Problem with a Shared Universe in Film/TV

Catching up on 2024 Doctor Who series and I’ve reached the season finale episode “Empire of Death.” Spoilers for that finale. A universal extinction level event occurs and for some reason the Doctor doesn’t reach out to the other Doctor for help. For those of you unfamiliar last year during Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary the character of the Doctor bi regenerated. What is bi regenerating you might ask, well it’s a complicated timey wimey thing as the show would say. Basically when the Doctor is about to die he will change into a different person. This is called regenerating. The character of the Doctor has done the numerous times throughout the decades. Sometimes he regenerates into a women, most times he regenerates into an older white man, however this last time, instead of changing he split into two Doctors, one played by David Tennant and the other played by Ncuti Gatwa. The latter being the Doctor the series continued to follow. Now back to the 2024 season finale. A God of death is killing everyone in the universe and the Doctor is desperate to figure out what to do but at no point does he think, “Two heads are better than one.” Also where is the other Doctor during all of this. The show establishes he’s still on Earth. Why isn’t he doing anything to help?

This brings me to a thought I have with televisions and movies that have established a shared universe. If your hero is dealing with a world ending threat and in this world you have established more than one hero. Why isn’t the hero getting help? It works for the first Iron Man and Thor movies but once you establish the Avengers, there shouldn’t be any solo adventures that save the world. Why wouldn’t Captain America call in the Avengers for help in Captain America Winter Soldier? Why would Spider-Man fight Mysterio alone?

The only times this makes any sense is in films like Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. They were pulled into the quantum realm and had no way of communicating to the Avengers for help. I understand the real world reasoning, which is studios need to make money on as many projects as possible and you can’t always bring in all the A List actors for Thor Love and Thunder. However, in universe it makes no sense to me. I’m somewhat able to believe this in comic books because oftentimes while the X-Men are fighting Magneto, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are in space. In fact there is an Avengers story called Infinity where the Avengers are out in space saving the galaxy and Thanos uses that as an excuse to attack a defenseless Earth.

What is the solution here? Stop making stories where every situation is the end of the world. You can make a story feel important and epic without raising the stakes so high it makes no logical sense to go at it alone. A good example of this is Superman Up in the Sky. What is Superman Up in the Sky you may ask? It is a comic book about Superman going on an adventure in order to save one little girl. A little girl has been abducted by aliens who have taken her across the galaxy to enslave her. In order to find her Superman must track down every lead he can to get to her. The world isn’t endangered, there is no epic threat, there is just a very scared little girl who Superman must save. The stakes are high because you don’t want anything to happen to this little girl and the stakes are especially high for Superman because the longer he takes to get to her, the chances of him losing her forever increases. What makes the story even more emotional is the little girl never gives up on the idea that Superman is coming for her, even at her darkest moments.

Please understand I am not saying, no more Thanos or Darkseid stories. Far from it, I would just like writers to be more conscious of the overall world their characters inhabit and why trying to save the world solo, is illogical and causes a lot of disbelieve in your story for anyone who gives it a second thought.