After the latest announcements and comments aboutAvengers: Doomsday, I’m concerned about whether theMCUwill ever properly wrap up one Marvel team that has some major lingering story threads for the franchise to finish off.The MCU timelinehas always had to balance a range of hero stories at the same time, but the number of heroes and narratives to balance at once has certainly increased during the Multiverse Saga. While many exciting figures and names have cropped up in recent years, this has created some complications for the superhero franchise in terms of handling its priorities properly.
While the upcoming Avengers movies offer a way for a chunk of the MCU’s characters to all get follow-ups in one place - and come together for an epic story while doing so - there’s still even here a natural limit to how many figures can get the spotlight at once, especially sincetheAvengers: Doomsdaystorywill need to also flesh out Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom, andSecret Warswill presumably have even bigger fish to fry. As such, it seems there may be no place to tie up some of the loose ends left for one MCU hero team.
The Avengers: Doomsday Cast List Features A Lot Of Major MCU Heroes - But Also Leaves Many Out
TheofficialAvengers: Doomsdaycast announcementwent into some considerable depth when it came to who would be appearing in the next Avengers movie afterAvengers: Endgame- revealing almost 30 actors who would play a role in the upcoming release over the course of several hours. These names featured some unsurprising additions - like Robert Downey Jr as the titular Doctor Doom, or Anthony Mackie’s Captain America and Danny Ramirez’s Falcon, followingCaptain America: Brave New World’s endingteasing they’d be core members of the new Avengers - but also left several notable figures out.
TheAvengers: Doomsdaycast list not featuring iconic MCU figures like Tom Holland’s Spider-Man or Hugh Jackman’s new Wolverine variant has led to increased debate about what the plot of the movie holds, and whether the franchise is hiding that some other key heroes are set to appear inDoomsday, or if it will save these characters forAvengers: Secret Warsinstead. However, there are also a fair share of characters whose returns don’t seem as somewhat guaranteed as these characters who have starred in MCU movie releases that have grossed over a billion dollars.
Avengers: Doomsday’s Cast List & The Last Comments About The Movie’s Hero Roster Don’t Bode Well For The Eternals
The Eternals are in a precarious position both inside the MCU, and in the real world itself.Eternals' critical and box office results came back less than stellar, and audiences have shown little enthusiasm about the prospect of them returning to the big or small screen, with most conversation aboutEternalsand its aftermath instead focusing on how the MCU would explain the calcified Celestial corpse poking out of the Earth’s crust. While this story aspect has been followed up on, the other major cliffhangers inEternals' endinghaven’t been, leaving the release’s plot in an even more awkward position.
TheAvengers: Doomsdaycast further solidifies the idea that the MCU may simply choose to move on from the storylines raised inEternalsdespite them seeming important for the universe, sincethere isn’t a singleEternalsactor in the current cast reveals. Similarly, the fact Kevin Feige’sDoomsdaycast comments allude to a wide variety of factions appearing, but not the Eternals - and the fact that Makkari actor Lauren Ridloff has explained that Makkari’s appearance in the movie is not likely in a recent interview withThe Direct- support the idea of the group being absent for this next chapter.
Of course, there is still a not inconsiderable possibility that some Eternals appear inAvengers: Secret Wars, but the chances of a significant appearance in a movie that looks set to juggle the entire extended cast of the MCU - and several other universes, if the comics andDoomsday’s cast are anything to go by - seem pretty low. As such, it doesn’t seem like story angles such as Thanos' brother Starfox debuting in the franchise or Arishem taking some of the Eternals to decide the fate of humanity have a strong chance of being followed up on meaningfully any time soon.
Avengers: Secret Wars' Ending May Make The Chances Of The MCU Tying Up Its Eternal Loose Ends Impossible
One of the most popular theories aboutAvengers: Secret Warsitself is that it will end with something of a soft reboot for the MCU, allowing the franchise to course correct and adjust as it goes into its future. This certainly makes sense when looking at the source material the movie will be drawing from, as the original Secret Wars comic served as something of its own soft reboot for Marvel’s comics - bringing in new storylines and adjusting existing ones - and the later 2015 Secret Wars comic event essentially reset the main Marvel universe and its wider multiverse.
The MCU adapting core aspects of the 2015 Secret Wars' story also aligns with theRusso brothers' comments about the movieand the decision to have Doctor Doom enter the MCU, since Doom is a particularly core figure in the narrative.
Given the MCU seemingly has to explain things like how the X-Men are entering into the main universe, a soft reboot of sorts also offers the perfect way to justify changes like this for the franchise. This further reinforces the idea that a soft reboot or readjusting of the world is in order - especially with a spot of multiverse mayhem on the horizon that would logistically require some major moments in order to properly grip audiences.
With this in mind,if a soft reboot does indeed take place, it’s unlikely the MCU would allow lingering loose threads they don’t seem to intend to follow up on to persist, as this is essentially the perfect chance to get rid of anything that isn’t working as intended for the universe and franchise. Currently, it seems more likely than not that the Eternals and their own remaining story threads would fall into that category.
Ultimately, given the divisive reception theEternalsmovie netted upon release, delicately putting the film’s remaining pieces to one side may be for the best. But this does seem like something of a shame all the same, especially since theEternalsending did promise interesting Marvel storylines like Kit Harrington’s Dane Whitman becoming the Black Knight, and that information could be revealed about Thanos via his brother getting his own MCU arc. With so many stories needing to co-exist currently, though, these prospective plotlines may end up needing to be necessary sacrifices for theMCU.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
