Fandom will drive itself crazy on speculation. Scouring interviews, sneaking peaks at Lego box art, and setting Google alerts for D-Man will only secure you a one-way trip to the nut house. I get it. I feel your pain. However, the Disney masters will only foretell the future when they’re damn well good and ready.
Don’t bother foraging for any real insight into what the Avengers 5 lineup will look like in the wake of Phase Three’s climax. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is not going to help you out either. He only has crumbs to keep you groveling for more. He’s resting high on one of their biggest box offices successes, and Black Panther is only $61 million away from being their top earner. How can they possibly beat that?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly for their mega Avengers: Infinity War special, Feige acknowledged the success of exploring cultures beyond the Western perspective:
“We’re not ready to talk about what those [future characters] are, but like the ones we’ve made in the first three phases, they’re ones that are either just great concepts for a film, great characters with great supporting characters, like Panther. New locations and lands that have cultural significance all their own, and continuing to tell stories that represent the world as it is, that represent people who perhaps haven’t seen themselves portrayed in this light in the past. We want to continue to do that.”
Maybe D-Man will have to wait a little longer to get his own franchise.
So, if we all promise to have a little fun with speculation, and not fly into any fits of wishful-thinking rage, let’s pick five Marvel concepts from the books that could fit into Feige’s hope of exploring cultures beyond New York City.
5. The Inhumans
4. America Chavez
Marvel’s first Latin-American LGBTQ character, America is a hero not of our time or reality. Her whole life has been spent jumping through the multiverse, experiencing a variety of What-If scenarios, and forever attempting to steer our world in the right direction. Alternate realities could be the next big over-arching plot point for the MCU, and America Chavez would be an utterly unique guide.
3. Ms. Marvel
2. Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu
The character began life as a blatant Bruce Lee rip-off. He is a master of all the wushu styles and incorporates them into his own fighting technique a la Lee’s Jeet Kune Do. We’ve seen Marvel’s yakuza wannabes, The Hand, as part of their Netflix series, but they’re too devilish a threat to waste on the small screen. Imagine a Shang-Chi film as a globetrotting, superhero mob adventure with plenty of ninjas to dispatch.