MCU Phase 5’s first production – ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ is released today!
So what happened in the fourth stage of the MCU? What stories are told in the movies and TV shows of this stage?
If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be “parallel universes open like crazy, each hero speaks for himself”.
MCU Phase IV film and television productions and public screenings
——”WandaVision” (2021.1-3)
——”The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (2021.3-4)
——”Loki” (2021.6-7)
——”Black Widow” (2021.7.9)
——”Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021.9.3)
——”What If…?” (2021.8-10)
——”Eternals” (2021.11.5)
——”Hawkeye”（2021.11-12）
——”Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021.12.17)
——”Moon Knight”（2022.3-5）
——”Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022.5.6)
——”Ms. Marvel” (2022.6-7)
——”Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022.7.8)
——”I Am Groot” (2022.8.10)
——”She-Hulk” (2022.8-10)
——”Werewolf By Night” (2022.10.7)
——”Black Panther : Wakanda Forever”（2022.11.11）
——”The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special” (2022.11.24)
1. American drama ‘WandaVision’ opened the fourth phase of the MCU, the show style is clear, each episode is inspired by a different period in the history of American drama (from the beginning of the black and white images, to the back to join the canned laughter, etc.).
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany continue to play Wanda and Vision, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau (the daughter of Captain Marvel’s black co-star Maria Rambeau in the movie ‘Captain Marvel’, the black (The little girl in the movie has grown up in this show).
Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), who appeared in the ‘Ant-Man’ series, and Darcy (Kat Dennings), who appeared in the ‘Thor’ series, are featured in this show.
Wanda’s performance in this one can be described in one word: crazy batch.
In short, in the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ even died twice in the husband of Wanda, thought she and Vision (alive) have two children, and then found that all this is all her fantasy ……
The plot of ‘WandaVision’, including the appearance of “Darkhold”, is also an important premise of the film ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’.
Evan Peters, the ‘Quicksilver’ of ‘X-Men’, also makes a cameo appearance in the show in the form of a “cheating fan”.
2. American drama ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ of the two main men, respectively, are two CP partners of Captain America.
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes.
Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who killed Black Panther’s father in ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ the Women’s Guard of Wakanda, Captain America’s girlfriend’s niece Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), and a strange “new Captain America” (Wyatt Russell) makes an appearance in the show.
The show also introduces a new and seemingly important character – Julia Louis-Dreyfus as CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who was supposed to make her debut in the movie ‘Black Widow’.
But due to the epidemic, ‘Black Widow’ postponed, it was changed to ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ in the first appearance.
‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ final conclusion – Falcon is the new Captain America.
3. The American drama ‘Loki’ is a very important work in the fourth phase of the MCU, the beloved Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston), in the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ inside with the stolen Tesseract ran away (this is the Loki in the timeline of 2012, not the one choked to death by Thanos in our main universe).
He was caught by the Time Planning Bureau and got a girlfriend – the “female Loki” Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) from other timelines, and there are a variety of different versions of Loki from different timelines in this show. Loki.
Together with Loki’s partner (Owen Wilson), they find one of the variants of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the man at the end of time, in this show.
When you think of the subtitle of ‘The Avengers: The Kang Dynasty’ as “The Kang Dynasty”, you know how important this man will be in the future story of the MCU.
This Kang was killed by the female Loki in ‘Loki’, thus breaking the sacred timeline and creating the “Great Earthquake” in parallel universes.
Jaimie Alexander, the “Sif lady” from the ‘Thor’ series, also makes a cameo appearance in the show.
4. The movie ‘Black Widow’ really came a little later than we thought, this film takes place between ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, probably around 2016.
Natasha Romanoff’s past has been mentioned many times in the MCU’s previous films, and it’s time to be acted out, and as for the end result, the audience and fans naturally know what’s in their hearts.
The biggest role of the film is not to retrace Natasha Romanoff’s past, but to introduce the “second generation of Black Widow” – Florence Pugh’s Yelena, also known as Natasha Romanoff’s unrelated sister.
William Hurt as Secretary Ross returns to appear in this film, and as mentioned earlier, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the director of the CIA who was supposed to make her debut in this film, shows her face in the post-credits egg.
The Hawkeye, who was born with Natasha Romanoff and even witnessed her death in ‘Avengers: Endgame’, does not appear in Natasha Romanoff’s one-woman movie at all, only a photo.
5. The controversial new hero Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), who made his MCU debut in the movie ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’, is also the first Chinese-American superhero of the MCU.
This is basically a “patricide” story, Shang-Chi control originally belonged to his father Wenwu (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) Ten Rings, but also defeated his father founded ‘The Ten Rings’ — early in the first two ‘Iron Man’ and the first ‘Ant-Man’ mentioned in this organization.
In ‘Iron Man 3’ caused a furore in the “fake The Mandarin” Ben Kingsley, ‘Doctor Strange’ series ‘Wong’ Benedict Wong have appeared, Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) are also guest stars.
In general, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ is a relatively independent story and has not been linked to other MCU works so far.
6. The American series ‘What If…? is the first animated series of the MCU, which aims to explore various major historical events in the MCU, and what other possibilities are available.
For example, if the serum was injected not Steve Rogers, but Margaret Peggy Carter (Captain America girlfriend), then the world will have a female version of “Agent Carter” and so on.
Since ‘Loki’, the concept of “parallel universes” has been further opened up in this drama, which is the most brilliant work of this stage.
The front of the show looks like each episode is a separate story, but eventually it will come together into a story line, and Jeffrey Wright voices ‘The Watcher’, who will also be the central character of the episode.
‘What If…?’ A very large number of big names from the MCU were invited to voice their characters in the cartoon.
7. The movie ‘Eternals’ is a group drama, the new protagonists are, as the name suggests, a group of “Eternals”, they are living on Earth for more than 7,000 years of immortal alien gods.
Since the return of half of the population that Thanos knocked off, the “Gods” event is going to happen due to the overwhelming number of people on Earth.
It can be roughly understood as an event that will wipe out all humans on the planet (in other words, Thanos snapped his fingers to reduce the population in order to delay the event, is he actually a good guy?) .
The Eternals have to do their best to stop this event and defeat the common enemy, the mutants.
In addition to Angelina Jolie and Tong-Seok Ma and other stars, Harry Styles as Thanos’ brother “Starfox” Eros also appeared in the end credits egg.
Overall, ‘Eternals’ is also essentially a stand-alone story.
8. Jeremy Renner returns as Clint Barton in the American drama ‘Hawkeye’.
Similar to ‘Black Widow’, the ultimate goal of the show is to launch the “Avengers II” – the second generation of Hawkeye Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld).
Master and apprentice to deal with, is Barton in the period as ‘Ronin’ to make enemies. And the above-mentioned second-generation Black Widow Yelena, in this drama also has a lot of role.
Barton’s wife Laura (Linda Cardellini), and the villain Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) from the Marvel Netflix series ‘Daredevil’, also appear.
9.In the movie ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, the Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland in our universe, asks for help from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and inadvertently opens up parallel universes completely.
We meet Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) — the villains in these Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of ‘Spider-Man’.
Wong also makes an appearance in this film, looking busy from ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’.
The concept of this film is quite fly, not only has the fans enjoy the “three Spider-Man together”, but also brought together another Marvel Netflix show characters – “Daredevil “Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Tom Hardy as Venom also appeared in the egg, Marvel Sony has never been so close.
At the end of the film, the world forgets that Peter Parker is Spider-Man (knowing that Spider-Man exists, but not knowing that Spider-Man’s true identity is Peter Parker), and it will also affect the next ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ plot.
10. The American drama ‘Moon Knight’ plays with the concept of multiple personalities, Oscar Isaac as the male protagonist, a moment is a harmless gift store employee Steven Grant, a moment is a murderous mercenary Marc Spector, a moment is the first generation of ancient Egypt in the moon god Khonsu.
The show is about a new hero, but it is also basically a relatively independent episode in terms of plot.
11. The movie ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ takes place after ‘Spider-Man 3’, parallel universes have been opened.
After experiencing the pain of “loss” in ‘WandaVision’, Wanda becomes the “villain” in this film and goes on a killing spree.
After the film ends, Wanda’s fate is temporarily unknown.
The film features the “Illuminati” of the 838 universe (the main MCU universe that viewers are familiar with is 616) – members of which include Professor X (Patrick from the ‘X-Men’ movies), Agent Carter (‘What If…? Stewart), Agent Carter (‘What If…? Agent Carter (‘What If…?’), Maria Rambeau (‘Captain Marvel’, played by Lashana Lynch, who is Captain Marvel’s best friend in the main universe), Black Bolt (‘Inhumans’ from Marvel’s ABC TV series Inhumans” in the Marvel ABC TV series Anson Mount), and John Krasinski as the “Fantastic Four” of Mister Fantastic.
After Disney’s acquisition of Fox, the possibilities were once again opened up even more.
12. The heroine of the American series ‘Ms. Marvel’ is Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a 16-year-old Pakistani-American girl and the first Muslim superhero in the MCU.
She is a huge fan of Captain Marvel, at the end of the film, and their idol seems to have swapped places (Captain Marvel made a cameo appearance for a moment), and everything that happens next will depend on the release of ‘The Marvels’ this year.
The show is more on the side of teenage school comedy style, comic book at this stage of the United States, non-stop in doing a variety of styles of experimentation.
13. Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman, was upgraded to Mighty Thor in the movie ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ and swung Mjolnir.
She, Chris Hemsworth (Chris Hemsworth), Valkyria (Tessa Thompson), and Korg (director Taika Waititi), have to fight together against the villain Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale.
Mighty Thor Jane dies at the end of the film and enters the post-mortem world of Valhalla with Heimdall (played by Idris Elba).
“Guardians of the Galaxy” briefly traveled with Chris Hemsworth before going their separate ways.
14. The animated episode ‘I Am Groot’ tells the story of the little tree man growing up, basically taking place between the first two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and after ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’.
In addition to being very, very, very cute, this show does not add anything extra to the MCU in terms of storyline.
15. The American drama ‘She-Hulk’ is also an attempt at a new style – legal drama.
Attorney Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) is Bruce Banner’s cousin (Mark Ruffalo also stars in the show) who accidentally “infected” with her cousin’s blood and became a 5’9″ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Tim Roth played “Abomination” in ‘The Incredible Hulk’ starring Edward Norton in 2008, and the character joined the MCU through ‘She-Hulk’.
Wong is the busiest character of the fourth stage and appears again in this show.
Charlie Cox’s version of Daredevil from ‘Spider-Man 3’ even has more stories with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in this show.
‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ even breaks the fourth wall in this show, storming the writers’ office to ask for a rewrite of his own storyline and meeting a robotic version of Kevin Feige – all in a jaw-dropping way.
16. “Special” ‘Werewolf By Night’ is a special presentation of Marvel’s Halloween black-and-white short film, only 1 episode.
The hero Jack Russell (Gael García Bernal) is the victim of an ancient family curse, he has been fighting for himself in his own bestial nature, but also in the fight against the dark forces that threaten the Earth, “human-like” also appeared in this special episode.
17. The last feature film work of MCU Phase IV is ‘Black Panther : Wakanda Forever’.
The plot shines reality into the film, with the death of Chadwick Boseman, Black PantherT’Challa in this film also died with the world.
Black Panther’s mother was killed in this film, and his sister Shuri remade the heart-shaped grass and became the second generation of Black Panther, M’Baku wanted to be the new king of Wakanda.
Dominique Thorne’s “Ironheart” also joins the MCU through this film, as does the CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who appears in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ and ‘Black Widow’. CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who turns out to be the ex-wife of Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman, who returns in this film) ……
And we also met T’Challa’s son in the post-credits egg.
18. The last part of the fourth stage is another “Special” of MCU – ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special ‘, relaxing and enjoyable.
In the first two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ inside the constantly cited Kevin Bacon, his father appeared in person!
This special takes place after the members of The Guardians of the Galaxy and Chris Hemsworth have separated, and its biggest contribution to the plot is to tell the audience that Mantis’ (Pom Klementieff) biological father is Ego, which means that she and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) are brother and sister!
