- Post
- #1655765
- Topic
- MCU: A Recommended Reordering
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1655765/action/topic#1655765
- Time
I’ve come back to this again (why?) with a bit of a tightening now we know a lot more. I’m still aiming for eight movies/shows per phase, just because it looks nice in Plex and seems to pace seasons nicely. The eighth film in a phase should be a big one, and the fourth ideally is also fairly big/important, for good pacing of peaks. My focus is really on the core Marvel MCU as those blocks of eight, with stuff like Netflix Defenders, non-MCU Spidey and X-Men, and What if?, kind of living outside this.
The priority is still “Get plotlines which take characters off the board in earlier, and get plotlines which set up more stuff in later” because I think it’s best for cognitive load and flow to have the fewest dangling threads and new characters doing nothing in the background at a time.
But the main changes now are slightly more adherence to the original release order, mostly because as nice as it would be to move stuff like Brave New World and Thunderbolts earlier for closeness to their prequel sources, they require so much stuff to shift. This also helps keep the most content which directly refers to the Snap as early as possible so you feel its effects. There are still a couple of key exceptions to this - most notably Eternals.
One other thing I’ve tried to do is at least keep most related plots as close together as possible, so payoff is close, or multi-movie/show arcs (like Fisk) at least popping up once per phase.
I’ve also decided to move Loki Season One to right after Endgame, because while it’s a plot ‘opener’, it does follow most immediately from Endgame and it permits the moving of some other content earlier too.
But here’s where I’m at right now:
PHASE ONE: TESSERACT - As in original post.
PHASE TWO: ESCALATION - As in original post.
PHASE THREE: DISASSEMBLED - As in original post.
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.
By this point, we’ve taken a lot off the table and most characters aren’t exactly back in ‘active service’. But we also haven’t had a major global threat.
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.
Now we’ve had a full taste of Multiverse, given attention to all our main characters, and started to give attention to the new and what’s coming. Still no major global impact.
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.
And now we’ve got all the elements in play to set up Fantastic Four/Spider-Man 4/Defenders/Champions/Doomsday/Secret Wars, with the recent focus mainly being on the new characters.
REMAINDER
- Deadpool and Wolverine - The first movie of Phase Seven, really gives us the first proper collision with the X-Men universe and returns us to Loki’s Void, kicking off further Multiverse focus.
- Werewolf by Night and Moon Knight don’t impact the main story at all, and can end up a little closer to the now-rumoured Marvel Knights arc.
- Secret Invasion - can just be forgotten until it ever gets acknowledged, frankly, and doesn’t need to be before Captain Marvel.