Edit: Updated to show the latest version of this idea.

This isn’t a fanedit (as it doesn’t change the content of any movies) so much as my thoughts on an alternate watch order to maximise coherence when watching the whole of the MCU, and thus maximise enjoyment and minimise cogintive load. I’m really just putting it here for discussion and consideration, to share my preferred watch order.

Goals:

• Minimise cognitive load: The world should grow at a more natural pace, so things build on known concepts and characters more often than introducing new ones. Characters should come off the board sooner (so they don’t just exist in the world silently, not getting involved in major events, with us having to wait until their next personal movie to learn why), new side characters should be introduced as close to their next main appearances as possible, and plotlines should be set up and wrapped up as closely together as possible - especially the bad ones.
• Focus plotlines: Keep content contained to thematic chunks, so ideas are introduced and then resolved in as few elapsed movies as possible, to make phases’ plots easier to follow. Content that precedes or directly follows other content should be placed as close as possible to triggering events. Ongoing MAJOR plotlines (Thanos, multiverse) should be drip-fed so they’re not overwhelming. Post-Endgame, where there’s more content, ongoing plotlines (Young Avengers, new main Avengers, street level) should remain evenly spaced out.
• Balance themes, settings, and characters: Find more of a balance between grounded/cosmic/technology/magic/other realms stories so you get more variance in tone more frequently, to prevent burnout and keep it all fresh.
• Eight movies/seasons per phase: That just feels clean and balanced to me, and seems to fit nicely. The Thanos arc balances really well around phases ending on Avengers 1, Civil War, and Infinity War/Endgame, all of which are eight movies long. And post-Thanos can be made to work this way too - improving the bloat in Phase 4, where almost every movie or show set up plot threads and characters that won’t get paid off for years.

I also have flip-flopped a lot on taking the multiverse elements out of the Aftermath phase (Phase 4), but ultimately settled on drip-feeding it throughout this whole post-Endgame arc, because it lets you balance the characters better and stops you having a single overwhelming multiverse blast - plus it permits those little hints in Spidey 2 and Wandavision which both need to come early after Endgame.

It’s intended to work as pretty-much chronological, but following a more natural flow than the official ordering, without breaking anything. It ignores any on-screen dates (some of which are officially wrong anyway), flashbacks (like Homecoming’s flashbacks to just after the battle of New York) and post-credit scenes set significantly later (like Black Widow’s scene at her grave in a movie set mainly long before she died), so it probably isn’t best for a first time viewer. Though it’d be fairly easy to edit the placement of some of those if you really cared.

I’ll add comments in brackets wherever there’s a relevant change.

PHASE ONE: TESSERACT
Focus: The Tesseract, SHIELD, Asgardian influence on Earth, and the emergence of Earth’s first wave of superheroes.

• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Agent Carter season one, or the TV-to-movie edit of season one (Gives us more Peggy, Howard, Jarvis, Tesseract, and SHIELD)
• Captain Marvel
• Iron Man
• The Incredible Hulk
• Thor
• Iron Man 2 (placed here just to pad it from Iron Man 1 a bit more, and give the events of Thor a bit more time to settle in before Avengers)
• Avengers

PHASE TWO: CONSEQUENCES
Focus: The direct result of events in phase one, and growing internal and cosmic conflict.

• Thor: The Dark World (the immediate effects of Loki’s arrest in Avengers)
• Iron Man 3 (given just a little longer for Tony to really start to struggle with the events of Avengers)
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Guardians of the Galaxy (all fresh just when we’re getting a bit tired of repeated characters and have just had a couple of more grounded movies)
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Ant-Man
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 (give us a little more cosmic amongst the more grounded stuff, and helps pace this phase)
• Captain America: Civil War (Breaks the Avengers apart. This is the ‘conclusion’ that this phase is leading towards, rather than Age of Ultron.)

Optional: All (good) Netflix Defenders shows go here (while our heroes are broken, before the sprint to Endgame)

PHASE THREE: DISASSEMBLED
Focus: Deals with the fallout of Civil War, the introduction of the second wave of all-new superheroes, and the conclusion of the Infinity/Thanos arc.

• Black Panther (their King died in Civil War, we see the immediate aftermath)
• Spider-Man: Homecoming (he’s been waiting a while for Tony’s call after Civil War)
• Black Widow (she’s been on the run for a fair while since Civil War)
• Ant-Man and the Wasp (precedes Infinity War, but not as immediately as the following films)
• Doctor Strange (introduces him as late as possible before Infinity War so he’s not just hanging about with nothing major to do for a few movies)
• Thor: Ragnarok (final scene flows directly into the first scene of Infinity War, and continues the Doctor Strange thread)
• Avengers: Infinity War
• Avengers: Endgame

PHASE 4: AFTERMATH
Focus: As much content as possible that deals with the immediate aftermath of Endgame, for the world and for our most major characters (the Big Six and Phase 2 Avengers). We introduce the multiverse via Loki, Kang, and easter eggs only, but take Kang back off the board as quickly as possible as that’s going nowhere now.

• Loki (S1) (immediate aftermath of his actions in Endgame, and sets up the multiverse)
• Spider-Man Far From Home (starts a ‘legacy of Tony Stark’ thread, aftermath of Endgame for the world)
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (plus gives us a bit of Wakanda)
• Thor: Love and Thunder (plus gives us a bit of Guardians)
• Hawkeye (starts the street level thread, continues the relevance of Black Widow)
• Wandavision
• Ant-Man: Quantumania
• Loki (S2) (gets Kang back off the board as quickly as possible, sets up the unstable multiverse)

Optional: All (good) Sony Spider-Man movies go here (to show us what the multiverse can mean, and set up No Way Home)

PHASE 5: NEW WORLD ORDER
Focus: Answers the question of who’ll defend the world now via the remaining main Avengers and their associated characters, deals with the other consequences of the Snap/Blip, strong Hulk thread, strong Wong thread, strong Contessa Valentina De Fontaine thread.

• Spider-Man: No Way Home (light touch on Daredevil, immediate consequence of unstable multiverse)
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (continues the ‘legacy of Tony Stark’ thread via Ironheart)
• Shang-Chi (also gives us the last of the main characters not yet returned to)
• Eternals
• Echo (continues the street level thread)
• She-Hulk (properly reintroduces Daredevil, Eternals easter egg)
• Captain America: Brave New World (wraps up the Eternals thread)
• Thunderbolts (gets them in play as early as possible given their required setup after revisiting more major characters - and halfway between Endgame and Secret Wars)

Optional: All (good) Fox X-Men movies go here (plus any of the ‘multiversal forgotten’ that Deadpool & Wolverine references if you like)

PHASE 6: X-CALATION
Focus: Multiversal escalation - especially with X-Men Characters, ending in a solid reminder of some Loki plotlines. And now that Earth has its heroes again, a focus on other frontiers (space, dimensions, realities). A couple of new Young Avengers lead to Kamala Khan’s decision to form a group.

• Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
• Ironheart (continues the ‘legacy of Tony Stark’ thread)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
• Ms. Marvel
• Daredevil: Born Again (finally brings Daredevil and Fisk back into proper conflict)
• Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3
• The Marvels
• Deadpool & Wolverine

Optional: What If? and Marvel Zombies go here (to refresh us on prior plotlines and characters before it all kicks off)

PHASE 7: COLLISION
Focus: This phase takes the main focuses of each of the previous ones and smashes them together. We’ve got Phase 4’s multiverse setup, Phase 5’s Hulk and New Avengers threads, Phase 6’s X-Men thread, and the running street level and Young Avengers/Champions minor threads.

• Fantastic 4 (to kickoff and conclude the phase)
• Wonder Man (lightly a ‘legacy of Tony Stark’ plot via Trevor Slattery, and also features DODC, plus Wonder Man is hinted at as a mutant, though you could swap this for Secret Invasion if you’d rather touch on Fury here)
• Agatha All Along
• Daredevil (Season 2) (escalates the street level conflict)
• Vision Quest
• Punisher special (more street level, into-)
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Spidey, Hulk, Daredevil, Punisher, and surely a lead into-)
• Avengers: Doomsday
• Avengers: Secret Wars (which we believe will set up a YA/Champions show and many X-Men media to follow)

That leaves Secret Invasion, Werewolf by Night, and Moon Knight dangling. Some of those may grow into the rumoured Marvel Knights movie/show. If Secret Wars gets split into two movies, as is rumoured, then I’d probably pull out Ironheart for now, and shift Wonder Man (mutant) or Agatha back by a phase, to make room for it in Phase 7.

If there’s interest I might flesh this out with where I’d put all the post-credit scenes. I’m not looking to make a true-chronological edit, the movies still have to work as their own thing. But I might look to shift the post-credit scenes to make this as smooth as possible.

You are a GOD at strategising these things! Based on quality, would you recommend any edits of the movies?

I honestly haven’t seen many edits of the MCU. The main issues people have had are the misplaced Marvel humour, which I don’t really mind, and a handful of more recent movies and series being a bit weaker than average, which are disappointing but I kinda just roll with.

That said, the Agent Carter TV-to-movie edit tightens it perfectly (I forget who made it but it’s in Reddit), and our boy Spence has made a brilliant TV-to-movie edit of Falcon and Winter Soldier. I’d be interested in more series becoming movies, but most of them I’m happy with in their current form.

I generally really like the whole MCU, and the fact that it’s quickly becoming as chaotic as the comics is fun to me. Hence why I’m not looking to do anything radical here, just making it easier to digest.

No matter, I can always pick my own favourite edits of each individual movie while following your recommended viewing order. 😁

honestabe, it’s kind of just that list above for now, I just thought I’d share how I order the movies.

I agree that the non-MCU Spider-Man movies should be watched before No Way Home, but I guess there’s three approaches:

• Firstly, watching them in parallel with an MCU watchthrough, in which case the (hypothetical first time) viewer might get confused about why we’re watching Spider-Men from other worlds, or if they don’t understand the multiverse, wonder why older Spider-Men don’t show up in the MCU.
• Secondly, watching them after the multiverse is revealed in the MCU, which helps explain why we’re watching them, and ties them into the MCU plot, but which makes phase 4 very Spider-Man heavy. The other negative here is that Tobey’s and Andrew’s Spider-Men are arguably more related to the ‘classic’ Spider-Man origin, which Tom’s Spider-Man is somewhat dependent on knowledge of.
• Thirdly, you could just treat them as their own side thing, and not consider them as part of a core MCU rewatch, keeping them out of the way but less well integrated up until No Way Home.

Same deal really applies with X-Men. If you try to interweave them, it muddies the water, but if you try to put them to one side, you eventually have to deep-dive them which interrupts the MCU watch.

As for actual edits, I’m not desperate for radical changes, but I’d be interested to know which edits people recommend. I might start compiling that information.

As for getting more valuable discussion on FanEdit.org or Reddit, sure, but I like you guys more! ❤️

Oh nice Nells, cheers for the recommendations! I’d take a look at yours if you’ll share the links, and point me to their threads/info pages please?

That’s a perfect suggestion. Love it. Two (long) interludes.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about this, based on the knowledge that Fox Spider-Man and X-Men are becoming increasingly important to the MCU. I also observed that the first three phases, as I have them, break neatly into arcs of eight items each. I still think that anything multiversal should follow from Loki season one and What If, so the concept is clearly explained first (and, in What If, we remix a lot of what came immediately before).

But if we wanted to give Fox X-Men and Spider-Man more breathing space, again with the priority of introducing as little as possible as late as possible, how might that look? After endgame, you could go:

PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH
Focused solely on what’s next for the main characters and wrapping up existing plots as much as possible before we get into the multiverse:

• Spider-Man: Far From Home (follows quite soon after Iron Man’s death, addresses his successors and the need to deal with ‘Avengers-level threats’)
• The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (follows a while after Captain America’s retirement, addresses his successors and the status quo for the more grounded world, gives a hint at Wakanda)
• Thor Love and Thunder (shows what’s next for Thor, New Asgard, and the Guardians, and placed here gives enough pacing before returning to the Guardians in this phase)
• Netflix Daredevil (Some of it) (sets up Matt’s appearance in No Way Home, and Fisk’s appearance in…)
• Hawkeye (shows the fallout of Hawkeye’s retirement and Black Widow’s death, is christmassy)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (is christmassy)
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (does introduce some new characters and ideas, but it shows us what Carol, Bruce and Wong are up to, so we’ve now got the full post-Endgame state of the Avengers. I could have put Black Panther here but (1) they’re isolationist, (2) T’Challa has died, (3) it’s mainly set about a year after T’Challa’s death and (4) that one introduces lots more new ideas too. At least you get a little hint of what Wakanda is up to in TFatWS. Also, this puts Captain Marvel on the board ahead of her appearance in The Marvels.)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Volume 3) (at least feels fairly conclusive, even though it’s not a crossover/Avengers-type finale)

FIRST INTERLUDE: THE MULTIVERSAL WEB
Focused on introducing the multiverse through the lens of variants of known characters, especially Spider-Man, and lightly sets up Dr. Strange as the MCU’s main multiversal guardian.
(Here, and with other similar phases/interludes, we allow the stories from other universes to be told out of time - until they become relevant to the MCU chronology. What If? was flashbacks, and I think it’s easiest to digest Spider-Man and X-Men content within this context too. You could play this interlude as early as just after Far From Home, or even start this thread right after Endgame but put Far From Home sometime during this, since it does hint at the Multiverse [and if they end up casting Jake Gyllenhaal as Reed Richards as well as Quentin Beck we might end up with a weird multiversal retcon here anyway].)

• Loki season one (is timeless, introduces the multiverse)
• What If? season one (demonstrates the multiverse concept and remixes everything from before as a means of farewell)
• Maguire Spider-Man 1
• Maguire Spider-Man 2
• Maguire Spider-Man 3
• Amazing Spider-Man 1
• Amazing Spider-Man 2
• Spider-Man: No Way Home (brings us back to the MCU’s present and gives us the first true multiversal collision of Earth-616.)

SECOND INTERLUDE: MULTIVERSAL MUTANTS
Focused on the best core X-Men movies (an interesting group who don’t yet have an MCU analogue), and starts to hint at their future overlap with the MCU.
(As with the previous interlude we’re out of time with our X-Men stories until they start getting pulled into our MCU chronology. And we headcanon that X-Men style time travel basically starts to fuck up the canon of a given timeline, which is rumoured to get paid lip service in Deadpool 3.)

• X-Men: First Class (introduces the X-Men nicely)
• X-Men (the original movie, re-introduces the X-Men and the modern day setting and characters)
• X-2 (the original movie’s sequel, and is good, but I reckon we can skip the third one)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (ties together the past and present eras, is great, features other Pietro, and shows some time-fuckery which sounds like it’ll be relevant to the future of the MCU)
• Wandavision (has the multiversal Pietro tease, which we later learn is possibly ‘a dream of a parallel universe’, and gives us Monica Rambeau and sets up Wanda’s next appearance)
• Ms Marvel (placed here to pace Wanda’s two appearances, is another ‘celebrate the MCU’ show, will be relevant shortly, and identifies Kamala as a mutant)
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (gives us Strange, Wanda’s big bad moment, the Illuminati featuring another prof. X and another Maria Rambeau, teases for the future, and more multiversal threats)
• The Marvels (features Kamala, Carol, and Monica Rambeau, and I won’t spoil you with detail here but it really fits with this group)

THIRD INTERLUDE: MULTIVERSAL COLLISIONS
Focusing on concluding the outstanding plots and their assumed tie-ins with the MCU.

• Deadpool (continues the Fox X-Men thread, plus his fourth wall breaks are also often multiversal)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (introduces Miles and continues the collision of worlds. Also, these are just excellent so let’s just watch them as part of the expanded MCU)
• Logan (is excellent, and is spoiled by Deadpool 2 so must go before it)
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (really shows worlds smashing together, especially through the spidery lens, and lightly implies it’s aware of No Way Home)
• Deadpool 2 (can go here since it features time travel, which is allowed to muck things up relative to Logan)
• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (we assume will conclude that trilogy, and may feature other cameos/tie-ins)
• Loki season two (I haven’t seen yet but exists out of time and seems to fit neatly here because-)
• Deadpool 3 (reportedly will bring both Deadpool and Fox Wolverine into the MCU, via the TVA, and is likely to be cameo laden)

PHASE FIVE: BRAVE NEW WORLDS
This one’s pretty incomplete so it’s mainly my dumping ground for as-yet unconnected items, all mostly showing us new faces and secret societies.

• Wakanda Forever (ideally would go a bit earlier, though it introduces a lot that’ll be more relevant after this point more than pays off stuff prior to it)
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (should remind us that Kang is coming, though I don’t know if this placement conflicts with Loki 2 yet)
• Eternals (technically comes soon after the Snap/Blip, but I headcanon that the emergence is caused by an inevitable post-global-trauma baby boom)
• She-Hulk (has an Eternals cameo moment)
• Secret Invasion (seems utterly irrelevant to the plot of The Marvels, apparently)
• Moon Knight
• Werewolf by Night
• What If? season two (likely falls around here, since it might remix any currently released property)

Ah, fair enough. I’ll get caught up on Loki just now.

Loki season two was excellent, and as you say should sit after Ant-Man 3. But that’s OK, the third interlude can slide back a bit. I’ll see how this shapes up after The Marvel’s and the next few releases up to Deadpool 3.

Obviously this is all in flux until the future content comes out, but maybe to shore up the little eight-episode narratives a little better (and accommodate the Loki 2/Ant-Man 3 content), it’d go a little more like this:

• PHASE ONE: TESSERACT (as per OP)
• PHASE TWO: ESCALATION (as per OP)
• PHASE THREE: DISASSEMBLED (as per OP)
• PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH (as per previous post)
• FIRST INTERLUDE: THE MULTIVERSAL WEB (as per previous post)
• SECOND INTERLUDE: MULTIVERSAL MUTANTS (as per previous post)

And then-

PHASE FIVE: BRAVE NEW WORLDS
This one’s pretty incomplete so it’s mainly my dumping ground for as-yet unconnected items, all mostly showing us new faces and secret societies.

• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• Wakanda Forever (ideally would go a bit earlier, though it introduces a lot that’ll be more relevant after this point more than pays off stuff prior to it)
• Eternals (technically comes soon after the Snap/Blip, but I headcanon that the emergence is caused by an inevitable post-global-trauma baby boom)
• She-Hulk (has an Eternals cameo moment)
• Secret Invasion (seems utterly irrelevant to the plot of The Marvels, apparently)
• Moon Knight
• Werewolf by Night
• What If? season two (likely falls around here, since it might remix any currently released property)

THIRD INTERLUDE: MULTIVERSAL COLLISIONS
Focusing on concluding the outstanding plots and their assumed tie-ins with the MCU. That said, if X-Men '97 and/or Spider-Man: Freshman year become relevant to MCU canon, maybe this splits out into two seperate interludes again.

• Loki season two (Let’s put this earliest in the phase, as if the way it ends causes even more of the multiversal fuckery we see in these movies.)
• Deadpool (continues the Fox X-Men thread, plus his fourth wall breaks are also often multiversal)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (introduces Miles and continues the collision of worlds. Also, these are just excellent so let’s just watch them as part of the expanded MCU)
• Logan (is excellent, and is spoiled by Deadpool 2 so must go before it)
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (really shows worlds smashing together, especially through the spidery lens, and lightly implies it’s aware of No Way Home)
• Deadpool 2 (can go here since it features time travel, which is allowed to muck things up relative to Logan)
• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (we assume will conclude that trilogy, and may feature other cameos/tie-ins)
• Deadpool 3 (reportedly will bring both Deadpool and Fox Wolverine into the MCU, via the TVA, and is likely to be cameo laden)

It then seems like most of the currently announced projects should line up nicely towards the next Avengers movies:

• Echo
• Agatha: Darkhold Diaries
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Fantastic Four
• Thunderbolts
• Blade
• Avengers: The Kang Dynasty
• Avengers: Secret Wars

But we still don’t know where the next MCU Spider-Man or Shang-Chi will fall in that, nor Daredevil, Armor Wars and Ironheart, Wakanda, or Vision Quest.

I don’t know why I’ve spent so much time thinking about this… I really don’t. But I keep coming back to this in my mind. In my latest batch of noodling, I’ve been able to clarify the mission statement of this ‘project’ that’s barely a project: It’s about reducing fatigue. We’re all feeling it, so how do we keep it fresh? Minimising cognitive load, as I’ve mentioned above, is a major one - introducing new shit as late as is relevant, and taking things back off the board early, without breaking things - and another is flow and pacing, best achieved by balancing the highs, lows, and crossovers. I really like the eight-item cadence to a lot of this.

The issues I’ve been more focused on lately is that, now we’ve had Loki 2 and Marvels 2, what’s the right balance of all the post-Endgame stuff now that we’re ramping up the multiverse. I spent a huge amount of time and thought revisiting that era, with the big challenge being wanting to put Loki and What If 1 as early as possible (as they so immediately follow from Endgame), versus needing to not overwhelm. I tried shifting Guardians to let Loki-Spidey be that first arc, I tried Loki-Wanda as the core, etc etc. But the big determining factor in my decision for the current ordering was all the multiversal stuff (Sony Spider-Man, Fox X-Men) that starts to play into the current MCU plot. In essence, if we introduce the multiverse (via Loki, What If, Sony Spidey, etc) at the same time as dealing with the more grounded post-Endgame content which also seeks to set up the new Earth-616 stakes, there’s no focus and we’re throwing so much new shit at the wall with very little coherence or payoff. Or in other words, we haven’t dealt with the fatigue problem. And then if you’re watching Sony Spidey and Fox X-Men during this period, it’s even worse.

So the focus of the post-Endgame block really must be to wipe the slate as clean as possible so that the viewer doesn’t burn out on all this New Shit.

For PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH then, it’s as I had it before:

• Spider-Man: Far From Home deals with our fear over the next Avengers-level threat (plus Spidey, post-Tony, and Fury).
• Falcon and Winter Soldier deals with the global political state post-Endgame (plus Sam and Bucky, post-Steve and a hint of Wakanda)
• Daredevil is necessary here for Daredevil and Kingpin
• Thor: Love and Thunder deals with Asgardian refugees post-Endgame plus (plus Thor and Valkyrie)
• Hawkeye deals with post-Avengers issues and more Kingpin (plus Yelena and new Hawkeye)
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special sets them up again
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings introduces some new shit (plus an update on Hulk and Captain Marvel)
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 wraps them up and takes them off the board in a big, satisfying finale.

At this point, the decks are as clear as they can be. The focus is almost entirely on existing known characters and the state of the world post-Endgame. And because the decks are clear in 616, we’re not desperate to see those plotlines immediately continued, and can spend a bit longer diving into ‘side stories’ if we want to. Now we’ve got that much more mental space for getting into the multiverse - either directly through the MCU 616 content, or going into the actual cross-franchise multiverse instead. Forget interludes (nobody needs that much structure) here we’re just saying “view multiverse stuff in this position”, again with a goal of keeping it as digestible as possible. We also strip out What If, making that optional too.

So PHASE FIVE: MULTIVERSE can now become something much more focused:

• Loki 1 kicks it all off. It’s timeless, and ends up with a Multiverse (and Loki in unknown time).
  • What If 1 optionally goes here to introduce the concept.
  • Sony Spider-Man optionally goes here for those wanting a deep dive before NWH. (Plus Venom if you fancy.)
• Spider-Man: No Way Home is our big, exciting, fan-favourite multiverse story, featuring three Spideys and Doctor Strange. The biggest sacrifice of this ordering is having this paced a while after Far From Home, but I think it’s far more beneficial this way. Here, we open on a flashback to just after he’s been outed by Mysterio, then we assume that his legal troubles occupied perhaps at most a year - in which the previous phase occurred.Then after Daredevil steps in and clears it all up, we’re back to the present in the timeline.
  • Fox X-Men (core movies) optionally goes here. Now it’s time to see actual new characters from other worlds - not just alternate versions of our own. Let’s introduce Pietro, Xavier, and Beast at the very least - they’ll appear again this phase.
  • What If 2 optionally goes here. If we’re taking such a big break to go through Sony Spidey and Fox X-Men, this brings us back to our familiar characters and storylines (in a multiversey way).
  • Note: If we’re doing these major side-stories, we’ve now got them out of the way before the Multiverse/Kang stuff really ramps up in 616.
• Wandavision is here, as early as we can get it. Even if you ignore the Pietro tease, Wanda, Maria Rambeau, and Monica Rambeau will return this phase.
• Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania sits here, balanced between the two Loki seasons, and set in the middle of this phase, developing the Kang threat we’ve had since Loki 1, and giving us the update on our final group of post-Endgame characters not yet returned to.
• Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness now brings our 616 characters to other universes, starting the true crossover phase. Wanda, Doctor Strange, Maria Rambeau, Xavier, and even Captain Carter for the What If fans. We’re getting serious.
• Loki 2 next. Again, it’s timeless, but it serves to temporarily reduce the Kang threat (letting us forget him for a while) and it’s just great. And it leaves us clear to take a run at our final two items:
• Ms. Marvel has some further nice reflecting on the prior Avengers, and directly leads into-
• The Marvels, with a great focus on Carol, Kamala, and Monica, then that nice multiversal tease with Maria and Beast, and setting up Kamala looking to team up with young Hawkeye.

At this point, the multiverse stuff is active but not so loud it can’t be put down for a little while to focus back on core 616, and nothing from 616 is demanding too much attention or memory either.

The remainder of the content can sit by the wayside for now, probably giving us a phase six that looks roughly like Black Panther 2, Eternals, She-Hulk, Echo, What If 3, Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, Eyes of Wakanda, [Logan and Deadpools,] Deadpool 3. A bit of a mishmash, but again we’re left with some room to breathe here, before 2025 gives us a proper 616 escalation with Cap 4, Thunderbolts, Ironheart, Daredevil Born Again, Spidey 4, etc.

Again, I have no idea why I’ve put so much thought into this…