Welcome to Phase Four

WITH THE THREE-phase Infinity Saga dusted and done, there was a strangely muted excitement ahead of Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con presentation this year. Sure, there’d be announcements, but could it really measure up to what we’d lost? Happily, the signs point to yes, with this imperial phase for a studio on top of the world (literally, box office-wise) promising to be a bigger and more daring universe. Here’s how they’ll pull it off.

Bigger And Better Representation

The billion-dollar grosses of Black Panther and Captain Marvel torpedoed the notion that only white men called Chris or Robert could lead a Marvel movie, and now we begin to see the benefits of that trailblazing. There was only a single piece of white male casting announced (or rather, confirmed) on Saturday, in Richard Madden’s Eternal, Ikaris. Admittedly, he sounds a bit like a Chris, but baby steps, people. The MCU welcomed a female Thor in Natalie Portman, its first Asian superhero, its first LGBT heroes, and its first deaf superhero, suggesting that it’s not just colour or gender diversity that they’re expanding. There’s still a way to go Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige formally confirmed just one female solo lead, in Black Widow, though he generally promised a Captain Marvel 2 but you would have to be deeply cynical not to see this line-up as an enormous step towards better representation in the world’s biggest films.

BOUNDARY-PUSHING BEHIND THE CAMERA

It’s not just the casts that look different. Directors such as The Rider’s Chloé Zhao, who’s making The Eternals, and Short Term 12’s Destin Daniel Cretton, on Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, are sure bets to create films with real texture and personality, something that should stretch the limits of the Marvel template to breaking point. Taika Waititi promises more Ragnarok-style mould-breaking with Thor: Love And Thunder, in the intriguing notion of the Jane Foster Thor, which previously seemed too far-out for the MCU, while Scott Derrickson aims for true scares in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (also the two best titles of the franchise to date). It’s even possible that Blade could take the MCU into R-rated territory, which really would be a new frontier.

Tons More Crossovers And Connections

Prepare for a massive expansion in the MCU mythology aided by the Disney + TV shows that look set to become an intrinsic part of this universe in a way none of their predecessors were. Teyonah Parris’ adult version of Captain Marvel’s Monica Rambeau will crop up in TV’s WandaVision, while Wanda herself crosses over to Doctor Strange Shang-Chi will introduce a whole new eco-system of villainy under the mysterious Ten Rings organisation, while The Eternals has to establish two entirely new races of Earth-based super-people (in the Eternals and their counterparts, the Deviants) that have been living among us all this time. Might some of these bad guys have a connection to Feige’s careless promise of forthcoming mutants? The possibilities for complications, connections and intricate crossovers are endless, and as juicy as a jugular to a starving bloodsucker. Phase Four may not be the Marvel we know, but it could be the best one yet.

HELEN O’HARA

Marvel is heading back to space — and now it’s going cosmic, immortal and god-like

THE MCU HAS done space opera before, in Guardians Of The Galaxy. It’s even explored cosmic characters with near-infallible powers, like Captain Marvel. But The Eternals — a comics deep-cut that even well-read aficionados won’t be too familiar with— looks set to deliver a full-on gods vs gods adventure on an entirely different scale for the MCU.

Introducing the new team to the Hall H stage, Kevin Feige described the Eternals as super-powered “immortals who have been on Earth for 35,000 years”. In the comics they were created by another, even older race called the Celestials. We’ve actually already met a couple of Celestials on screen before — Kurt Russell’s Ego in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, and the enormous severed head/ecosystem of Knowhere in the first film. Concept art from Comic-Con suggests that the Celestials will play a key role in the film.

The Eternals, however, were charged by their creators with protecting our planet against their warlike cousins, the Deviants — a race that, on the page at least, included Thanos. Could The Eternals be laying the groundwork for the MCU’s next big bad?

Whatever happens, director Chloé Zhao will be sure to keep such wild cosmic concepts grounded. She helmed one of the best films of 2017 with The Rider, and the potential merging of her intimate, arthouse sensibilities to a universe-andmillennia-spanning story could pay dividends. Marvel has gotten better at letting directors have more of their own imprint on the final product in recent years, and Zhao’s is a voice they’d do well to let shine.

The cast is also impressive, and diverse, with Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie and Lauren Ridloff all set to star. Ridloff’s casting as Makkari is particularly significant, making her the MCU’s first deaf superhero. There’s potential for ties to past and future films too. We’ve seen two Celestials already but Marvel loves to bring back characters in unexpected ways: don’t be surprised if Knowhere’s origins are explored. And since the Eternals represent the beginnings of human mutation, could this be how the X-Men are finally introduced into the MCU?

AMON WARMANN

was one of the big surprises of weekend — and will have huge mifications for the MCU