Posted by By now, everyone in the world should have seen Avengers: Endgame. The film is currently up to $2.75 billion in total gross as of this writing. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should not be checking this post out as the following musings will contain spoilers. That being said, here are some theories that I have regarding the future of the MCU.
Multiple Timelines Theory
We learned a lot about how time travel works in Avengers: Endgame. For those not paying attention, it was explained that time will split off and make alternate timelines if something in the past is changed. This means if you were to travel back in time, anything up to your present would be considered the past and anything that happens during your time in the past is now your future causing a new timeline. In physics, this idea is called the Many Worlds Theory.
In the film, the Avengers travel to several key points in their history to collect stones from different timelines to bring the victims of the “snap” back to reality. The problem is, during these time hops, the heroes inadvertently caused new timelines to occur. Here are three specific “New” timelines that were created because of the events of the film.
Loki
The first timeline that was created involved the God of Mischief. During the events of the first Avengers film, the team was able to apprehend Loki and return him to Asgard to face justice. When going after the Mind Stone and Space stone during Avengers: Endgame, Loki was managed to escape custody with the Tesseract and disappeared into the void.
We know that there is a new show featuring Thor’s half brother on Disney’s new streaming service Disney+, but we don’t know what the show will be about. Our guess, it will explore Loki’s adventure in this new timeline.
Gamora
During Avengers: Endgame, the 2014 versions of Thanos, Nebula, and Gamora all travel to the year 2023. During the climactic finale, Gamora turns away from her adoptive father and helps 2023’s version of Nebula by defeating her 2014 sister. I know, it is hard to keep straight.
By the closing of the film, we see Peter Quill looking at a photo of Gamora with the status missing. This indicates that she either died when Tony snapped his fingers or that she is off wandering the current timeline. We are hoping for the later.
If she did stay in 2023, this means that the 2014 version of the Guardians of the Galaxy never joined forces. More than likely, that will be a bleak timeline where either Ronin obtains the Power Stone and becomes a dominant force or Ego the Living Planet succeeds with his plan to destroy all life on all the worlds that seeded to include Earth. This is probably the bleakest of the timelines.
Captain America
Steve Rogers got the ending that he always wanted after the epic conclusion of Avengers: Endgame. He ended up finally getting that long-awaited dance that he promised Peggy Carter at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger. The part that baffled everyone is how Rogers appeared at the end of the movie as an elderly man?
The directors, Joe and Anthony Russo confirmed that Steve did, in fact, live his life out in an alternate timeline. Sorry to all of you out there who believed that he was Peggy Carter’s unnamed husband that was mentioned in Captain America: Winter Soldier. That man still remains a mystery.
Now we have another timeline where Captain America possibly does not join the Avengers. That means, there may be a different outcome in the Battle of New York, or that Hydra succeeds in their plans to destroy threats against them as seen in Captain America: Civil War.
Wanda Maximoff and Vision
Hey! Guess what? This may be a surprise to you, but there is another show that was announced for Disney+. The show is being titled WandaVision and has been confirmed by Elizabeth Olsen herself to be set in the 1950s. Not much else is known about this show.
This is definitely a huge guess on our part but could this be another reality that will be created where Wanda saves Vision? Only time will tell.
The Implications for Multiple Realities
What is Marvel planning? Is there a reason that they are setting up other realities? Marvel is working on setting up the next phases of the MCU. We know nothing about what to expect as we have not gotten any official word yet. We know of a few films that are in some stage of production at the moment, but nothing else. At least, not until San Diego Comic Con or D23 later this summer.
One could guess that their plan is to have some sort of overarching storyline that involves these multiple realities with the final film resolving the multiphase threat ala 2015’s Secret Wars.
Since time travel and the multiverse has been officially established in the MCU, Marvel will need a big bad that is a threat across time and space. Some people are hoping to see a proper MCU introduction of Galactus now that Marvel owns all of the Fox characters once again.
The Longshot Theory
Truth be told though, that would be too easy. Galactus is a huge threat, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now known for taking obscure characters and making them household names. One of the most obscure villains I can think of is Kang the Conqueror. This would be a great villain especially since he has ties to both the Avengers and Fantastic Four.
Kang the Conqueror is a time-traveling villain who is a decedent of Reed Richards from the 31st-Century. His ultimate goal is to conquer Earth but has been always thwarted by the likes of the Avengers and Fantastic Four.
Kang would definitely be one of the most obscure villains to date. Like Thanos before him, in the hands of the talent that Marvel employs, I feel this can be done well. We could see these new timelines being conquered one by one. This will cause heroes both old and new to step up and defend the last timeline, the one that was established at the end of Endgame.
In order for this character to exist, we need to establish new characters to the universe.
The Fantastic Four
The Disney/Fox merger is complete and Marvel’s first family is back at home where they belong. The question is, how do they get introduced to the current universe. If Kevin Feige has his way, it is going to be a while, but we say sooner rather then later.
One idea that would make sense is to have the characters investigating the power surges caused by the snaps. After Thanos snapped the first time, he let off a power signature that was off the charts. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm could have been sent to space after the second snap to figure out what this power was. During the third snap, the one Tony did, the wave of energy hits their ship causing their transformations.
The Fantastic Four have so many great villains that are now available to wreak havoc in the MCU. The before mentioned Galactus, Doctor Doom, Annihilus, and many more. Since Kang is a descendant to Reed Richards, this would be the perfect franchise to introduce the character.
Mutants
The Mutant population will be easy to introduce into the MCU. I feel that the snap should be the main cause still to give some implications from all this energy being released.
We could have characters like Charles Xavier and Max Eisenhardt (Magneto) already existing in the current continuity. There can be other mutants that exist but just not enough to pop up on the government’s radar. That is until the snap.
The energy from the stones being used this much caused the X gene that had been dormant in the population start to manifest. Now people are waking up with abilities or are being transformed into new forms. This new Mutant menace grabs the attention of the population and now people are scared. Will this happen to them or someone they love?
The Government decides to take action and start to round them up. Charles Xavier decides that he should start a school to protect the new young mutants from being gathered into camps. Max, who has seen this before when he was a young child in Poland, decides to take action into his own hands and forms a Brotherhood to combat the prejudice populace. This causes Xavier to act quickly by turning his top students into a strike force, The X-Men.
Mutants can already be in existence because we know that Deadpool exists in some form. Whether he will be the same Deadpool from the Fox films and brought over in some sort of Multiverse jump is yet to be seen.
Wrap-up
Again, this is just a theory. This is probably not the route Marvel is going to go with these characters. This is just fun speculation until we finally start getting some announcements about the future of the MCU.
But, what do you think? do you have your own theories? Which of these theories do you like or hate? Let us know in the comments below.
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