How do you top Thanos and the infinity stones for the next MCU saga? I say Secret Wars.

[PlanetSmasher]

I mean, this what writers get paid to do lol. I always find it weird when people question stuff like this. They are literally millions of possible stories to tell effectively. It's fiction.

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I'm saying that they already played the mega-threat card with the two Thanos films. After that, some other villain who wants to end all life is just gonna feel like a rehash.

It'd be better for everyone if they didn't think the solution moving forward is to one-up what they already did by going even bigger.

 

[molnizzle]

Who gives a shit? You have to have rules and boundaries in your film universe. You don't just keep trying to one-up the end of reality. It's stupid and audiences will start falling off.

Just because he lucked out hiring James Gunn doesn't mean he's some kind of wizard.

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Yeah, that's why they canceled Marvel Comics after the Fantastic Four defeated Galactus in 1966. Oh wait.

Doctor Strange already expanded the MCU "rules and boundaries" to include an infinite number of parallel universes. Infinity gauntlet Thanos was a threat in just one of them. He's a weakling compared to some of the other inter-dimensional threats out there. Hell, he isn't even immortal. Thanos ain't shit.

 

[kitzkozan]

Don't.

The next big challenge is making a diverse post-Ike universe, making FF and X-Men work, and somehow keeping people invested.

IMO of course.

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Indeed, but it's much easier when you have an interconnected universe which is why the Avengers movies tied everything together and provided a boost of popularity to newer heroes. Look at a movie like Shazam! that's part of DC while being his own thing and it's much harder to get him off the ground since the movie has to completely stand on it's own and it got shortchanged because of an untimely release schedule.

 

[Anustart]

Just read a synopsis of secret wars. Hopefully not that.

 

[Illusion]

Secret Wars will be able to introduce all the Big Bads back from other timelines, imagine fighting TWO Thanos's at once. Bringing back characters that were killed off or wanted back into the MCU for another movie.

Like the amount of fan service and hype is limitless.

 

[BasilZero]

No.


Phase 4 is next right? Focus on whatever they plan to do.


Tease Galactus in phase 4 like Thanos was teased in the other phases.



Then Phase 5 - introduce X-Men and Fantastic 4 then make Phase 6 focused on Galactus fighting the Avengers/X-Men/Fantastic 4.

 

[BWoog]

Dr. Doom because when Doom takes over the world, he turns it into a utopia every time. Now we're left with an Avengers team, and FF and X-Men, wondering if they SHOULD stop Doom, not whether they can.

 

[Anth0ny]

wrong secret wars my dude

 

[Wracu]

So what, instead we have a villain who wants to kill everything but he has a good reason for it this time?

Omnicidal threats just won't have any bite anymore after Endgame. We've literally seen that movie already.

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Comics are highly multi-versal. There are a lot of options. You don't even have to be a villain to try and actually end the universe. Depending on your views on the ethics of suffering vs nothingness.

But really, I'd appreciate a villain who actually has a clue. Thanos literally seems to think setting back civilization a few decades at best - once - is a permanent solution to a problem that doesn't yet exist. Nevermind he has an artifact that would allow him to nullify the problem for a looooong time without killing anyone. His motivations are dumb and inept.

 

[Grimmjow]

Secret Invasion/Seige

 

[hank_tree]

Yeah but Secret Wars is shit.

 

[Flaurehn]

Marvel Zombies, 1.8 billion ow, 4 billion run right there

 

[Deleted member 25606]

No secret wars please. The originals were hokey toy commercials and while Hickman's was epic (as was secret warriors, new avengers and I am hoping x-men since secret histories are his bread and butter) it's way too dependent on intimate knowledge of decades of continuity which would force too much crossing of properties early. I would rather the way it was done this time where the first couple rounds were intimate solo stories with just end credit teasers, third round team ups and crossovers and save the universe threat for the end.

And with what properties they are still using post endgame and with FF back into the fold to set certain things up properly I would love to see the end threat be the Anihilation wave. They really don't have to top events in these end caps, they just need to make sure they are actually universe threatening.

 

[Mortemis]

I'm saying that they already played the mega-threat card with the two Thanos films. After that, some other villain who wants to end all life is just gonna feel like a rehash.

It'd be better for everyone if they didn't think the solution moving forward is to one-up what they already did by going even bigger.

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I agree. So many fictional series lose themselves by trying to push past the great heights that they set after successfully raising the stakes to the limits.

I'd love to see them do it, but I can't imagine what would be needed to get everyone attached to a long arching story the way people are with Thanos' saga.

 

[jfkgoblue]

X-men vs Avengers in 6-7 years will be hype af

 

[Deleted member 32822]

Avengers vs X-Men could be as big but they would need to build to it and the original Avengers might be too old by then.

 

[Deleted member 36493]

Just saying, I wouldn't be 100% opposed to the idea of seeing Thanos again, except this time he's more angry and just wants to wipe out all of the universe.

 

[jfkgoblue]

Avengers vs X-Men could be as big but they would need to build to it and the original Avengers might be too old by then.

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They have already worked to establish new faces of the MCU such as BP and Spiderman though

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Yeah, that's why they canceled Marvel Comics after the Fantastic Four defeated Galactus in 1966. Oh wait.

Doctor Strange already expanded the MCU "rules and boundaries" to include an infinite number of parallel universes. Infinity gauntlet Thanos was a threat in just one of them. He's a weakling compared to some of the other inter-dimensional threats out there. Hell, he isn't even immortal. Thanos ain't shit.

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Here's the thing. Event comics suck. Crossover event villains are fucking terrible, the comic book equivalent of an eight year old giving his original character all the powers so they can't lose.

Fuck the Beyonder. Fuck the Anti-Monitor. They're all goddamn terrible. Every last one. Tell an actual story with meaningful content instead of Dragonballing it with constant escalations and "this time the villain is REALLY the ultimate threat" bullshit.

 

[DarthMasta]

With the Eternals coming up, that'll "introduce" the Celestials to the MCU in a big way. And once the audience has accepted one race of humanoid giants who have unbelievable power and who interact with regular sized characters, well, Galactus.

 

[Foltzie]

Given how well they adapted rough series (see Civil War and Infinity Gauntlet), I wouldn't assume Secret Wars would be bad, but it's certainly a weird crossover.

 

[Deleted member 32822]

They have already worked to establish new faces of the MCU such as BP and Spiderman though

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Still don't think they would be as big of a pull as Cap and Tony.

 

[Mona]

flashpoint

 

[behOemoth]

Just saying, I wouldn't be 100% opposed to the idea of seeing Thanos again, except this time he's more angry and just wants to wipe out all of the universe.

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That's not new though.

 

[thecouncil]

Thanos gathers the stones again.

Just saying, I wouldn't be 100% opposed to the idea of seeing Thanos again, except this time he's more angry and just wants to wipe out all of the universe.

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Not all. Only 65 -75% this time. We need to incrementally escalate here or we're gonna run out of necessary escalation!

 

[Tophat Jones]

Daniel Day Lewis unretires to play Dr. Doom.

 

[Servbot24]

They can try. And it will be stupid. You can't STEP UP from "we have to kill this guy who literally wiped out half of all living things in the entire universe". There is no way to escalate from that.

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Go deeper into space to find even more powerful celestial beings

I don't know anything about comics but I'm assuming that stuff exists

 

[Book One]

They can't top it, but maybe they can get close. But who knows what things will be like in another 10 years. And who knows what will be the new crowd pleaser by then.

I'm looking forward to the John Wick Extended Universe myself.

 

[Nepenthe]

It didn't matter what Thanos' plan was.

Trying to top the Infinity Saga is a fools' errand because much of the appeal was in the novelty of seeing a shared universe playing out over a long period of time and not have the studios fuck it up completely.

Now the novelty is gone. You're not going to strike lighting twice in the next 10-12 years just doing the same shit with a different Big Bad.

 

[Tace]

Here's the thing. Event comics suck. Crossover event villains are fucking terrible, the comic book equivalent of an eight year old giving his original character all the powers so they can't lose.

Fuck the Beyonder. Fuck the Anti-Monitor. They're all goddamn terrible. Every last one. Tell an actual story with meaningful content instead of Dragonballing it with constant escalations and "this time the villain is REALLY the ultimate threat" bullshit.

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The MCU version of Civil War and Infinity Gauntlet are arguably better than their source material and do tell actual stories with meaningful content lol

They're already doing what you're asking, and you think they're gonna suddenly stop?

 

[xillyriax]

Annihilation

 

[sooperkool]

All the timey wimey stuff brings out Kang/Rama Tut/Immortus to wreak havoc

 

[Kain]

The Grandmaster should be back. We need more Goldblum in our lives.

 

[Deleted member 36493]

That's not new though.

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It doesn't need to be. If it happens 10 years from now, it'll be a good cash-in on the nostalgia.

 

[Ryuelli]

Phase 4 will be all the Avengers teaming up to open a new Shawarma restaurant. The big villains are the health inspector and a spy of a competing business.

One day their knife breaks though, and that's how Wolverine enters the MCU.

 

[Johnny Blaze]

It's all about the caracters. Make good, interesting characters that the audience cares about and then you can sell a movie with them just doing a Guy Fiery-esque tour through the world trying different Shawarma places.

 

[kitzkozan]

Here's the thing. Event comics suck. Crossover event villains are fucking terrible, the comic book equivalent of an eight year old giving his original character all the powers so they can't lose.

Fuck the Beyonder. Fuck the Anti-Monitor. They're all goddamn terrible. Every last one. Tell an actual story with meaningful content instead of Dragonballing it with constant escalations and "this time the villain is REALLY the ultimate threat" bullshit.

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You are focusing on the villains too much as the most important thing is having the audience invested enough in the heroes first and foremost. There's plenty of work to be done with BP, CM, Doctor Strange and Eternals / Shang-Chi along with getting the MCU F4 and X-Men off the ground before thinking of another super threat in 10+ years.

 

[molnizzle]

It didn't matter what Thanos' plan was.

Trying to top the Infinity Saga is a fools' errand because much of the appeal was in the novelty of seeing a shared universe playing out over a long period of time and not have the studios fuck it up completely.

Now the novelty is gone. You're not going to strike lighting twice in the next 10-12 years just doing the same shit with a different Big Bad.

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Sure they will, with new heroes that people will come to care about over the next 10 years.

Here's the thing. Event comics suck. Crossover event villains are fucking terrible, the comic book equivalent of an eight year old giving his original character all the powers so they can't lose.

Fuck the Beyonder. Fuck the Anti-Monitor. They're all goddamn terrible. Every last one. Tell an actual story with meaningful content instead of Dragonballing it with constant escalations and "this time the villain is REALLY the ultimate threat" bullshit.

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That's what the next 5-10 years of build up are for. The event at the end is just the capstone.

 

[JCHandsom]

I'm saying that they already played the mega-threat card with the two Thanos films. After that, some other villain who wants to end all life is just gonna feel like a rehash.

It'd be better for everyone if they didn't think the solution moving forward is to one-up what they already did by going even bigger.

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I say they should make a lateral move from killing to conquering/ruling. I think a Doom is a better choice for that than a Galactus in that regard, have them actually take over the world and have the big movie team up be like an insurgency/rebellion type conflict

 

[jfkgoblue]

Still don't think they would be as big of a pull as Cap and Tony.

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Considering Spiderman is still Marvel's most popular character and BP is the highest grossing solo movie, I'd say they do

 

[Stalker]

Easy

Magneto and Doom. Villains supporting each other like the Avengers and Crew do is hardly ever done. The Black Legion was shades of it. bad shades

 

[Tuorom]

They should build up Doom. They don't need to escalate bigger than Thanos to have an entertaining and worthy sequel to the previous phases. All they need is a villain who is as menacing, who is as capable, who is as dangerous, who has as much character ---> Doctor Doom, let's go.
Actually a great second big villain would be a villain who is given MORE character development. Thanos got many peoples sympathies because IW spent a lot of time seeing his point of view. Imagine a villain built up over movies given the same characterization as Kingpin? Maybe a couple movies specifically for the villain, with that foe as the protagonist similar to IW?

Dr. Doom because when Doom takes over the world, he turns it into a utopia every time. Now we're left with an Avengers team, and FF and X-Men, wondering if they SHOULD stop Doom, not whether they can.

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That is fantastic! And it would be a great way to set up a "Civil War 2". Annnnnnnddd I'm thinking this could be an event that happens in the middle of an arc. Then we could get a bunch of films exploring the new utopia created by Doom from solo films.....there's some cool stuff you could do with that.

Daniel Day Lewis unretires to play Dr. Doom.

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I came. He's a little old now but I'd still like to see it.
DDL as Professor Xavier? or Magneto?

 

[Stoopkid]

Who gives a shit? You have to have rules and boundaries in your film universe. You don't just keep trying to one-up the end of reality. It's stupid and audiences will start falling off.

Just because he lucked out hiring James Gunn doesn't mean he's some kind of wizard.

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I can't help but lol at this.

Your acting like James Gunn was some kind of big time director before Feige put him on guardians.

 

[Phendrift]

Alternatively, just don't try to top it. Don't do another saga. Do standalone stories that focus on characters instead of setting up another big bad, especially one as silly as the Beyonder.

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why would they do that when the biggest thing that has made the MCU popular is that everything is connected everyone comes together to defeat a big bad?

Like, that reason is the biggest reason that IW and EG were such huge events.

 

[Ithil]

Do something completely different. What, I don't know, I'm sure they already have plans, but you have to do something different than "giant epic fighting crossover with macguffins". Secret Wars or Secret Invasion both seem meaty enough (technically Secret Wars is a big fighting crossover but it's entirely different from the Infinity Wars type of fight) , but I don't think you'll see a traditional Avengers teamup film for a long while. Nor should you really, the solo films are just as huge now (two billion dollar ones in the last year) and their "soft" crossovers like Thor Ragnarok featuring Hulk, Spider-Man Homecoming featuring Iron Man, and potentially GOTG Vol 3 featuring Thor, are a good idea.

There is no rush, at all, though. They have further solo films for the current roster (GOTG, Strange, Panther, Ant-Man, Marvel) to do, new characters they're already moving like Eternals, Shang-Chi, etc, and of course, they just got back FF and X-Men, both their own massive rosters of characters. They've already shown they can take B listers, C listers and even D listers and make them top tier blockbuster brands. The second generation of the MCU can go anywhere they want.

 

[kitzkozan]

why would they do that when the biggest thing that has made the MCU popular is that everything is connected everyone comes together to defeat a big bad?

Like, that reason is the biggest reason that IW and EG were such huge events.

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Standalone stories is what DC is doing for now, but that's not the MCU and also shouldn't be the MCU. Let Warner Brothers do their things and the MCU will always stand out from everyone else because the industry has a hard time copying them.

 

[Boclfon479]

Onslaught but doing it right

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I say give it a few years and do X-men first and have the second or third one be onslaught, and then have that cause an Xmen vs Avengers movie.

 

[Pendas]

I want the MCU to shift their focus on Villians just as much as heroes. Instead of seeing 20 heroes go against one bad dude, I want to see 10 heroes duke it out with 10 super villians, all setup through multiple movies.

That's the future of the MCU.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

I just wonder what they will do to explain why the X-Men or any other "Earth" hero wasn't around for IW/Endgame.

 

[Patitoloco]

I would love at least a phase of the MCU without any comic inspirations, completely new stories with the introduced characters.