Between the Fox-Disney merger and Avengers 4 bringing Marvel’s Phase 3 to a close, it doesn’t take a Doctor Strange to predict that there are some big changes being primed for the franchise’s future, prompting one ambitious fan theorist to offer a complete summary of what they think’s on the horizon for the MCU.
This new post from Reddit user Meme_abstinent starts off with a series of fairly vague predictions, including more superhero team-ups, more space adventures, more female heroines and more time and money put into the sequel to the massively successful Black Panther, but while many of these ideas have been more or less confirmed, it’s only once Meme_abstinent has these more obvious insights out of the way that the post really gets going.
Naturally, the user has their own ideas on who likely will and won’t perish in next year’s Avengers 4. As well as going against the popular prediction that the upcoming release will see the death of Iron Man, Meme_abstinent suggests that the arrival of the X-Men into the MCU will ultimately spell bad news for Black Panther’s former lover Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong’o.
“Steve, Hawkeye, Rhodes, Lupita, Loki, Hemdial, and Nebula die permanent during the Infinity Saga. Tony retires and will return way way way down the line as Iron-Man but will be Stark for some rare appearances as S.W.O.R.D director. Widow continues on as an Avenger.
Also Disney has access to Storm now, which of whom Panther marries, so Lupita is done for at some point. Having Storm be T’Challa’s wife is waaay too cool of an opportunity to pass up.”
Yikes, too bad for Nakia. The Redditor then goes on to suggest a few familiar theories, including the Secret Invasion storyline, and the introduction of Dr. Doom as the new dictator of Sokovia. As for the Fantastic Four, their introduction will supposedly be a little more gradual.
“Each member will be introduced powerless through different movies in supporting roles. Reed can be a friend to Banner or Stark. Susan can be a friend of Janet for Ant-Man. Johnny can be a classmate to Peter. Have them appear in movies as regular people and get audiences attached and intrigued in them through those appearances. If they respond positively, give them their own movie. If not, well don’t.”
One thing that audiences would certainly be clamoring for, however, is the chance to see the X-Men finally share the screen with their friends in the MCU, and according to Meme_abstinent, their relationship may not start off on the best of terms.
“Now with Disney’s acquisition of Fox, this one would be a good Phase 4 or 5 film and one of the first X-Men movies. I think Scarlet Witch will see mutants struggling and switch from the Avengers to an X-Men. This won’t be a crossover, rather it will be done with the X-Men as main characters like Civil War. This can also lead to a House of M event later down the line.”
All potentially exciting ideas, and there’s more where this came from in Meme_abstinent’s original post. That being said, you can expect plenty of these predictions to be confirmed or refuted when Avengers 4 hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.