Marvel came prepared with the reveals for their return to Hall H in over three years with some of the biggest announcements from San Diego Comic Con 2022.
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If there is one word to describe Phase 4 of the MCU, it would be long. With over 100 hours of content, it is the longest yet as this era saw the introduction of MCU shows and explored where the characters have gone since the events of Endgame. It is a lot to take in to the point where it can even get confusing. But if you thought that Phase 4 has remained mostly aimless, we finally know where all these recent multiverse shenanigans are going with Marvel’s San Diego Comic Con 2022 presentation. But it wasn’t just Kevin Feige who made all the news during the event as Marvel made sure to have an eventful presence over the weekend. Here’s a rundown of what Marvel announced and revealed during Comic Con
ANIMATED MARVEL
Up first for Marvel was their first ever animation panel. And they came prepared with a slew of shows. First was What If…? season two, which is slated to drop in 2023. The upcoming season will feature heroes like Captain Carter, Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Black Widow, and Doctor Strange, as well as newcomers like Shang-Chi. During the panel, they revealed that an episode will be set in the medieval ages while another will center on racing. And even though we haven’t seen footage yet, they also announced that season three was in the works. And speaking of, Marvel Zombies is set to be an animated spin-off series of the memorable zombies episode of season one of What If. Marvel Zombies was always something many fans wanted to see take the leap from page to screen and it’s finally happening. We already know zombie Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are going to be a hit.
While Marvel did not reveal an X-Men movie coming to the MCU (yet), they did give more details on the highly anticipated X-Men 97’ show. Serving as a sequel to the classic X-Men: The Animated Series, the new show will follow Rogue, Beast, Gambit, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Jubilee, Cyclops, Cable, Bishop, Forge, Morph, Nightcrawler, and many more mutants. Magneto will serve as the X-Men’s new leader and they will go up against the Hellfire Club, led by Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw. Other series villain will include Mr. Sinister and Bolivar Trask. The show is expected to drop in fall 2023 with a second season already in the works.
We got our first look at I Am Groot, a CG animated series staring the titular hero as he takes his hijinks around the universe. The show will land on Disney+ on August 10 as a five-part series with a second batch to drop at a later date. Finally, we got more details on Spider-Man: Freshman Year. The animated series will follow Peter Parker during, as you can guess, freshman year high school with an all new set of friends, like Nico Minoru from Runaways, and villains. Peter’s rogue’s gallery this go around will include Chameleon, Rhino, Unicron, Doctor Octopus, and Scorpion. Norman and Harry Osborne, Doctor Strange, and Daredevil will all making appearances in the show as well, with Charlie Cox confirmed to be voicing the latter. The series is set to drop in 2024 with as second season already announced.
END OF PHASE 4
It’s been a long time coming, but Phase 4 of the MCU is finally coming to an end this year. As confirmed by Kevin Feige, the last two MCU properties coming will be the She-Hulk series in August and Black Panther 2 in November. In the new She-Hulk trailer they dropped, we get to see more of Jennifer Walter’s training, fourth wall breaks and all, as well as her stint as a high-profile superhero attorney in New York City. As she balances superhero work with her job, which includes representing The Abomination in court, she encounters some familiar faces like Wong and what looks to be Daredevil. The show is being described as the MCU’s first ever true rom-com.
As for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, it was an emotional moment with a trailer that hit right in the feels. We see in the first trailer all our old favorites, still reeling from the death of T’Challa, as they come together once more to protect Wakanda from a new threat, Namor the Submariner (Tenoch Huerta), the king of Atlantis. We also get our first look of Ironheart (Dominique Thorn), a young woman widely regarded as the next Iron Man, beautiful shots of the Wakanda seas, that water birth scene and someone in the Black Panther costume.
The trailer, which includes a heart-wrenching speech from Angela Bassett’s Queen Ramonda, is sound tracked to Kendrick Lamar’s Alright, specifically the line “we gonna be alright.” That line is seemingly referencing how even though Chadwick Boseman may be gone, the movie is looking to honor his legacy and let the people in his life know that things will be okay. It’s a powerful trailer and November can’t come soon enough.
WELCOME TO PHASE 5
Phases 1, 2, and 3 of the MCU cumulated in what is known as The Infinity Saga. And for Phase 4, 5, and 6, we finally know what all these past movies and shows have been building up to. Kevin Feige revealed that these next phases will culminate in what will now be called The Multiverse Saga. And to that end, we already know every movie and show coming to Phase 5. Kicking off Phase 5 will be Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania releasing on February 17, 2023.
The film is set to follow Scott Lang after the events of Endgame as he’s let the fame of helping defeat Thanos get to him. He even writes a book about it, which leads to some stain between Scott and his family. In an exclusive trailer shown during the presentation, Scott gets sucked into the quantum realm where he encounters Kang the Conqueror. The trailer also showed the briefest glimpse of MODOK, as well as Scott’s daughter, Cassie Lang, wearing a purple suit, possibly to take on the persona of Stature or Stinger. Given the importance Kang will play later down the line, it will be interesting to see what he does here.
They also revealed new details for the Secret Invasion show coming Spring 2023. Nick Furry returns to earth following his stint in space in what is being described as the MCU’s take on a dark thriller series. Aside from returning characters, Don Cheadle’s War Machine is set to appear, as well as new cast members like Emilia Clarke and Olivia Coleman. Given how the show will focus on the shapeshifting Skrulls, prepare for your trust to be tested. Up next is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 dropping on May 5, 2023. The movie is set to be the end of the Guardian’s story.
During the Comic Con exclusive trailer, it is revealed that Gamora is leading The Ravagers while Adam Warlock looks to be the big bad of the film. Rocket’s origins will also be explored with High Evolutionary potentially being revealed to be Rocket’s creator. Finally, it was confirmed that Maria Balakova will be playing Cosmo the Space Dog.
Up next in Summer 2023 is the Hawkeye Spin-off series Echo starring Alaqua Cox’s character of the same name. Given the ending of Hawkeye, the MCU’s first deaf hero still has some unfinished business. Loki’s time travel adventures continues with Loki season two dropping in Summer 2023. As the MCU’s first sequel series, the new season has a lot to answer given the major revelations in season one. The highly anticipated and highly delayed Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels is dropping on July 28, 2023 with Captain Marvel and her new superpowered friends taking on a new foe (rumored to be Noh-Varr, played by Park Seo Joon). In Autumn 2023, the Ironheart series premieres and we most likely will know what the show will be about after we first see Riri Williams in Black Panther 2.
November 2023 will be a big one as that is when Blade will finally be released. It was three years ago in Hall H at Comic Con that it was revealed that Mahershala Ali will play the titular half vampire. And now we know when it’s coming. We already saw the first glimpse of him during the post-credit scene of The Eternals so things are definitely cooking for Blade. Shooting for the film begins this October, quite fitting if you ask us. Rounding out 2023 will be the series premier of WandaVision spin-off Agatha: Coven of Chaos, set to drop in Winter 2023. Agatha Harkness was a scene stealer in WandaVision and this new series looks to flesh out her character even more during her multiple decades as a dark witch. Who knows, the series might even see Agatha break out of Wanda’s spell.
2024 begins on a high note for the MCU as Spring 2024 sees the premier of the highly anticipated Daredevil: Born Again, which will serve as Charlie Cox’s officially solo entry into the MCU. Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin will also return in the eighteen episode series. For comic book fans, the show’s title is familiar because it’s a reference to the acclaimed comic of the same name, which saw The Kingpin discover the true identity of Daredevil and use that to ruin his life. But that storyline was used in season three of the Netflix Daredevil show and the title seems to just show how this is him being born again into the MCU.
Sam Wilson get’s his first solo film as Captain America with Captain America: New World Order dropping on May 23, 2024. Lastly, Phase 5 of the MCU closes with the Thunderbolts movie on July 28, 2024. In case you don’t know who they are, the Thunderbolts were initially revealed to be a new group of superheroes who sprung up after the death of the Avengers. It turns out though that they were supervillains in disguise wanting to take over the world. These days, the Thunderbolts are sometimes depicted as a group of mostly reformed villains who do the missions too dirty for the regular heroes. Given the MCU’s current roster, a potential lineup could include Baron Zemo, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Yelena Belova, Abomination, John Walker, and Taskmaster.
THE MULTIVERSE SAGA
Finally, Kevin Feige gave us a peek into Phase 6 with the Multiverse Saga finally reaching its conclusion. For starters, November 8, 2024, will see the release of the MCU Fantastic Four movie. Aside from that cameo in Doctor Strange 2, Marvel’s first family is finally coming to the MCU in a film that will hopefully be better than the past tries. Skipping a full year to 2025, we will see the release of the next Avengers movie called Avengers: Kang Dynasty on May 2, 2025. And on November 7, 2025, will see the release of its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars.
To any Marvel comic fan, Secret Wars is a pivotal moment that has seen a few iterations in the Marvel comic world. The most recent one was in 2015, which saw the different Marvel universes collide to create a single one called Battleworld. There, all the Marvel characters live in sometimes peace and occasionally war with the Thor Corps and Sheriff Strange serving as the police. It’s a multiverse altering event that will change the MCU forever so it will be interesting to see how the Phase 5 and the rest of Phase 6 build things up. Many things need to happen in order for Secret Wars to occur, most pivotally the introduction of Doctor Doom, hence the Fantastic Four movie.
Given the gaps in Phase 6, there are still a lot more to be announced. And with D23 coming in September, the MCU might just barrage us more with heavy hitters. Regardless of what may happen, the MCU’s future is now clearer with a multiverse-centric endgame now in the cards.
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