What the fuck do you mean Phase 4 only has 1 more movie left? Fiege, come fight me
WHAT?
WHAT?
BRUH?
We aren’t even ending it on a crossover movie. Why is the Thunderbolts film so far away lmao. Also this whole time I thought Ant Man was coming before Black Panther. Bruhhhhh.
I don’t remember–because I hardly followed the MCU at the time–but when Fiege first announced Phase 4, I was under the impression that it was going to be long and drawn out and not as reliant on an over-arching story. By drawn out, I mean that it was going to be slower and not at break-neck speeds like Phase 3. because think about it, from 2016-2019 we received 3 films a year with a 3 hour film to finish it off. It wasn’t like that before hand so under my understanding, it wasn’t going to be like that again. And without an over-arching story, all that meant was directors could spread out from the bounds of foreshadowing the final boss. The X-Men could do their own shit separate from the Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thunderbolts, X-Force, Defenders, and Spider-Man. The story would branch out and we wouldn’t need to rush toward an ending again. It’d be just like the comics. I mean, I remember the announcement introducing a sleuth of new heroes including Blade, Shang Chi, and Moon Knight which might be all too much for a team up movie. If you’ve noticed, every team in the MCU has six members.
Avengers G1: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye
Avengers G2: Captain America, Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, Wanda, Vision
Defenders: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight
Team Stark: Iron Man, Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Black Panther, Spider-Man
Team Rogers: Captain America, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Wanda, Hawkeye, Ant Man
Revengers: Thor, Hulk, Valkyrie, Loki, Korg, Miek
The Guardians are funny, first they had 5 but then 7.
So after Endgame I thought it would be
Avengers G3: Spider-Man, Falcon, Black Panther, Strange, Wanda, Ant-Man
And I was like, damn what team are these new heroes gonna be in? Also Bucky and Wasp get left out. How sad. But there’s not even going to be a team up among the suggested six. Not a writing issue just kind of sad. Hmmm but while I’m on this train of thought, let me posit an Avengers film that could finish Phase 4. Since Wanda is basically dead at the end of Strange 2 (lmao did you just get spoiled), the Marvels have their own situation, and maybe both Thor and Fury can be off planet for this one.
A film titled, Avengers: Prometheus Protocol. It can start off with the Maggia (Italian Mafia) causing trouble in Queens. Spider-Man and Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) are independently hunting them down and comes across Count Luchino Nefaria and his grand invention; a vibranium powered machine that ‘evolves’ a human being. He evolves his three henchmen with it and so they become Whirlwind, Laser Man, and Atlas (all named by Nefaria). The two young heros greet each other and are a a bit cocky when fighting. They lose the fight but Spider-Man will manage to collapse the building on the machine thus destroying it. Nefaria and his team leave on a helicopter laughing about world domination. The next day Spider-Man and Kate (who everyone forgot is Peter) visit Strange for his help in hunting down Nefaria. Kate is of course over the moon at the New York Sanctum. Meanwhile, the villain attacks Wakanda in order to use their vibranium. The Wakandans and Bucky are held back by the trio. Nefaria will give a monologues on how Stark wasn’t the only genius as he recreates his machine in minutes. He then evolves himself giving him energy projection, super speed, and super strength but 100x that of his trio. He destroys Bucky in a brutal quick time event. Falcon only arrives to see Nefaria leave. We move to Strange, Kate, and Spider-Man getting introduced to a completely shocked Shaun by Wong in San Francisco. Kate and Shaun bong over their crazy lifestyle change. While I don’t know what Scott does in Quantomania, he will receive an invite from Nefaria along with the others. They head to the Antarctic where his mansion is. Once the six are there, they notice the weird environment which Sam decides to call the Savage Land. But this is the first time the six are together so Strange tries to set the rules of team working while the rest of them act goofy. Peter decides to then unmask himself after the others swear to secrecy. When Sam asks why, he lets out that he misses being comfortable around others with his powers. Strange then jokes that if everyone else discovered his secret, he could just a mindwipe. The others agree much to Peter’s quiet horror. They come through the Savage Land to the mansion where they get put into suspended animation immediately. Nefaria makes fun of them and leaves. On the tv that is left, his trio and three others have dawned superhero costumes of the six and are reeking havoc on Manhatten. Jonah Jameson is back reporting on the “superhero terrorism!” Nefaria then mock fights the mock Avengers on the old Stark building thus gaining Jameson praise. Nefaria appears on Jameson’s show to promote to everyone to visit the Protocol under the idea that they would get super powers and would be able to protect themselves. Back in Antartica, the six are very much annoyed at the sight. Strange goes ghost while to hack the runes of the room that entrap them. They can be broken with force but he can’t use any magic like that. Shaun suggests he uses the Ten Rings and his soul can slip on. But they are activated by momentum, Shaun explains, that Strange is embarrassed to show off. Eventually, the rings break the runes so they can break out. They are then immediately attacked by the trio who are reportedly five times better than before. The team is split up in the shape shifting machine (due to a counter rune). A series of 2v1s and the Lethal Legion looses. The Protocol is a large tower with each floor being a balcony. At the Protocol, Nefaria over looks at least 5,000 humans with others on the outside. He starts talking about them to a captured Zemo like they are just things. He is doing this as a show to Zemo that superhumans aren’t all bad but the next step of evolution. Zemo and Nefaria are revealed to not only be rival crime bosses (one from Naples and the other of Sokovia) but also ideological opposites. Nefaria appears before the play things with his machine behind him. He gives a speech about the haughtiness of the Avengers who could have shared their powers with everyone else. He then calls himself Prometheus as the machine activates. He floats above the crowd giggling. A portal opens and out flies Falcon with a shield charge. The others fall out and land on the balcony. Strange comes out. “That’s rude,” he walks past Falcon. The others prepare themselves. Strange, mid air, asks him to stop. Nefaria looks at the people below. “Who wants to save themselves?” Perhaps half the group raises their hands. The machine blasts light at them giving them each elemental powers; fire, water, air, electricity. “Kill the Avengers!” The superhumans thus start a war on the six. The six are then split up by a blast from Nefaria and the superhumans swarm them. During the fighting, Nefaria is using the machine to absorb the humans waiting outside increasing his own power. He is guarded by a strong force field. Zemo tells Falcon all this when he catches up to the man. Strange can’t break through so he activates the mirror dimension where he can easily shift past the field. Nefaria splits himself in two, one absorbing humans and the other fending off Strange. Meanwhile, the others try to nullify the superhumans. With the Rings, Shuan is able to get a read on how the vibranium machine converts sunlight into superpowers. Spider-Man then theorizes on how to reverse the affect. Strange is blasted out of the mirror by a powerful and intangible energy form of Nefaria. He is now of ionic energy. With his power he starts easily absorbing the superhumans. Falcon lands on a balcony, “Avengers, assemble!” The six squad up ready to execute Peter’s plan on containing Nefaria and reversing the machine while Strange pulls out everyone’s life force. At the end, Nefaria is left decrepit. He begs for mercy as the six look over him. Zemo walks by and surprisingly shoots the man in his head. Falcon mentions that he just killed a man on foreign soil. Zemo replies, “I’ve got a good lawyer”. Kate then gives a speech to the depowered folks on how heroism isn’t based on power, “I don’t even have any powers and I’m on the team!” She inspires them to keep doing their best because all the Avengers can do is fight while they can live. Strange opens a portal and states, “this is not a reoccurring team”. The others disagree. “You will not be able to freely reach me again”. The portal closes and he turns around to the gang smiling in his Sanctum. “Okay but enough.” Post credit scene of some mutant or Fantastic shit, I don’t care.
Oh wow, all that off the dome. Some pairs that would be shown in this film; Peter-Kate (teasing a romance as Kate finds Peter cute), Kate-Shaun (when fans collide), Sam-Scott (the professional/unprofessional duo), and Strange-Sam-Peter (the new big three). I realize now though, I might have written Strange to be too serious. If you think about it, all six of these characters are completely silly. They can be serious sure but I feel like this is the group in school who get too distracted to finish their project. I was surprised to Google “Avengers villains” and find Nefaria who is nearly as important to the team as Ultron and we still haven’t seen him yet. So while this film may seem low stakes and Nefaria seems 5 years ago, it’s a good breather.
Moving on, now it feels like Fiege wants to go fast again. I don’t I will mind. And even at this point, I guess we just live in an MCU where the Blip had no major consequences. Ah BP2 is still not out. Scary earthquakes. The world is as built as before Infinity War basically. Except now sometimes a character will mention their experience during the five years like anyone who wasn’t apart of it even cares. Because why would they? That gap doesn’t exist.
One last thing I will address with this two parter, I mentioned folks at the start being too impatient on waiting for Secret Wars. Oh my gosh they were right. I hate this part. Shang Chi does not even get a second film before Phase 6. That’s crazy. There’s just too many heroes. Like we should not be restricted to a phase designation anymore. Also, I love Daredevil getting another season with 18 episodes? They better be 30 minutes because I feel like it might drag otherwise. That’s crazy numbers. And the Echo show is separate? What the fuck does she do without him? Well, I don’t actually know the character so we’ll see. Also, She-Hulk is doing fairly well at some world building, at least in the legal sense, with three episodes. I hope the other shows involve more of that. Love and Thunder was a Thor film. Everyone acted so shock about how…unworthy it was but like, Ragnorak being good was the exception in the first place. I liked Thor4 but it was not going to be some thing like Spider-Man or Iron Man. Chill out. Multiverse of Madness was greatness. So, with one film left, did Phase 4 suck? Not unusualy. Phase 3 was just an outstanding climax. We are back to status quo.
tdwriter 