Strange’s sanctum to warn of the impending threat posed by Thanos; an all-but-defeated Captain America stubbornly holding his own against Thanos.
None of those are original. All of those come from Marvel Comics first, stories written by folks like Ed Brubaker and Jim Starlin and drawn by George Perez and Steve McNiven. All of those moments build on characters that countless creators have developed on the comic page. All of those moments come from creators like Kirby and Finger and Nguyen, writers and artists whose work is continually devalued and exploited.
Fair Compensation for Blockbuster Fare
Whenever the stories of Kirby, Robinson, and Brubaker come up, there’s always someone who points out that these guys were never actually cheated—they signed a contract and Marvel/DC has adhered to the rules of the contract.
Even Kirby himself would often demure when asked about his credits and compensation, pointing out that he did work for hire and that Marvel and DC ultimately owned the work he did for them.
Exciting as that truth might be for accountants and corporate lawyers, its bad news for anyone who wants good superhero movies. Even though comics are a medium unto themselves, which have value outside of Hollywood, there’s also a unique pleasure to watching superhero stories play out on a big screen and in front of a crowd.
And if Marvel’s going to continue hiring folks like the Russo Brothers, who are currently in pre-production of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, they need good source material, stories created by talented writers and artists. And that means that Marvel needs to finally start paying these writers and artists fairly, giving them fair compensation for the wealth their work generates.
Otherwise, we’ll be left with the shambling empty robots of The Electric State.
Isn’t it ironic that there’s a Stan Lee documentary in the works which alleges Stan the Man was exploited in his final years by his caretakers?
Or, to quote Malcolm X, “The chickens have come home to roost.”
That’s not actually irony as Stan Lee’s own rebuttal to his being management was, “Yes, we all would have liked a lot more for what we did.”
Stan Lee DID sue Marvel, himself, for compensation that he was screwed over.
He viewed himself as the guy between the executives and the staff.
Big corporations couldn’t care less for the people doing the work. The good thing is that right now there are many good options out there.
Ed Brubaker is one of the best writers ever. I always try to read his stories the moment they hit the stands.
While I do not disagree with the thesis, I would quibble about this:
Two words: Bill Finger.
Fact check: Bill Finger is the co-creator and original writer of Batman, not Jerry Robinson. Robinson was hired as Kane’s ghost artist, and he created both Robin and The Joker during his tenure at Kane’s studio.
The link to Peter David’s GoFundMe is incorrect. The correct link is https://gofund.me/e3e65d85
Updated, thanks!
While a little off topic, I question the wisdom of padding, rewriting Simon Stålenhag’s story. It has more in common with Cormac McCarthy The Road (which was a moderately successful film). When I watched the trailer, with its ensemble cast, I thought this isn’t the story I read.
It’s too bad, I think Millie Bobby Brown could have carried the original story. If you needed a longer runtime, pad it with flashbacks, do the work.
Electric State has good bones, Stålenhag (the creative) did an excellent job story telling. I hope he was compensated well, and negotiate good (albeit now worthless) royalties.
Well said.