Soooooo yesterday…this happened.
Damn you, Kevin Feige, I had $&@# to do today
Yuuuuuuup, Phase 3 dropped all over your sorry butts and it is, well, weird. Not entirely what anybody was expecting at all. In fact this is a horse of a different color entirely, a horse with big ears and long arms and claws and it eats eucalyptus. Why I would go so far as to say that this horse is a koala, a giant riding koala that is determined to get you excited about the Inhumans for the first time ever.
Arboreal marsupials aside, Phase three appears to contain both Marvel’s easiest wins and riskiest gambles since Iron Man dropped all those years ago. This could either make or break the infant movie company and perhaps all super movies everywhere. Hell, if this fails then Marvel Comics, and maybe the comics industry as a whole, could be forever changed.
So, y’know, no pressure.
Prepare for snooty Slate articles in 3…2…1…
Captain America: Civil War
May 6, 2016
Okay so they threw everybody a curve ball initially with a fake title but now the time has come to reveal the true destiny of Captain America’s story line…and it’s gonna be morally gray and socially relevant or whatever. We all saw this coming down the road at some point but I am glad they kept the Civil War plot line out of the actual Avengers films because that was the DUMBEST story line and if I have to ignore one Marvel film, at least it’s going to be the one that stars Chris Evans’ stupid punchable face. There’s a rumor flying around that this will be Evans final movie, eh whatever. Everybody assumed they had the Phase 3 roster pinned down and it turns out they were crazy wrong so what the hell does the internet know?
Still a less weird name than “Cumberbatch”
Doctor Strange
November 4th 2016
Yeah this was happening, we knew it was happening, and it’s going to allow Marvel to open the MCU to supernatural characters like Blade, The Nightstalkers, Ghost Rider, Morbius, or even Dracula. Feige went out of his way to mention that there HAVE BEEN NO CASTING ANNOUNCEMENTS YET! So all the teen girls on tumblr arguing over Pedro Pascel vs Cumberbatch please shut it. In my mind this is their biggest risk because while scifi space operas with talking mammals can be fun, demons and hoary hosts might not appeal to bible belt soccer moms. Expect the 700 Club types to throw a tantrum.
Would it kill them to play some Foghat this time? Or CCR? Anything but Redbone!
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
May 5, 2017
Well…duh. I mean this is a friggin’ no brainer. GotG was a bad ass monster hit that defied all expectations and there was absolutely no doubt at all, to anyone, that Marvel was going to go back to that wishing well again. James Gunn is back, whole cast too, and there’s speculation that they’re adding a new member. Of all the possible characters to pick, I say either Warlock, one of the Quasars, Moondragon or Cosmo. As for Angela, sorry Spawn fans, I say Angela is a long shot.
A highly profitable multi-media franchise is going to make a third movie? Poppycock! Hollywood would never do that!
Thor 3: Ragnarok
July 28th, 2017
So there’s speculation on the web that this is gonna be based on Walt Simonson’s epic story line of the same name where Thor and the forces of Asgard face down Sutur. If true, The Enchantress, the Executioner, could all show up finally and Lorelei from AoS might be back. This rumor fills me with cinnamon covered squishy things and joy. If you have never read the Ragnarok story line….god, go out and read it now! No, seriously, go. I’ll wait here.
Is it wrong that I want this to have “Superfly” in the opening title sequence?
Black Panther
November 3rd, 2017
Not a risk. Don’t listen to what anybody says, this is not a risk by any stretch of the imagination. Black Panther has a huge cult following and he’s one of Marvel’s most popular heroes. He’s already been cast (the dude from 52) and probably shows up in the new Avengers movie at some point. This is gonna be solid people.
Captain America, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange…Marvel is really into labels.
Captain Marvel
July 6th, 2018
Like many on the internet, I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, Captain Marvel is going to be the first female led super hero movie from Marvel and that’s a good thing. Carol Danvers is a great character, I loved her as Warbird/Ms. Marvel, love her in the new Avengers books as Captain Marvel. She’s always been one of Marvel’s strongest, most complex female characters and I am looking forward to this movie. But I am gonna miss good old Captain Mar-Vell so hard.
X-Men Lite, now with fewer calories
Inhumans
November 2nd, 2018
Oooooooh lord. This is gonna take some doing. Supposedly, Agents of Shield has been setting this up the entire time, the character Skye on that show is rumored to be an Inhuman and the new story line in the MCU is setting up the Inhumans as “Contractually appropriate Mutants”. This, to me, is another big risk because most casual Marvel fans have never heard of these guys and hardcore comic fans absolutely do not care about these guys. Hell, my first memory of the Inhumans was from DeFalco’s 90s run on Fantastic Four. They looked like a carnival freak show, they acted like characters from He-Man. They were stupid then and if not adapted carefully they will be stupid now.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Avengers: Infinity War Part One & Avengers: Infinity War Part Two
May 2018 & May 2019
-WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW SNAP! TWO, COUNT IT SUCKAS, TWO AVENGERS FILMS. This is the close of the first Avengers plot line and will likely bring every character in the MCU together in a massive battle against “Old Purple Puss” himself. That’s right people, Thanos…friggin finally. Apparently the live presentation had a picture of Thanos holding all of the Infinity Gems at once and Io9 put it best: “That’s…that’s not good.”
Basically by 2019 between Marvel and DC, I may need a superhero vacation.
