We’re roughly 11 months out from Avengers: Doomsday, so I figured this post could use a bump. Since a lot of time has passed & Eddie revised his list a few months ago, I figure I’ll start there:
PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH
- Loki S1 - Immediate consequence of Endgame, sets up unstable Kang-oriented multiverse.
- Spider-Man Far From Home - Aftermath of Tony’s death. Light mention of multiverse.
- Thor: Love and Thunder - Guardians and Thor. Takes Thor off the table.
- Falcon and Winter Soldier - Aftermath of Cap leaving this time period. Now we’ve dealt with the big three. Light touch for Wakanda, which we won’t return to for a while.
- Hawkeye - Aftermath for Hawkeye and Nat’s Death. Reintroduces Yelena.
- Guardians Holiday Special - Christmassy after Hawkeye.
- Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania - Aftermath for Ant-family.
- Guardians vol 3 - Conclusion for the Guardians, which deserves coming early.
Good ordering, lets us catch up with most of our Classic Avengers, setting up new status quos & & letting others ride off into the sunset. However…
PHASE FIVE: MULTIVERSE
- Loki S2 - Deals with Kang, sets up a stable multiverse. This is where we can now get weird with it.
- Wandavision - Aftermath for Wanda and Vision (who are more ‘outsider’ Avengers). Bohner as a sort-of Multiverse reference. Takes them off the board for a while. Introduces Monica.
- Shang-Chi - First new main character, but also aftermath for Hulk, Wong, and Captain Marvel (our final ‘outsider’ Avengers) showing they’re mostly off the board. Final evidence that the Avengers aren’t really a thing any more.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home - The multiverse comes to 616. This one starts immediately after the previous Spidey, but then the legal squabbles could take around a year offscreen. Plus we’re not seeing Spidey again for a while so it’s good to pace him out - though this nicely takes him off the board.
- Echo - exactly eight movies/shows after Hawkeye, continuing that thread. Light impact, but good location for it.
- Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness - We travel the Multiverse. Takes Strange and Wanda off the board for now. X-Men featured.
- Ms. Marvel Second new main character, big references back to classic Avengers. Directly into-
- The Marvels First multiversal collision. Payoff for Fury, Monica, Captain Marvel, and Ms. Marvel. Nice overlap of cosmic and multiversal threads, and leaves Monica in an X-Men universe and has Ms. Marvel planning to gather the Young Avengers/Champions who’ve been slowly introduced.
Again, mostly solid phase that gives us our big exploration into the Multiverse. My only issue here is the placement of Echo, which I’ll get into when talking about the next phase…
PHASE SIX: NEW WORLD ORDER
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - We see why T’Challa was off the board so long (RIP), and introduce Namor and Riri, and the new state of Wakanda which’ll be relevant Doomsday/Secret Wars.
- Eternals - Placed way later than release (I justify this in-universe as the Tiamat activation being related to a huge baby boom post-blip) because originally it had a huge global impact that remained unacknowledged. Many new characters.
- She-Hulk - Returns to Hulk and Abomination eight movies/shows after their light touch in Shang-Chi. Introduces She-Hulk, and an easter egg mentions Eternals.
- Captain America: Brave New World - Continues the Hulk revival, explicitly acknowledges Eternals, and positions new Cap back at the forefront of the response to global events.
- Daredevil: Born Again - eight movies/shows after Echo, continuing that thread, and firmly reestablishing Daredevil and Punisher after a slow reintroduction after Netflix.
- Agatha All Along - Twelve movies/shows after Agatha’s introduction, and eight after the last Wanda/Billy/Tommy story.
- Ironheart - Following Wakanda Forever, introducing a new very major character and reigniting the Iron Man legacy.
- Thunderbolts - Would have been nice to have earlier but it’s so dependent on other stuff. Takes a lot of C-listers and elevates them to a B-list teamup, and finally deals with the world’s lack of a true Avengers team. Setup for what’s to come.
While I again like that this phase has a solid thesis (i.e., focusing on moreso on world events), a lot of the pics feel like fluff in comparison to the ultimate conclusion of the Post-Endgame Saga. Do we really expect Echo, Daredevil, Agatha, Billy & Ironheart to play a huge role in Doomsday? The fact that none of them got chairs in the cast announcement trailer leads me to think not (and yah, there’s one character in the movie who didn’t get a chair, but that was a pretty big surprise.
Also, not a fan of how the way everything’s split means that this Saga would theoretically have 4 phases it as opposed to 3. Just feels awkward, imho.
So after going over that, and since I got a shoutout from Eddie for where I placed Thunderbolts (thanks for that, btw!), I’m going to give another shot at reordering the phases so we just have 3.I’m also going to try and keep entertainment value in mind, which means potentially leaving out films I would outright consider bad where possible:
PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (Immediate fallout from Endgame)
- Falcon and Winter Soldier – Spece Edit (Introduce Val)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (Catch up on Thor & Guardians)
- Hawkeye (Catch up on Clint, Yelena & to a lesser extent Val)
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Last film fully following one of our tentpole Avengers & final explicit mention of Val)
- Shang-Chi – Temault - Tridane’s Edit (New Character & following up on the last of our classic Avengers)
- GotG Holiday Special (A bit of fluff before the culmination of this phase)
- Thunderbolts (Caps off this phase, addresses where the Avengers are. Will have to edit out the references to Brave New World & the Doomsday teaser)
PHASE FIVE: EXPANSION
- Loki S1 (First real foray into the Multiverse where Kang controls everything)
- Wandavision
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (now all the heavy hitter Avengers are taken off the table)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (EDIT: WHOOPS, I completely forgot about this originally!)
- Ms. Marvel
- The Marvels (Breach into the multiverse, X-Men universe)
- Loki S2 & Quantumania by Tremault/Tridane (Wraps up Kang as we deal with a more stable Multiverse. Yes, I am cheating a bit here, since Quantumania was not great. However, Tremault/Tidane managed to get Ant-Man 3 doen to an 84-minute Kang-focused experience, so you can pretend it’s a prologue to Loki season 2 if you really want)
PHASE SIX: INCURSION
- The Eternals: The Apostasy Edit
- She-Hulk (References to Tiamut, X-Men, and the fact that Hulk blood is valuable)
- Fantastic Four: First Steps (First look at the Multiverse after Kang got deposed)
- Captain America: Brave New World (Much like with Scott Lang, we do need to reestablish Sam. Will have to reconfigure Sam’s scene with Bucky to be a flashback that takes place around TFATWS; Original post credit scene, followed by the Doomsday post-credit scene from Thunderbolts)
- Deadpool & Wolverine (Last whacky ride before things get serious, good palate cleanser after BNW)
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day (“Everybody gets one.”)
- Avengers: Doomsday
- Avengers: Secret War
Let me know if there’s anything (else) I missed/overlooked.