With Doctor Strange about to hit the theaters and the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 teaser being released I thought it was time to look at the future of the MCU. By this I mean phase 4 of the MCU, as we already know most movies coming out in the remainder of phase 3. While a lot of phase 3 is still shrouded in mystery, we do know which movies are coming out with the final villain (Thanos). This blog will try to speculate the villain and new heroes of phase 4 and onward.
THE VILLAIN OR VILLAINS
With Thanos most likely being the main villain of Avengers Infinity War, who will be the next big bad guy to take on the Avengers? Some candidates are the Masters of Evil, Kang the Conqueror, and the Skrulls starting their Secret Invasion. Kang is owned by Fox and the Skrulls are co-owned by Fox and Disney so they are less likely but still valid. My personal favourite of them all has to be the Masters of Evil. We haven’t seen the avengers take on an equally powerful group of super humans; we’ve only seen them take on armies led by one person but never a group of people that counter the heroes themselves. They could bring back some villains from phase 1 and 2 to add to the team and/or introduce some new villains.
THE NEW GENERATION
Some actors from phase 1 might not stick around after phase 3, with Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Hemsworth all nearing the end of their multi-movie contract. Who will be left to take their places? With many current movies (Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Spider-man) most likely getting sequels in phase 4 we can also expect a few new heroes as Marvel has a trend of adding at least one new superhero every year. In my opinion, a great addition to the growing roster of heroes would be the Fantastic 4. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that they belong to Fox, however, if Marvel would be able to obtain their rights (like Spider-man) it would be AWESOME! They are the original Marvel family and it would be nice to do them justice on the big screen. Some other heroes that would also be great are Nova, Namor (if that Fox deal goes well), a Venom solo movie, and Spider-Woman. There are some rumors right now surrounding phase 4 like a Ghost Rider or Blade reboot and a possible Thunderbolts movie.
In the end the future for the MCU looks bright and diverse for both heroes and villains alike and I’m not worried with the current path this universe is taking. Even though there are some problems with the universe I’m sure they can work it out in the near future. All we can do now is wait until the next time we can grab some popcorn and watch the newest movie.