Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

'I could have just avoided the thread altogether but because clicking through to spray the room down with needless haterade is an addiction akin to the most raging of junk habits, allow me to just state for the 457,017,381st time that the MCU is the nadir of Western culture.'

There, I saved some of you some time if you know how to copy + paste.

Crazy to think we're now 15 months and counting with no new MCU (unless you count the final season of Agents of SHIELD, which even I don't anymore).

the Helstrom TV show started on Hulu this week

which apparently sort of counts

Oh. Well, that was a stealth-ass debut.

it looks, and by all accounts is, absolutely terrible

I could have avoided the thread but it's fun to talk shit about garbage every once in a while

anyway, dud

Simon, I left you a present upthread. Please use it in good health.

you forgot "fascist"

Sorry, I very quickly fell asleep, what was that you were saying?

ANNNNNNYway.

I could have avoided the thread but it's fun to talk shit about garbage every once in a while

new board descrip pls

Glad this thread is here to get you to stop social distancing, bg! Adopt herd immunity!

work on yr nerd immunity imo

ok ok I'm actually done for now enjoy folks

Gentlemen you can’t needlessly rehash something for the 457,017,381st time in here, this is the marvel cinematic universe phase 4 and beyond thread

Looool

Did u know that if your eyes roll with enough force that they can actually detach from their stalks and fly out u face? I wish I hadn't had to discover that first-hand just this very moment. Dang.

is this the thread where we can talk about andrew garfield and tobey maguire maybe appearing as spider-men in the third tom holland spider-man movie? because i can't be fucked looking to see if it's been mentioned elsewhere

Hadn't read that. I did read that Jamie Foxx will be playing Electro again, which certainly suggests some multiversal fuckery.

I liked the look of Jamie Foxx's Electro, while hating the electric eel origin / Max Dillon as social misfit portrayal. Andrew and Tobey were good, before we knew Marvel could do better. I've compartmentalized Sony's properties from the MCU, so the last two Spider-Man have far exceeded expectations.

Phase 4, most looking forward to Shang-Chi, and hoping they nail the Paul Gulacy visual tone. Expecting to be most surprised by Eternals. If/as the movies go cosmic/magical/horror, looking forward to how they ground them.

Beyond - FF and X-Men. About damn time.

Are we allowing MCU television in these threads as well? Cuz it looks like the Maslany She-Hulk was just a rumor that she debunked in a recent interview, sadly.

most looking forward to Shang-Chi, and hoping they nail the Paul Gulacy visual tone.

Yeah the credits are going to say "based on the character created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin" and I'm going to be sad because it's not "based on the character in that holy-shit awesome run by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy, DUUUUUDE."

Pretty sure I first "heard" "Rhiannon" thanks to Master of Kung Fu.

So much character fleshing-out that was lovable but verged on dumb...Black Jack Tarr becoming a big Frank Frazetta fan, lol. (This might have been in the Mike Zeck or Gene Day days, can't remember.)

okay lol @ "nerd immunity"

it looks like the Maslany She-Hulk was just a rumor that she debunked in a recent interview, sadly.

I don't know, I smell a rat. Kind of like when Taika denied he was making a Star Wars movie and then was all, psych, I'm making a Star Wars movie.

I assume she's still negotiating her contract, and Ruffalo's tweet improved her payday/terms.

Oh I hope it's a feint, makes sense since she called it a "press release that got out of hand", which doesn't come across as quite the strong denial the article I read implied. I'm still hopeful she shows up in it.

maybe she plays jennifer and somebody else plays she hulk? and she plays "the voice in her head"? it's a weird bit of pr thus far.

https://www.vulture.com/2020/10/oscar-isaac-moon-knight-marvel-series.html

Just negotiating phase/tactics. Though I'd love to see his take on the character.

it's a meaty fuckin' role!

lol oscar isaac hated working for disney so much during Star Wars, wonder what kind of sweetheart deal they’re offering him for this

Well, much like Finn his role got worse and worse as the series went on, so I don't blame him

Is this the right thread for this(?) Kate Bishop on-set images have surfaced: https://www.comicbookmovie.com/tv/marvel/hawkeye/hawkeye-set-video-gives-us-a-much-better-look-at-hailee-steinfeld-and-jeremy-renner-a180551#gs.mgnaf1

The casting announcements for Spider-Man 3 make it really look like they are just going to repeat the multiverse thing that worked so well in Into the Spider-Verse with a live action version. Even for the MCU this seems really lazy. Happy to be proven wrong, but I really liked watching the first two with my son and this makes me way less excited for a third one.

I mean, given the Dr. Strange sequel’s subtitle, the multiverse was already long planned, but this seems like a questionable move.

Even for the MCU this seems really lazy.

McKenna was nominated for both an Emmy and a Hugo, for writing a multiverse story, seven years before Spider-Verse came out tbfttl

A bunch more Kate Bishop set pics circulating today; Steinfeld looks like a great casting choice.

Just misread that as 'Seinfeld' and I'm still laughing from that mental image.

McKenna was nominated for both an Emmy and a Hugo, for writing a multiverse story, seven years before Spider-Verse came out tbfttl

Oh I don't have any issue with McKenna and, again, this is total speculation just based on the casting, it's more just surprise that they'd use the Spider-Man film to redo the Spider-verse think so soon again.

It may be wise to speculate with caution, as you may recall that a lot of the pre-release assumptions about the last Spidey flick were upended (ie the thing about Mysterio dropping in from a different earth).

they'll need to add more Spiders-Man and Girls if they're going to sorta hit the key diversity theme

Maybe this is Mysterio running the same scam again. Maybe every future Marvel movie will end by revealing that actually it was Mysterio.

iirc doesn't Mysterio make that multiverse claim himself in the movie, as part of his ruse? Between the timeline resolution of the Avengers, Spider-verse and Dr. Strange title, and possibly what they hinted at with the Vision/Witch show, they're definitely leaning in to this. Someone versed in the comics could maybe make a good guess as to the overarching plot or big bad. I have no idea. Does Captain Marvel 2 have a title or casting? They've hinted at introducing Adam Warlock a few times now, I think. Certainly a multiverse scenario could allow, say, the Fantastic Four to just pop in as a deus ex reboot at the end of a movie. Lots of ways Marvel can go, assuming they even want another giant overarching crossover scenario.

Yeah, I have no issue with the multiverse idea and that's clearly where we are heading, I was just saying that it seems kinda lazy to launch into it with a do-over of the multiple Spider-Men thing. Especially since the Spider-Man flick is slated before the Dr. Strange sequel, which will obviously lean heavily into the multiverse too.

I just have no idea why they'd want to maintain any association with the awful Andrew Garfield movies

there's (un)surprisingly a small, vocal fanbase online who grew up with and liked those movies

i can't lie though - i am excited to see all those jabronis in one big battle royale. even the characters who died! let's get Topher Grace in there while we're at it

hoping they insert Mulaney's Spider-Ham Who-Framed-Roger-Rabbit-style

It could be cool if they do it right.

It’s kind of funny that a generation will grow up thinking of multiple Spideys as a basic “Spider-Man” feature, when for most of Marvel’s history, there was only one Parker, he was a very singular hero... even while there were a few different Caps, Thors, Captain Marvels, etc. (I’m talking back in the ’80s, long before there were a zillion versions of every character.)

I mean, a generation already has grown up thinking multiple Spideys are a basic Spider-Man feature; Ben Reilly, although created in the 70s, came into his own circa 1994.

I also recently watched Twisters and I just don't find Ramos an engaging actor at all. I just don't think his Broadway talents translate very well to film/TV. But clearly some people love him. Here he just doesn't sell the menace his character needs in the slightest bit.

yeah i agree, it’s a bummer! he just feels a bit tense & self-conscious to me in a way that distracts. i’m not engaging w the character, i’m always aware of him

One more ep to go, loving this show a lot more than I expected. Probably one of my top three MCU live action shows, tbh. The cast is great.

Not so sure about the casting choice in the final episode.

At what point is okay to openly talk about Mephisto and Borat?

First reactions to Fantastic Four are in and am now officially psyched for it. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/fantastic-four-first-reactions-pedro-pascal-marvel-1236465177/

Though to be honest I was on board when I saw this poster. https://bsky.app/profile/mattferguson.bsky.social/post/3ltmpodgfms2q

lol once again, movie may be good but those first reaction tweets are as always utterly ridiculous. Though my favorite is the one in such a rush to heap praise that it leaves in a pretty glaring typo:

#FantasticFour Is a masterpiece. the visual effects and the score are a HUGE stand out. Galactus Is huge In IMAX. It’s emotional and gives you hope. It beats you off and doesn’t stop. STAY Until the END CREDITS.

^^Did Kevin Smith write that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFLlwtqHINs

Those 5d cinema effects seats are getting pretty crazy

Though my favorite is the one in such a rush to heap praise that it leaves in a pretty glaring typo:

has the person that wrote that ever snuck a masturbation joke into a fake first reaction tweet to a superhero movie in order to get rubes to quote it before, or are you talking about a specific one of the capitalisation errors

We will never know.

There’s simply no way to tell.

sometimes it's fun to be a rube rather than knowing everyone else's shtick and rolling your eyes while mumbling "oh, they're doing THAT again"

sometimes a little naivety comes in handie

I’d never encountered that person or their schtick before but the quote looked like an obvious joke and I couldn’t see the typo

searched after asking the question and found he was an $8-a-month-era sub-sub-sub-Ben-Mekler hunting for Musk engagement bucks with fruit so low it’s on the ground

but was still amused by the hashtag

(enjoyed Mekler’s schtick btw fwiw)

Meantime Feige with all kinds of updates and claims and things

https://deadline.com/2025/07/marvel-fantastic-four-blade-kevin-feige-1236462995/

sure Jan..

Feige says, “Even before what had happened to the actor, we had started to realize that Kang wasn’t Thanos.”

“There was only one character that could be that because he was that in the comics for decades and decades, and because of the Fox acquisition, we finally had it, and that’s Dr. Doom,” he says.

“We had started talking about Dr. Doom even before we officially pivoted from Kang,” Feige says. “In fact, I had started talking with Robert about this audacious idea before Ant-Man 3 even came out.”

Did he just say they'll be rebooting the iconic characters (Cap, Iron Man) in... the X-Men films? Please don't do that.

And right on schedule, all the real reviews of the movie more or less make it sound like every other MCU movie. Which is to say, some shade of "fine" or "good."

I like David Ehrlich, and he didn't even give it fine or good. I'll probably see it anyway...

Repeating myself from FB: yes, a Marvel Movie etc. but Matt Shakman has the eye/pacing for retro based on the similar 60s segments in WandaVision and it worked well here; being an alternate Earth allowed for an earnestness that both fits its time of origin and oddly but appropriately enough really does make it more similar to the new Superman than not (in medias res story more or less, origin story disposed of fairly quickly in flashback, crowds that turn on a dime, etc. etc.). Quicker than I thought it would be too, a good sign! The ensemble does have chemistry and it was kinda nice to have a Johnny Storm that wasn't a (totally) horny bro; you actually got a proper sense of 'Yeah these people ARE smart and dedicated.' Who knew! Style as noted is pure 60s cultural signifier puree, references everywhere, but my favorite one may have been the acoustic folk theme song at the end literally about devouring things, who knew Galactus was so fond of the Greenwich Village scene. Also, nice to see a full Jack Kirby quote in the credits.

I don’t even know where my bar is for Marvel movies anymore. Looking back on the older ones, were any of them truly excellent? Certainly many of them were entertaining, and so is the new Fantastic Four. I liked the characters, the action sequences were solid (though not necessarily thrilling, and maybe not quite enough), and I thought they did a great job depicting Galactus. Also, the story mostly held together and only once did I think “nah they’re not stupid enough to actually do that.” And of course the retro future production design was a delight throughout.

Also, I really really appreciated that this film requires ZERO knowledge of past Marvel movies. What a pleasant relief. My son likes MCU movies but he doesn’t have the patience nor stamina to watch them all. We’ve been very slowly (like, 2 years) making our way through them and we are only up to Civil War. He is usually not interesting in seeing them when they’re in theaters but he was game for this one and he really liked it.

Ok, now a couple more spoilery thoughts and asides: what a weird coincidence that the way they escaped Galactus at first—baiting him and Silver Surfer to the edge of a black hole and then tricking them with a decoy ship explosion—is literally the exact same plot for the s3 premiere of Star Trek Strange New Worlds last week. Also, less coincidental and therefore more baffling: they made Pedro Pascal’s character take the exact same action in this movie as his character in The Last of Us??? Does this mean Silver Surfer will surprise murder him in the first ten minutes of the next movie? How many times is Pedro going to make a sci-fi/genre adventure requiring him to save a child as a major plot device??? Is this written to his contracts?

As a young comic fan, the two most memorable / shocking comic panels were Gwen Stacy‘s death and Reed zapping young Franklin to stop his powers, which led to Reed and Sue separating for a time. Maybe Triplicate Girl becoming Duo Damsel in third.

I liked this quite a bit! Nicely integrated several different eras/runs of FF.

Would watch an entire Mole Man series.

The only off note was the last joke (in the Fantasticar). It fell totally flat for me, and cheapened the final sentiment.

Also, nice to see a full Jack Kirby quote in the credits.

By full, do you mean it’s a real one, not like the insultingly fake Stan Lee one at the end of Spider-Verse?

sic, are you intending to come across as hyper-confrontational

one-joke novelty account iirc

Went to see this today since I have an unexpected week off from work. It was ok. Clearly the bloom is off the rose for me and the MCU, as I think I would have been flipping out about it ten years ago.

I’m genuinely curious about the Kirby quote, having gone to the Spider-Verse release the other week and forgotten about the quote in the intervening years — especially notable given the new research in the Rabiroff / Reisman piece on Flaming Hydra last month

I loved this! Have not read the comics but was a devoted fan of the Saturday morning cartoon. in most ways this felt like a human version of the cartoon right down to the corniness & it totally worked for me. My only c

my only complaint is the score was doing way too much all the time, very murray gold dr who incessantness that i found annoying at times

otherwise: yay!

I just finished Ironheart

What a sack of shit

Not only did they completely undo all of Riri’s character growth in order to have that dumb as balls ending, but they already told this story in WandaVision. Find a new story, people!

I thought Fantastic Four was fine, but also strangely inert. I kept waiting for it to take off, but then it was over. Part of the problem was Pedro, whose charisma was largely held in check. In fact, of the Four only Kirby had any real spark, but even then she was largely reduced to protective mom mode. Curious how they integrate the team into future projects. There have been so many characters, big and small, introduced and abandoned over the course of the MCU; the roster has become more than a bit unwieldy, and there are still more to come that probably demand more than a cursory backstory or cameo (Doom, X-Men).

Funny how this and "Superman" were both primed to serve similar purposes - righting franchise ships - and in many ways went about it similarly. Both were bright and colorful, both were relatively wholesome and a little corny/goofy, both began more or less en medias rex, with no backstory, both were relatively self-contained, both featured incredibly efficient evacuations of Manhattan/Metropolis ...

I mostly enjoyed myself with First Steps, but this is the kind of movie that might be more valuable in retrospect.

Also: needed more Mole Man.

As a movie experience, Thunderbolts* was better

What I loved most was the premise of the world, the optimistic throwback/retro-future 1960s of everything.

I can't explain exactly why I disliked FF so much but it was probably the most bored I've been since the Shang Chi movie (although I didn't manage to finish The Marvels if I'm honest). I found the colour treatment very wearing - the scene when they went back into space I actually found myself noticing that everything was blue and white - and the sound was indeed MurrayGold-tastic. The characters all felt underdeveloped although maybe that's a factor of having spent time with them outside of the film; this felt like a snapshot of one tiny character trait blown up to an entire personality. And as for what happens to Sue, I just felt like quoting this TMWRNJ sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcU9mXa-GCk

I not only enjoyed Thunderbolts* more, I enjoyed Eternals and maybe even Kraven The Hunter more.

FF had that kinda blank feeling I get from other stylized pieces like Speed Racer.

It had the feeling you get when the FF appear in someone else's comic book, just a smear of the lore and reminders of what their individual deals are. Which, to be honest, was kind of the way the book itself was written for stretches of issues. I'd rank it as fine, but it's a weakness of the team movie blockbuster where individual characters get short shrift in service of the plot being about the entire team.

FF was always going to be one of the hardest comics to adapt, because their whole deal is kind of ridiculous.

Agree that Thunderbolts was a better movie. It was the best of the three MCU films this year, and ultimately made the least money.

I liked Thunderbolts better than this, too, lol.

I thought Reed Richards was supposed to be a genius. Turns out he takes pregnant women into space and can’t even run a proper press conference.

Gotta say though I really loved the twist of Torch getting a crush on the Silver Surfer and that leading to him having the ridiculous commitment required to learn the Zenn-La language just to make her feel bad about her awful job

Favorite part: the faster than lightspace watery effect

Worst parts: Sue’s big boring speech, being too afraid/cheap to show Reed’s powers, CGI so sloppy that I actually noticed it

Really felt like marvel by the numbers which bummed me out because it was close to being a good movie.

Marvel Design Peeve: insisting on giving nonhuman characters human eyes. Vision, Silver Surfer. It's weird. I know they want the characters to have a certain level of relatable humanity or something, I guess? Also: the masks that constantly zip on and off just so we can see the superstar actor's faces.

most of the actors weren’t superstars until they were cast for an MCU movie? it’s just to see a face, any face. See also: bazillions of other films where the cast should be wearing masks/helmets/PPE but don’t because the audience doesn’t like it like that.

Didn’t feel like MCU by the numbers to me but whatever. It was fine.