Marvel’s Phase 6: What We Know So Far
We were expecting a ton of Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 5 announcements at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, but we were gifted with an extra surprise: a sneak peak at Marvel’s Phase 6, slated to run from November 2024 to November 2025. While most details are still under wraps, we got a few exciting reveals. Here’s all the info on Phase 6 that we have so far, plus some speculation about what might be revealed next!
The Fantastic Four (Film, November 8, 2024)
Kicking off Phase 6 is The Fantastic Four, which is finally making its entry into the MCU after the beleaguered franchise suffered from shoddy film adaptations in 2005 and 2015. The Fantastic Four were teased in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in which Wanda brutally shreds Reed Richards (John Krasinski) into spaghetti. John Krasinksi was a popular fan casting for Richards before Multiverse of Madness came out, but it remains to be seen if he’ll step into the role for real in Phase 5. Right now, we know absolutely nothing about the Fantastic Four film.
However, there’s a lot of speculation that Doctor Doom will be entering the MCU before too long, and since he’s Reed Richards’s arch enemy, The Fantastic Four would be just the place to do it. Doom’s entry at the beginning of Phase 6 would also set up Avengers: Secret Wars (more on that below), since in the comics, Doom is the mastermind behind the incursions that almost cause the destruction of the universe.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (Film, May 2, 2025)
Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer was introduced in Loki Season 1 as the secret head of the TVA and the one responsible for pruning the entire multiverse into one single timeline. Kang’s reason for starting the TVA was to prevent any of his alternate selves from discovering the multiverse, learning how to cross it, and then starting a war that would destroy countless realities. As Kang himself put it, if the multiverse were unleashed and his variants were allowed to rise to power, “everything burns.”
We’ll see Kang again in Ant Man: Quantumania and possibly Loki Season 2, and we now know that things will come to a head in the next major MCU team-up event, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. In the comics, The Kang Dynasty is a story arc in which Kang and his son travel back in time to take over Earth. The MCU might adapt that storyline so that instead of focusing on one measly planet, Kang is trying to destroy the universe so that his reality will reign supreme.
Destin Daniel Cretton, director of Shang-Chi, will be directing The Kang Dynasty. That’s the only detail we know for sure at the moment, but we can be reasonably certain that Majors will star as Kang, with the new Avengers roster going up against him. That roster might include any combination of all the new and returning heroes we’ve been seeing in phases 4 and 5.
Avengers: Secret Wars (Film, November 7, 2025)
There’s so much to be excited about in 2025. Not only do we finally get the Secret Wars movie that fans have been speculating about ever since Phase 4 began, but we get it only six months after The Kang Dynasty. Getting the full double header in one year is thrilling, given the agonizing yearlong wait between Infinity War and Endgame (April 2018 and 2019, respectively).
In the Secret Wars comics story arcs (there were two of them, one in the ’80s and another in 2015), the universe-destroying incursions accelerate until Earth-616’s universe hangs on the brink of destruction. It turns out that Doctor Doom is using the powers of a being called the Beyonder to engineer the whole thing, and the Avengers have to defeat him in order to stop the incursion from happening. With the Fantastic Four now debuting in Phase 6, it’s looking very likely that Doctor Doom will be involved in Secret Wars in one way or another.
Will Doom work with Kang to try to destroy the universe? Will Kang turn out to be Doom’s miniboss in The Kang Dynasty? Or am I totally off base with all this Doom stuff? We know that the MCU gets extremely loose with its adaptations, so it’s hard to predict anything with certainty. Thanks to the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, though, we know that incursions are already happening, and the problem is only going to get worse as the clock ticks down to Secret Wars. You can expect the fate of the Marvel universe to be hanging in the balance in November 2025.
What Else Could Phase 6 Hold?
Along with the three Phase 6 films that were announced, there were 8 blank spaces in the Phase 6 timeline that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige presented in Comic-Con’s Hall H. What could they possibly be?
There were a couple of projects that fans were hoping would be unveiled, but didn’t end up being announced at Comic-Con. One was a standalone Scarlet Witch movie. A lot of fans were disappointed with Wanda’s character arc in Multiverse of Madness, which had her going full villain after being corrupted by the Darkhold, and then seemingly dying when she destroyed Mount Wundagore. It was disappointing to see Wanda’s character fall into one-dimensional motherhood clichés and immediately get killed off after finally becoming the Scarlet Witch at the end of WandaVision, and many fans (myself included) refuse to believe she’s really dead. Maybe, just maybe, one of those mystery Phase 6 slots will bring our beloved Wanda back.
There’s also the matter of the Young Avengers, the teenage superhero team popularized in the comics. We’ve already met several of the original Young Avengers, including America Chavez, Kid Loki, Billy and Tommy Maximoff, and Kate Bishop. Plus, other young MCU heroes like Kamala Khan and Riri Williams could also join the lineup. It would be bizarre at this point for Marvel not to make a Young Avengers movie, given all the seeds they’ve been planting, so the chances are very good that the team will assemble in Phase 6.
Other than that, we know that Marvel has Nova and Wonder Man projects in early development, although those may not come out until Phase 7 in 2026 (if the Earth even exists by then, it’s so far off). Plus, we know that Shang-Chi is getting a sequel, with the Eternals most likely getting a sequel as well. After all, we’re jonesing for more Harry Styles as Eros!
We’ll post more Phase 6 details as we get them, so stay tuned!
(featured image: Marvel)
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