Kevin Feige has repeatedly promised that the events of Avengers: Infinity War and next year’s Avengers 4 will change the MCU beyond recognition. And though we still don’t know exactly what the means, one fan and journalist, Jeremy Conrad of Manabyte, is hinting he has the inside scoop on what’s coming.
According to him, the studio plans to take things to completely unexpected places, and we’re going to be in for quite a surprise. Here’s what Conrad had to say over on Twitter:
Marvel is taking the MCU into completely unexpected and new places in Phase 4. Things people will never in a million years expect. But like Guardians in 2014, Marvel will make the unknown into a huge hit.
He then continued to tease us by releasing this cryptic Tweet:
Remember when Wakanda was named for the first time in Avengers: Age of Ultron, building up to Black Panther’s own film?Feige likes to play the long game and the foundations of what we’ll see in “Phase 4” are already being setup.
It’s intensely frustrating that he can’t just come out and tell us whatever he knows, but I guess the first rule of show business entertainment news is that you drag out a story for as long as possible in order to drum up hype. So, let’s take a closer look and try and work out what he might mean.
We already know from Kevin Feige’s expansive Vanity Fair interview back in November that they’re seeking to expand the MCU as much as possible, with Disney CEO Bob Iger saying: “We’re looking for worlds that are completely separate—geographically or in time—from the worlds that we’ve already visited.”
It doesn’t take tapping Feige’s phones to figure out that further exploration of the cosmic aspects of the Marvel Universe might be where we’re heading next. After all, the smash-hit Guardians of the Galaxy movies took audiences to some seriously obscure places – and they loved it. Add the Thor films to that (and, y’know, Star Wars) and it’s beginning to look like there’s a hunger for space opera.
Perhaps the safest bet is that we’ll see at least one movie about the Eternals, the Celestials and the Deviants. They’re Jack Kirby creations in the same mythological mould as his New Gods work at DC and are the superhero products of genetic experimentation on primitive humans. While cosmic in nature, they’re also intrinsically tied to Earth, so their return in the wake of the Infinity War would make sense and could definitely be dragged out for at least a couple of movies.
Then, of course, there’s Galactus and the Silver Surfer, perhaps the most iconic cosmic figures in Marvel Comics. Up until now, they’ve been the property of Fox, tied into the Fantastic Four rights. Now that might all be changing, and can you think of a better post-credits scene for Avengers: Infinity War (or its sequel) than the sight of the Surfer? After all, whatever they cook up has got to be better than the crappy space-cloud Galactus we saw in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, right?