The Marvel Cinematic Multiverse

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I've seen it twice - Not because it's amazing, we took the kids and they were pretty distracting so the missus wanted to see it a second time to take it in.

It's a very modern MCU film. It's only lightly a Captain America film, much more of an Incredible Hulk 2, but if I had to pluck a film it gives me the closest quality vibes to it would be Black Widow. Solid, servicable but nothing that you'll think much of after. Ford does a lot of heavy lifting. The intention comes across as them trying to make a Winter Soldier style film when they instead badly needed to make a First Avenger style entry, Mackie's character just isn't baked in strongly enough.

To be honest, we've seen it multiple times in recent years, I think the existence of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series bears a lot of blame.

It's a fine enough time though. Seems weird that in a few weeks they release Thunderbolts and with it Phase Five is over and we're nearly at the Avengers culmination of the three Phases.

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Marvel Confirms No "Moon Knight" Season 2 - Dark Horizons

"Spider-Man 4" Moves Away From "Odyssey" - Dark Horizons
Delayed to 31 July 2026

"Nova," "Hawkeye" S2 & More Marvel TV Talk - Dark Horizons
The Nova series may still happen

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Jon Bernthal's "Punisher" Back In New Special? - Dark Horizons

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/avengers-doomsday-cast-announced-1236172556/

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...ed-1236172556/

So....

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The chairs include Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammer and Ian McKellen.

That means Disney are leaning on the old X-Men for the MCU rather than wiping the slate clean, and whilst it might be good... I'm checking out at this point. Hope it works out for them.

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It's 100% a nostalgia tour to recapture interest.

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With the post-credit sequence for The Marvels showing a CG version of Kelsey Grammer's Beast I'm guessing that universes X-Men breach the main one - maybe in an effort by Monica to return home.

I'm guessing that by the time the following film is done these are all gone and we have the rebooted versions of the characters instead. Though it's an easy window to have James McAvoy return to the role too

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The full list:

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AVENGERS
Chris Hemsworth’s Thor
Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson/Captain America
Letitia Wright’s Shuri/Black Panther
Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man
Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi

MCU Characters
Winston Duke‘s M’Baku
Tenoch Huerta’s Namor
Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres/Falcon
Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki

Non-MCU Characters
Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom

THUNDERBOLTS
Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Wyatt Russell’s U.S. Agent/John Walker
Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova
Lewis Pullman’s Bob/Sentry
David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
Hannah John-Kamen‘s Ava Starr/Ghost

FANTASTIC FOUR
Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Vanessa Kirby’s Invisible Woman/Sue Storm
Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s The Thing/Ben Grimm
Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm/Human Torch

X-MEN
Patrick Stewart‘s Charles Xavier
Ian McKellen‘s Magneto
James Marsden’s Cyclops
Alan Cumming‘s Nightcrawler
Rebecca Romijn‘s Mystique
Kelsey Grammer’s Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast
Channing Tatum’s Gambit


Which means we don't have the clearest outlook on the Avengers team given where characters are at and Sam's intention to rebuild them. Loki's inclusion would lock in the plot involving the collapse of the multiverse, the Thunderbolts cast list is essentially spoilers for that unreleased film and the X-Men list puts the characters appearing as being from a universe that is definitely very close to the OG X-Men universe in inspiration.

More "Avengers: Doomsday" Casting Shortly - Dark Horizons
A second cast unveiling looks likely though I'm guessing many of the notable absentees will be held back for Avengers: Secret Wars

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It's 100% a nostalgia tour to recapture interest.

I feel like this is tired now. As soon as I saw the Fox chraracters on this list, I lost interest.

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I'm curious as to how the two films steer things. As much as people are tiring of the multiverse stuff, the MCU has been doing it for 6 years now and to be honest it's been incredibly tame. It opens the door to some really wild possibilities but we've actually seen hardly any of it with events more often than not being cameo's.

There's largely three approaches they could have taken:

Diverse Worlds - Really go to some very different worlds, introducing wildly different characters and scenarios to inject a lot of new into the MCU before leading into the multiverse clash as they come to blows with the OG era cast. It would have worked as well whether you go with the original intent of showing different Kang's impacts on other worlds and the danger he brings or under the current direction, recreating the original Avengers hype of seeing these casts meet.

Nostalgia Worlds - Full fledged stories across the multiverse utilising audience nostalgia. The cameo's do the same thing but here you would have fully formed revivals of characters and their arcs leading into Avengers. The biggest Phase 4-6 hits have been because of the legacy notes, with this approach it's a much more lazy approach than the first but making Blade 4, Amazing Spider-Man 3, X-Men 7 etc that build up to Avengers would undoubtedly have been huge events compared to Quantumania etc.

Cameos - Which is basically the chosen route. I know dropping Kang has caused its own issues that remain unresolved but the return of some old faves has really been the only real calling card for the multiverse across the arc.



Hindsight is 20/20 but in my completely unprofessional and uninformed opinion, for the Multiverse arc:

-I'd have left Far From Home as it is
-I'd have never made Black Widow, swapping it instead for Captain America 4 which would have had the same focus on Sam wrestling with the mantle of Cap but also dove into the effects more directly of half the population being gone for half a decade and the fears of what else is 'out there' being placed on Sam's shoulders as he is also leader of the Avengers
-I'd have left Shang-Chi as it is
-I'd have never made The Eternals, probably instead bringing forward a full fledged Captain Marvel 2 so that the intergalactic side of the MCU continues to be explored. Marvel had intended for her to be a key figure head so it could have pushed her character more centrally and also been where the Celestials first started to come up in a more threatening way.
-I'd have left No Way Home as it is, though it's fan service it's also a neatly explained origin for how the multiverse storyline is first introduced due to Peter's actions
-I'd have left most of Multiverse of Madness alone as well, with the exception of having Scarlett Witch stranded in another world rather than dead, adding to the sense of oncoming threats that are out there
-Love and Thunder is a hard one, a standard Thor sequel always made sense so this one would have likely come out the same regardless
-Wakanda Forever I'd have left as it is
-It's at this point where I'd be working with Sony to have something like Amazing Spider-Man 3 or something else that pulled together Venom, Vulture etc on that side of the multiverse rather than having them have loose ends and making stuff like Kraven and Madame Web instead. The studios literally lined up the loose thread and work together on Spider-Man, whilst Sony also knows what audiences want via the Spider-Verse films so the path was always much more obvious on where their focus should lie.
-I would swap Quantumania out for a Loki film. Despite the series, the movie arm of things needed something to establish the workings of that arc and Loki's role in it as well as the huge character jump between his small Endgame escape and Doomsday.
-I'd have left Guardians 3 as it is
-I'd have left Deadpool 3 as it is
-Brave New World could have then instead been Captain America 5, dialling up on the multiverse incursions angle and helping to keep the character front and centre more consistently across the phases
-Obviously not seen it but I'm not sure I'd have greenlit Thunderbolts, instead going for either something new or getting Shang-Chi 2 out sooner
-If Fantastic Four is what it's supposed to be, that one would be fine to stay

You basically end up with four key threats - The Multiverse, Kang, Scarlett Witch and the Celestials
The first Avengers could have dealt with the Multiverse and Kang with the second leading into the Celestials and the end of the multiverse which then leads into Scarlett Witch emerging as the biggest threat moving forward.

I'm incredibly doubtful that focusing on mutants for Phases 7-9 is going to prove to be much of a hook

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Coogler Talks Denzel In "Black Panther 3" - Dark Horizons
Coogler says he's still working on getting Washington to sign on and that Black Panther III will be coming a lot sooner than has been expected. There remains at least two slots available for MCU movies between the releases of both Avengers films in 2026 and 2027 but one of the producers has said this will come after both placing it at late 2027/Feb 2028.

Marvel's "Blade" Film Has Been Scrapped? - Dark Horizons
Whilst rumour is Blade has been cancelled and the character will instead be introduced as a cameo in another film

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"Beyond the Spider-Verse" Photos, Release Date - Dark Horizons
Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse will release on 04 June 2027 which is confirmed to open seconds after the cliffhanger of the second film

Hardy: Venom & Spidey Crossover Came Close - Dark Horizons
Tom Hardy has confirmed they came very close to making a crossover film with Spider-Man which fell through, also that his Venom films were made with a lot of constraints on what they could and couldn't do

Marvel's "Spider-Man 4" Film Gets A Title - Dark Horizons
The next Spider-Man movie has been confirmed to be called Spider-Man: Brand New Day and will open 31 July 2026.

https://comicbookmovie.com/avengers/avengers-the-kang-dynasty/jeff-loveness-avengers-the-kang-dynasty-script-appears-to-have-leaked-online-and-its-undeniably-wild-a217363

And it may prove to be nonsense but it's been reported that the full script for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has leaked. The script appears to have little bearing on what we will see come to screen in Avengers: Doomsday as much has changed including the release order of series, Kang's benching, casting decisions, existing plot arcs etc.

The general storyline of the film is said to have been:

The Ant-Man: Quantumania version of Kang, having been sent into the beyond by Scott, is plagued by visions of his dead wife and child. The Council of Kangs seen in the post-credits sequence of that film seek to power themselves up by drinking the blood of the X-Men and collecting the Ten Rings and Ms Marvels bands. Meanwhile Peter Parker is at Uni with Miles Morales, who is already powered up. Sam has assembled the new Avengers which comprises of himself, Falcon, Shuri, War Machine and Ironheart.

The Kang's invade Earth seeking the Rings and Bands, in the process they destroy most of the planet and kill Pepper, Cassie, Happy, Morgan, Hank, Janet, Hope. The lead Kang of the Council rules from orbit and so Sam calls out to other heroes resulting in Hulk, Thor, She-Hulk, the new Guardians, Daredevil, Punisher, Moon Knight, Captain Marvel, Valkyrie, Hawkeye, Kate and Nick Fury coming together to form a three pronged plan.

Spider-Man leads one team sent to take out a commanding Kang which goes wrong and sees Miles, Daredevil, Punisher, Ironheart, War Machine and Hawkeye all be killed

Doctor Strange leads a second team to bait the army that has captured the Ten Rings which leads to a multiversal fight between realms. This results in Love, Valkyrie, Adam Warlock, Phyla and Cosmos being killed. Clea sacrifices herself to send the remaining heroes back to Earth but the Kang variant manages to grab Strange's slingring.

Sam goes to the orbit base to fight the main Kang. Captain Marvel, Rocket, Hulks son, She-Hulk, Quinn and Falcon are all killed. The Kang leader gets one of the bangs so Wonder Man dons the other to battle him but loses. Having killed Wonder Man, Kang has both bangs.

Earths political leaders send Sentinels made of Adamantium which the lead Kang takes over and uses to destroy Wakanda. With the lead Kang possessing god-like powers, he commands the death of other lead Kangs to cement his power

Strange is rescued from the multiverse by the Fantastic Four and taken to the TVA.

The TVA has been trying to plan to combat Kangs ascension and has assembled the Multiverse Avengers - a team comprised of Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Wolverine, Garfield's Spider-Man, Nic Cage's Ghostrider and Maguire's Spider-Man.

The Quantumania Kang meanwhile passes through a probability cloud and is able to absorb his many variants across the multiverse to become a powerful variant.

The remaining Avengers from Earth are licking their wounds from their failed mission but are then wiped out by the leader Kang except from Ms Marvel and Spider-Man. The Quantumania Kang arrives to challenge the lead Kang which triggers the Multiverse War, Ms Marvel and Spider-Man are saved by the TVA just in time.

Both remaining Kangs head to Loki who is holding the multiverse together still, he pleads with them but they kill him triggering the collapse of the multiverse. The Quantumania Kang kills the lead Kang and settles on a peaceful world with his revived wife and child leaving the Multiversal Avengers stranded on a TVA arc.

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"The Marvels" Director Reflects On Film's Issues - Dark Horizons

Hayley Atwell Confirmed For Next "Avengers" - Dark Horizons

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"The Marvels" Director Reflects On Film's Issues - Dark Horizons

Personally, I thought it was kinda obvious. It's that the film was the cross-over of Captain Marvel (& CM's appearance in Endgame) which were films made for the much broader MCU movie audience, and the Ms. Marvel TV show, which was marketed towards tween and young teen girls, with a kinda "Disney Channel Original Show" kinda vibe.

I didn't go see The Marvels because the Ms. Marvel show wasn't marketed to me or made for me, ergo I never watched it, and I assumed that I'd need more than a passing familiarity with the characters to be invested in the movie.

I saw it on Disney+ and thought it was fine, in the same way I thought Black Widow was fine. It was the MCU at its most formulaic, though it did have some very nice, unique moments (as do all of these films pretty much).

But I can't have been the only person who felt this way. It's kinda like how The Fast & Furious franchise and Jurassic Park franchise both have sub-franchises of 80s-style saturday-morning cartoons on Netflix that are specifically for kids. I like both of those franchises, but if they did a live-action movie sequel to those series, I'm not gonna go see them.

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Carter, Lindo Talk Marvel's "Blade" Freeze - Dark Horizons
Confirmation that the film has been shut down and had it moved forward would have been set in the 1920's