The Fantastic Four have been sent adrift in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since Avengers: Endgame, the dramatic conclusion to the so-called Infinity Saga, Marvel has produced 12 films and television episodes in what studio president Kevin Feige refers to as “Phase 4” of the MCU, none of which seemed really related to one another.
The length of the Disney+ television series makes it difficult for casual fans to keep up with the MCU’s events. And Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury no longer appears in post-credits sequences to draw the dots between flicks and hint at a potential danger. Many people have been left wondering where this is all leading.
Marvel Studios has established a practice of previewing upcoming projects at San Diego Comic-iconic Con’s Hall H for over a decade. And, at Saturday’s Marvel Studios panel, Kevin Feige sought to reassure fans that, indeed, a plan exists. And, certainly, the events of Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, Loki, and Wakanda Forever are all connected in some way. And, certainly, the Avengers will appear in some capacity.
Phases 5 and 6 of the MCU, according to Feige, will culminate in two ensemble Avengers films: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. And don’t panic, X-Men and Fantastic Four fans. Those superheroes will soon infiltrate the MCU.
Here’s all you need to know about Marvel’s future.
Phase 4 of Wakanda Forever will come to a conclusion.
Phase 4 has been a shambles. Marvel found itself without three of its top heroes after Avengers: Endgame, most notably Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), and Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), who all withdrew from the superhero industry. The company also unexpectedly lost Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020. Boseman, one of Marvel’s shining new stars, would have served as the franchise’s cornerstone.
Even when Marvel attempted to introduce new characters, such as Florence Pugh’s Yelena, and elevate established ones, such as Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, to more significant roles, destiny interfered. Marvel’s intended release timetable was thrown off by the epidemic. (For example, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was meant to debut before Wandavision, not after it.) The alteration allowed the authors to alter crucial story aspects.)
In the opening seconds of their Comic-Con presentation, Marvel implicitly recognized the recent global instability. Miss Minutes, Loki’s malicious cartoon clock, welcomed hundreds of fans eagerly awaiting news on their favorite superheroes. “You got it here to a Comic-Con panel at the end of time after surviving a looping, eternal catastrophe,” she added.
The sentiment was mirrored by Feige. He described Phase 4 as “resetting the MCU and meeting all these new characters.” He went on to say that Phase 4 would soon come to an end with a final program and film: The She-Hulk series, starring Tatiana Maslany as Bruce Banner’s cousin, and the long-awaited Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever.
On Saturday, Marvel finished their presentation with the Wakanda Forever video. Before introducing the teaser, writer-director Ryan Coogler remembered Boseman excitedly gripping his shoulder when Coogler presented the first Black Panther trailer at Comic-Con in 2017. “I swear I can feel his touch on me right now.” “Chad is no longer physically with us, but his spirit, passion, intellect, pride, and culture, as well as the effect he had on our profession, will be felt forever,” the director stated. “We poured our hearts out for Chadwick.”
The Wakanda Forever clip focused on grieving characters like as Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and Shuri (Letitia Wright) (Boseman). The teaser introduced fans to Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a genius who creates her own Iron Man-like suit and assumes the Iron Man mantle. In the next phase of the MCU, she will star in her own Disney+ series, Ironheart.
In Wakanda Forever, all of these heroes will prepare to face a troop of amphibious humans from Atlantis led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta). Wakanda has already battled with Atlantis in the comics. It’s unknown what will cause them to clash in the upcoming flick.
At the very end of the video, we see the famous Black Panther claws emerge, but we don’t know who is wearing the costume. Feige has said unequivocally that Marvel would not replace T’Challa. Fans have speculated that T’Challa’s old gear would be worn by Shuri, Nakia, or perhaps a parallel universe Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan, who performed the part in the first film and is a longstanding collaborator of Coogler). (The gold piping on Killmonger’s outfit in Black Panther suggests that the multiverse may send Killmonger back to us.)
As the teaser concluded, Coogler and the actors embraced onstage in an emotional moment.
Kang is the next major threat in Phases 5 and 6.
Thanos (Josh Brolin) connected the early Marvel films. Beginning with Avengers, the purple, murderous extraterrestrial loomed big as the universe’s main menace. He appeared in post-credits sequences and made cameo appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok. Even though he wasn’t in a movie, the Infinity Stones he desired were. For years, the audience had known that the Avengers would have to battle him—and, in one of the finest twists in blockbuster movie, journey back in time to fight him again. Every picture gradually led up to that point, and he provided all of our heroes a cause to gather together.
Kevin Feige intimated during the Comic-Con panel that Kang the Conqueror may play a similar capacity in Phases 5 and 6 of the MCU. He brought onstage actor Jonathan Majors and presented him as the wicked genius bent on conquering the universe. Kang will appear as the antagonist in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but it is just the beginning of his desire for domination.
“This is launching off Phase 5 for a very particular purpose,” Feige said of Quantumania. “And right there, Mr. Jonathan Majors, you met him.” The next film in Phase 6 will be named Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, according to Feige. (There will be more on Phase 6 later.)
So Majors is Marvel’s future. That’s fantastic news, especially given Majors’ amazing debut as a Kang version in the television program Loki. Kang would represent a greater existential threat to the MCU than Thanos ever did in only one episode of that series.
Another important indication to Marvel’s future might be found in the title Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Another Avengers squad will be formed. Who precisely will make up that crew is unknown. However, Phase 5 is laying the groundwork.
Our street-level antagonists will be the Thunderbolts.
If Kang the Conqueror is bent on conquering the whole cosmos, there must be some other wicked dangers closer to home, right? Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, will most likely command that crew. In the end-credits sequences of series and movies such as Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow, she has been gathering a team of anti-heroes and villains.
We now know that the team’s name will be the Thunderbolts. The Thunderbolts were initially portrayed in the comics as a group of heroes who banded together after the Avengers were proclaimed dead. However, they finally exposed themselves to be supervillains in disguise.
Given that Iron Man and Black Widow are no longer alive, and Captain America and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are no longer active, it seems to reason that the Thunderbolts would appear now to take advantage of the absence of A-list Avengers on the scene. (I’m sorry, Hulk.)
Thunderbolts embers might feature, among others, Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), Yelena (Pugh), and John Walker (Wyatt Russell). Given that Sam Wilson has previously fought Baron Zemo and John Walker in his program, it’s fair to assume he’ll face the Thunderbolts in one or more flicks.
Phase 6 sees the arrival of The Fantastic Four and Secret Wars.
As amazing as the Thunderbolts may seem, Marvel Studios understands that fans want more from the MCU. They specifically anticipate an Avengers film. That’s why Feige announced three films planned to debut in the MCU’s far-off Phase 6: the long-awaited revival of the Fantastic Four series, Avengers vs. Kang, and Secret Wars.
Before you get too excited over the above image, keep in mind that no one from Marvel has announced that John Krasinski will reprise his role as Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four movie. In fact, it seemed like Marvel Studios hired Krasinski in the character of a parallel-universe Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness just to gruesomely murder him and therefore convey a (playful, though slightly grim) message to fans about their fan-casting aspirations.
The two previously announced Avengers films are The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. We don’t yet know who will make up this new Avengers squad, but Marvel already has a lot of pieces in place, including Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and maybe Spider-Man if Tom Holland agrees to reprise his role as Peter Parker.
Based on the title, we may anticipate Kang Dynasty to depict Kang attempting to achieve his objective of ruling the universe. It remains to be seen how Kang’s mission will set up Secret Wars. Two Secret Wars tales have been written by Marvel Comics. All of the superheroes are whisked to a combat arena planet to fight in the 1980s version of Secret Wars. The plot becomes a little more complicated in a 2015 iteration: The action starts with an incursion, or two timelines colliding with disastrous results. (We’ve previously witnessed an intrusion in the Multiverse of Madness in Doctor Strange.) The survivors live in a post-apocalyptic planet called Battleworld, which is governed by a slew of various versions of Thor known as the Thor Corps. Yes, there are lots of fights amongst popular superheroes.
The X-Men are on their way…soon…
probably
So, how about the X-Men? During the Comic-Con event, Feige made no mention of mutants. However, a different Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) appears in Multiverse of Madness. And Wandavision sowed the seeds of a plot. (In the comics, Wanda has been both an X-Men and an Avenger. Because Disney now owns Fox and hence the mutant rights, they changed Wanda’s past to give her abilities from birth, hinting that she is a mutant.)
The multiverse period seems to be the ideal moment to debut the X-Men as a squad of teenage heroes who have been training at Professor X’s school in a parallel dimension. They are somehow drawn into the main MCU narrative. However, Phase 5 seems to be full. As a result, we won’t see any mutations until Phase 6.
Phases 4-6 are now referred to be the “Multiverse Saga.”
If Phases 1-3 were the “Infinity Saga,” in which heroes and villains collected numerous Infinity Stones before participating in an Infinity War, Feige has called Phases 4-6 the “Multiverse Saga.” The films and TV series are increasingly grappling with the topic of how Marvel’s numerous parallel realities converge.
In the comics, the Secret Wars narrative ended many realities in the multiverse, except for fan-favorite strands, effectively restarting Marvel comics. Could Marvel also be set for a hard reboot? Perhaps. Or maybe they’re simply searching for a way to include the X-Men (who play an important role in the Secret Wars tale) into the epic.
All of the upcoming MCU movies and programs’ release dates and information
Quantumania in Ant-Man and the Wasp (Feb. 17, 2023)
Of Comic-Con, Marvel gave fans a sneak peek at the third Ant-Man flick. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang (Ant-Man) has written a book on how he helped rescue the planet at the start of the film. His family, which includes his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), lover and fellow crimefighter Hope (Evangeline Lilly as The Wasp), and her mother and father (Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas), are weary of hearing about his exploits. They are then dragged into the Quantum Realm, where they meet Kang the Conqueror and a mystery guy portrayed by none other than Bill Murray.
The Unknown Invasion (Spring 2023)
A Comic-Con exclusive trailer for Secret Invasion was also released. The series is an espionage thriller based on Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. Fans of Captain Marvel will remember the Skrull extraterrestrial species, who can pass as humans. In this episode, the Skrulls impersonate individuals we know and love, and determining someone’s actual identity is difficult. Fury, who has avoided Earth after the events of Endgame, returns to cope with the Skrull invasion. Emilia Clarke, Cobie Smulders, Olivia Coleman, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Ben Mendelsohn also appear in the episode.
The third installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (May 5, 2023)
Director James Gunn grabbed the stage at Comic-Con to release a teaser trailer and confirm that Vol. 3 would be the last installment in the Guardians of the Galaxy story. Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord eventually meets a variation of Zoe Saldana’s Gamora in the clip. But this Gamora still has no idea who Star-Lord is, leaving our hero distraught.
However, the major narrative revolves with Rocket’s origin (voiced by Bradley Cooper). Rocket, once a beautiful newborn raccoon, was experimented on and transformed into the talking, blaster-toting beast he is today. The progress of life forms seems to be at the center of the film: Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a perfect Sovereign created by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) to help her destroy the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end of the second Guardians film, and the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a new character whose main purpose is to advance lifeforms through experimentation, are the main antagonists.
Echo (Summer 2023)
Echo (Alaqua Cox) from Hawkeye will get her own show. It’s a significant achievement since Echo is the first deaf superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given Echo’s relationship with mobster Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), it’s probable that she’ll cross over with Kingpin’s other property, Daredevil. Marvel is yet to clarify whether Hailee Steinfeld, who portrayed Hawkeye’s protégé Kate Bishop in the film, will also feature in the series. Kate is set to be a key member of any future Avengers lineup.
The Fantastic Four (July 28, 2023)
At Comic-Con, Feige didn’t reveal anything about the Captain Marvel sequel. However, we do know that Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) will feature in the film with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. Nia DaCosta of Candyman is directing.
Season 2 of Loki (Summer 2023)
Apart from Miss Minutes, Marvel did not reveal anything about Loki, Season 2. Kang will undoubtedly serve as a link between this new season of Loki and films like as Quantumania.
Blade (Nov. 3, 2023)
Mahershala Ali confirmed his casting as Blade, the vampire hunter, during the penultimate MCU Comic-Con panel in 2019. Ali has yet to appear in a Marvel film, however his voice was heard in an end-credits sequence for The Eternals. That film appeared to allude to the MCU’s wider, darker underbelly, which would contain figures such as Black Knight (Kit Harington).
Ironheart (Fall 2023)
Riri Williams, who made her breakthrough in Wakanda Forever, will feature in her own Disney+ TV series. If Marvel Studios intends to recreate the Avengers squad, Ironheart seems to be the natural heir to the Iron Man job.
Agatha: Chaos Coven (Winter 2023-2024)
Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), the breakthrough star of Wandavision, will get her own television series. Marvel has been tight-lipped about the facts, but the title hints that spectators will see more of the witchcraft used by the Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange.
Daredevil: Reborn (Spring 2024)
Fans of Daredevil by Charlie Cox, rejoice! The fan-favorite character from his own Netflix series will be transferred over to Disney+ for an all new TV program. The first season will include 18 episodes, an uncommon commitment for Marvel, which usually limits its series to six or eight parts. Feige also stated that the major adversary in Born Again would be Kingpin, who appears in the Netflix Daredevil series and again in the Disney+ program Hawkeye.
The New World Order, starring Captain America (May 3, 2024)
Following the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson has been promoted as Captain America. Malcolm Spellman, the show’s creator, is poised to script Sam’s film debut as the renowned superhero. It’s unknown who he’ll be battling, however the Thunderbolts are a solid bet.
Thunderbolts (July 26, 2024)
The Thunderbolts, a villainous squad that has slowly been coming together in the end-credits sequences of different Marvel movies and TV series, will conclude Phase 5.
The Incredible Four (Nov. 8, 2024)
There has been no news on the director or casting for the long-awaited Fantastic Four film. However, given that the Fantastic Four and their enemy Doctor Doom play a significant part in the Secret Wars comics, there’s a fair probability that this film will be the headline franchise of Phase 6 of the MCU.
The Kang Dynasty of the Avengers (May 2, 2025)
Aside from Kang, we have no clue who else may star in this picture. A future Avengers lineup may feature Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel, as well as newcomers like Yelena taking on her elder sister’s job as the Black Widow, and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) taking over for her mentor, Hawkeye.
Secret Wars of the Avengers (Nov. 7, 2025)
Secret Wars has always acted as a reset button in comic books, allowing authors to get rid of characters, stories, and worlds that weren’t functioning. It remains to be seen if Marvel plans to reshuffle the deck at the conclusion of Phase 6, like they did at the end of Phase 3.
