Think the time is right for a Charlton Comics reunion right now.

Justice League Incarnate.

Some new ones honestly

Doom patrol

The outsiders

The teen titans 

Probably the Forever People or the Golden Age Seven Soldiers. I think they’re neat.

MCU is the real winner here

Captain Marvel flew through a dying star uninjured and put out enough energy to reignite it. None of these people have the firepower to harm her and none of them can survive the power she outputs. Strange and Scarlet are the only ones with a chance and that’s only if they can use magic to trick or banish her, which I feel is more of a draw than anything.

Probably depends on which version of the characters we’re seeing.

If it’s the combatants at their absolute peak in the MCU then I’d guess either Scarlet Witch with the Darkhold or What If Dr Strange would be the winner.

If it’s standard combatants, I’m not really sure anyone here can deal with Strange’s magic besides Wanda.

Did you see that clip where Dr. Strange fights Infinity Ultron? 

Strange and how he'd react In the Void is a wildcard, assuming he can port himself out. Bob gets strangled or turned into a chair by Stephen. Wanda is too tormented to oneshot Bob and if shes sent to the Void I'd imagine she'd relive all her trauma and get stuck. Carol is the fastest and strongest here but with all the hax from Wanda/Stephen/Bob I dont imagine Thor and her get far without being sent to another dimension or vaporized.

Leaning Stephen if only because he may be able to escape Void with his magic.

EDIT: If we're using Composite/What if Versions, than MCU Strange vaporizes them all with a gesture

Still MCU

I love this idea! I agree with the guy that suggested Loki (s1 at least) should be in Phase 4, cuz it's connection to Endgame. And Eternals should be in Phase 5 (like I already said in a reply to another comment). Otherwise I think it's great!

Are you suggesting that you watch each movie in the order you presented them? (aka, phase 4 should be Wandavision first, FatWS second, Black Widow third, Hawkeye fourth, etc. etc.)? Or is there no "watch order" to the list other than just "these projects in Phase 4, while these in Phase 5, and so on"??

Loki S1 should be late phase 4 due to strong Endgame tie-in, Shang-Chi is fine there too. Eternals should be early phase 5… otherwise, totally agree.

Love this. Think there’s some work left but makes WAY more sense than ‘order we happened to release them in’. And like that you included Netflix and Sony. You could have an expanded slate that includes the inputs to Deadpool and Wolverine too as its own side piece.

Would suggest Eternals in Aftermath, as the snap was the cause of Tiamat’s emergence.

You forgot about New Mutants in the “Marvel Elseworlds - Mutants” section.

I wish.

Honestly, I'm not sure, after the “relative failure” of TB* and FF (I feel like the MCU haters went a bit overboard in declaring them “disappointing”).

Tom Holland's Spider-Man seems to have an aura that transcends the MCU, so I think his next film should be a success, more so than the two previous movies mentioned.

On the other hand, especially for Avengers Doomsday (it's too early to express doubts about Secret Wars), I have my fears. Following the unexpected and forced switch from Kang to Doom, there has been little “preparation” for this film. I'm worried that it won't have the same flavor as Infinity War. Then again, maybe I'm wrong to see DD & SW as similar to IW & Endgame.

• Supergirl (June 2026)

• Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July 2026)

• Clayface (September 2026)

• Avengers: Doomsday (December 2026)

• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (June 2027)

• The Batman Part II (October 2027)

• Avengers: Secret Wars (December 2027)

I think the bar is age of Ultron.

Two things it has to imo are clear a billion and beat age of Ultron

I'm positive it's gonna make more than the Avengers by now. It's funny, at first Spider-Man needed the MCU to get back into success, but today I think the MCU needs Spider-Man more than Spider-Man needs the MCU.

Yeah, totally, and especially since post-Endgame, I have noticed such a drastic loss of interest in the MCU among my friends and family and in online comments. My girlfriend loves Tom Hiddleston, especially when he played Loki, but she didn't even bother to watch his eponymous series: laziness, loss of interest.

The fact that so many films have had disastrous returns, that the cost of living has risen so much (and financial resources have fallen so much), including cinema and Disney+ subscriptions, as well as the explosion of series on D+, all of this has contributed to tarnishing the aura of the Marvel Studios logo.

Agreed completely. They have to keep taking risks and introduce new franchises, but I think they have to keep making nostalgia/legacy sequels that will draw in the GA. Like a Thor 5 sequel, a DS3, BP3, etc., alongside the new teams like X-Men and any other new franchise they want to make.

It was called Endgame and it featured what appeared to be definitive endings for Iron Man and Cap. So…yeah lmao

I think the MCU could’ve continued to thrive, it’s just that the movies had to get better. Not even maintaining quality but getting worse post-Endgame was deadly. A lot of series can get away with being shitty (Jurassic lol) but not this one.

I think it’s waaay more complex than just “anymore films feel utterly redundant”.

Phases 4-5 were at best a jumbled and confusing mess, and were not coherent at all. Characters were introduced and dropped off, audiences were expected to follow some of the d+ shows, there were no team up movies, the movies themselves were on average worse outside of some hits, and then they started doing a massive pivot right in the middle of that.

I guess my point is, if phases 4-5 were as good (and as coherent and focused) as phase 3, and box office numbers STILL declined? Then it would be easier to accept the argument that audience interest has declined despite quality.

To be fair, there’s no way audience interest won’t have declined ANYWAY because of the sheer number of films released. But I think with a more focused and coherent slate, the MCU could have managed the bleeding better.

I watched the show Homeland for a while. I really liked it but the second season seemed like the end of the story. I later heard there were more seasons but I wasn’t motivated to start again. In other words, you may be right about Endgame.

Oh for sure, that's my main point - the GA audience is mainly interested in the heroes they already know, but not for the new heroes that the MCU needs to build new franchises and phases. It's concerning, but there is room for the MCU to keep going.

They have to find a way to balance the nostalgia franchises with their new franchises, and they have to get these guys teaming up in bigger narratives so the GA keeps coming back to follow along.

I watched just about everything leading to Endgame that movie had such a finality about it that I essentially felt free once I saw it.

I used to watch every movie opening night and after Endgame I found myself only going to see the movies if I was invited or heavily interested in the character or premise.

I didn’t even see Spider-Man (with the 3 spidermen) for years and I really enjoy that franchise.

I legit think they shoulda built in a planned break after Endgame… woulda been nice to walk away for a year or two, and come up with a proper plan for the next phase of things.

It feels like they didn’t really plan it out super well, and they were not mega confident in what they were doing post Endgame, and that feeling makes it easier for me to justify not watching their movies on release.

Nah audiences were still showing up post endgame. It’s just that the quality of the movies and tv shows started to suck, and they never built up to anything or followed up on all these new heroes they were introducing. Before even a not particularly amazing movie like Captain Marvel could make over a billion just by being a huge part of the story people were keeping up with, but there is no central storyline anymore. 

Star Wars went on a break theatrically and I think it will help create interest in Star  Wars movies. In that time they did the acclaimed Andor marvel should do like 1 show a year and take a break from movies for a bit maybe 2-3 years

Yeah, Disney+ really hurt the brand. There are so many of those D+ shows that I wish had been movies instead, or the characters had just been introduced in legacy sequels instead of in TV shows. And I really love most of the characters that we've gotten in the new phases, it's just that Marvel hasn't done anything with them after their first outing.

I mean if doomsday doesn’t do well there’s a good chance the plug gets pulled on basically the whole MCU. I’m not even entirely sure the MCU has been profitable going back the last 2 years

"They cant just keep wheeling these actors out until they're 90"

While this is true, I do this MCU jumped the gun a bit here. In general, you have until the actors are ~55/60.

RDJ was really the only actor that was getting too old. The rest had a good decade or two.

They should've given Chris Evans a dump truck of money to stay on as Captain America for example. And not killed Black Widow.

Which is why I think Marvel fucked up by not ending the story there and then. Feige needs to take some of the blame for this because post-Endgame they've largely become stagnant and the movies are just fill in the blank type of content that's overstayed its welcome.

I was rather alarmed when he said they didn't recast Green Goblin in the MCU because they didn't take the risk of another actor being compared to Willem Defoe's version, that told me this was a franchise that had become too afraid to do anything for fear of pissing everyone off, which is what's happened now. Marvel saw DC being mocked for rebooting and making mistakes that they decided to never reboot. Then 2023 happened and they had to reboot anyway.

RDJ and the Russos coming back is such a desperate move that its failure would kill the MCU for years. Every franchise must end before it outstays its welcome. For the MCU, that was 2019. We'd probably miss out on some excellent films like GotG 3 but the franchise's reputation is protected to keep the goodwill Marvel had going into the reboot. This time they can have the X-Men or F4 be its starting film without bringing in the multiverse to muddy the waters.

We need to really get the sense that this is the end of the multiverse. They can’t just say it. We need to see worlds die. We need to see the timelines crumble. Every minute of these movies needs to give off the sense that they are running out of time

If they do a good job with Thor and Loki I’ll forgive them for everything

I’d agree! But Vision, Gamora and Loki all came back after Infinty War / Endgame which, in hindsight, maybe also affected the subsequent phases…

A) Doom minimizing his face being shown and/or RDJ being a classic bait and switch (different actor who can play the role for years to come e.g. sign of an overarching plan)

B) Smooth transition from Fox X-men to new MCU x-men, good casting, lineup, and writing—scarce on the origin stories

C) characters like Moon Knight, Daredevil, She-Hulk, and Black Knight showing up to tie more threads into the story—it doesn’t have to be those exact characters, but I need more than just Sam Wilson, Strange, Thor, and Shuri.. you’re making an Avengers team.. make a cool team.

D) Doom needs to be truly terrifying, like Doomsday needs to be infinity war on crack with him just bodying every hero squad one after the other

Don't senselessly kill off Kang save him for something else.

Have some nods at least to the whole saga. Something to do with eternals even werewolf by night maybe etc. (This one is more wishful thinking - because I would also hate for it to be forced)

Too early to say for sure, but my thinking is that they aren't actually going to change the continuity; they're just going to use the multiversal collision in Secret Wars to bring in new versions of sub-franchises whose MCU and Fox versions have retired, like the OG Avengers, the X-Men, Fantastic Four (already started), Black Panther (maybe?). So the end result will be a new MCU that continues the previous one but is more fleshed out with everything the MCU has been missing from Marvel's A-list roster.

That’s what they’re trying to return to now, per Feige. Of course it’s too early to say as yet how it’s playing out, but the past year’s been good to them with Deadpool and Wolverine, Agatha All Along, Daredevil Born Again, Thunderbolts* (critically rather than commercially here) and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Sure, Brave New World flopped both critically and I think commercially, and Ironheart seems like it’s going to die on the vine, even if impressions I’m seeing generally trend positive (I’ve yet to watch it myself), but my point is that the last year has seen less films and more of those films being well received.

This would be catastrophic, honestly. The entire reason for slates and the yearly churn is for audience retention and investment into the hype. Two years of no product would crater the MCU’s audience, while the DCU is firing up to boot. Casuals have no commitment to a brand that isn’t putting out and returning after two years of nothing is basically like trying to get them reinvested from scratch. And on the other side of it, all the hardcores would do is complain about no updates for two years. This suggestion benefits nothing but your veneer of profundity.

Whilst the ideas seem good, this from a storytelling perspective renders everything the previous films have done pointless. This kills literally everyone and everything in the universe/multiverse.

Wrap it up if you want, but you don't have to massacre everyone to do it. Hell, have the current MCU achieve victory by bubbling themselves off from the rest of the multiverse and trapping Galactus with them. Now all stories have to take place in a different continuity without slaughtering all the heroes and their loved ones.

This is gonna be a great way to reboot but I doubt it'll happen because of Disney and probably other movies which are in works connecting to a previous movie like Thor 5, most we'll get is a soft reboot rather than completely disconnecting everything starting Phase 7

Silence/global pause after infinity war? My guy, Antman 2 released 3 months after Infinity War

Not necessarily that the reboot will affect the continuity, since Fiege said SW will create a singular timeline chances are the reboot happens to particular groups like X-Men. And the timeline merger happens on the 616 Universe

That won’t happen. 616 is the main universe and is modeled to look like our world that’s the point of marvel

There's absolutely no way that is going to happen. They come from a retro futuristic universe styled like the '60s. The main "sacred timeline" in the MCU (which mirrors our own real world universe) is all that is going to be left at the end of Secret Wars. All other multiverses will be eliminated. That's literally the point and what we've been building to this entire saga. Did you watch the Loki series?

An entirely period MCU would be prohibitively expensive.

That’s mean tbh, I was being vague on purpose, go see it tho, it’s really good

I actually hope this is what they do. A 1960s-esque universe accurate to classic Marvel comics. Also will make things feel more genuine when they reintroduce and recast Iron Man and Captain America since it will feel more different from the current MCU, leaving some room for different interpretations of the characters and not feeling like direct replacements in the same boring universe. Great post, great theory

I feel endgame was one of those once in a lifetime things I don’t think we’ll ever get something like that again

Still holding hope that Spider-man 4 will be bigger than No Way Home

I agree. I also think a lot of people don't have the patience to watch another dozen or so superhero films building up to a climax like Endgame.

Up there? Endgame beats their hype and it's not even close