It’s high-time we accepted that we are merely unassuming pedestrians in a world dominated by Kevin Feige’s eldritch substance of an imagination. It may be the prevailing slice of pop culture at present, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, in reality, a cosmic cinematic groundwork that readies its maddening threads years in advance, much to the joy of Feige’s more mischievous side, and those of us that enjoy deep dives into each and every scene across the MCU canon.
And, of course, there’s plenty of the latter amongst the ranks of r/marvelstudios, which means that it’s about time for the more eidetic of Marvel’s fanbase to point us towards the best the universe has to offer in the realm of foreshadowing.
One user sounded off without restraint, naming a plethora of hints that could very well blossom later on in the MCU. Such examples include the appearance of Aaron Davis (the civilian identity of the Spider-Man villain known as the Prowler) in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the first time we heard Doctor Strange’s name back during Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the recent hint at a certain Canadian hero in a split-second shot of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law‘s second episode.
Another user went a tad more obscure, pointing out that the name of a bar in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Boot of Jemiah, shares a name with a member of the Celestials, which we wouldn’t be officially introduced to until 2021’s Eternals.
And one other responder went all the way back to the MCU’s roots to honor the franchise’s first foray into not only the shared universe we know it for today, but the hints of future developments that come along with it.
And this is, of course, far from an exhaustive list; Ned Leeds is one of a few characters to take up the Hobgoblin mantle in the comics, and now that the MCU’s iteration of the character has no ties to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man — to say nothing of his established proficiency with magic as we saw in No Way Home — who’s to say that we won’t be seeing Ned on the opposite side of the battlefield before long? Perhaps, like most of the questions we have at the moment, will all be answered over the course of the MCU’s next decade, or so we hope.