Marvel's Phase 5

[Happenstance]

Here we go then, Marvel announced the Phase 5 block of movies/shows

 

I'd say I'm mostly interested in Secret Invasion (although I think it needed more build up than the few hints we've had so far, Agatha, Daredevil and Thunderbolts.

[Hero-of-Time]

You can see them already setting up for Thunderbolts in some of the  shows and movies. It's certainly the one I'm looking forward to the most. I can't wait to see Citizen V on the big screen. 

[Julius]

3 hours ago, Happenstance said:

As someone who hasn't enjoyed Phase Four for the most part, looking at this I'm just like:

It's just been a lot of dead air for me, seems like we're speedrunning phases now, and I think I can already comfortably say that Phase Four is the weakest Phase so far by a long shot – but I'm hopeful that Phase Five kicks it back up a gear. I hate to find myself on the side where looking at one of these slates makes me feel tired more than it does excited. 

I'm a bit excited for Daredevil to be back at least, it sounds like Guardians 3 is going to be sunsetting the arc there from what was apparently said, and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and Thunderbolts are probably the two others I'm looking forward to at the moment as well. 

The scarier part to me is that I feel like they're clearly still holding some things back for D23 in September, maybe where the X-Men start to fit into these slates? But maybe that'll be talk for Phase 6 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Julius

[Happenstance]

I think we'll all probably enjoy Phase 4 a lot more when we look back on it in a few years time. It's similar to Phase 1 in that it's a lot of setting things up for the big stories on their way but without the fresh feel that only that first phase would ever be able to achieve.

One show I'm surprised didn't get announced was Young Avengers. So many of those characters were introduced in Phase 4 that I felt that show had to be on it's way but nothing so far.

[Hero-of-Time]

The issue with Phase 4 is that a lot of it doesn't seem to knit together, at least not yet. With the Phase 1 you knew they were setting up to a big team up in Avengers and then the next few years was getting the stones and prepping for Thanos. So far, Phase 4 hasn't really done any of this, outside of the Loki series mentioning Kang.

I think the TV shows have done more damage than good because people are having to watch a lot of content now just to keep up with things. A few at work didn't realise that they needed to watch Wanadavision before Multiverse of Madness and I imagine lots of people will be lost when The Marvels arrives but haven't watched Ms Marvel. 

I'll continue to keep track of things but I can see why so many have dropped off during this phase. I know a few of my mates were happy enough to leave it at Endgame and will jump back in once the X-Men arrive. People really want the mutants to arrive in the MCU, myself included.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Happenstance said:

I think we'll all probably enjoy Phase 4 a lot more when we look back on it in a few years time. It's similar to Phase 1 in that it's a lot of setting things up for the big stories on their way but without the fresh feel that only that first phase would ever be able to achieve.

Maybe, but for me it's not a question of it setting things up (which I think it's just taken to a whole other level of labouring out), it's a question of quality. I see your point though, and if it was a case of things being set up taking too long for me, as I know it is for others, being my main issue with the Phase, then I could see that as a possibility. I just don't think it's churned out much content that's actually good, if I'm being honest. 

Looking back on it now, I've enjoyed moments of the shows, but haven't really been enraptured by any of them (though I've still got to go back and finish Moon Knight, and I don't know if I'll get to Ms. Marvel, as it sounds like it just wouldn't be up my alley), and the films have been all over the place for me too; I've said it before, but I thought Shang-Chi was solid and No Way Home's second half was super, but Black Widow, Eternals, Multiverse of Madness, were poor for me, and all for different reasons.

I look back on Phase One by comparison where Iron Man is still one of my favourite MCU films (and one of the best looking), I loved The First Avengers, and obviously the first Avengers film is just a fun romp; it's by no means the strongest phase, and it's got some stinkers (sorry, Iron Man 2), but even if it wasn't leading up to something, I think it's got some good films in there. It's like how Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic film even if you take away the superhero side of things in that film, it's just a guy having a bad day caught up in his hectic day-to-day life in NYC, I just don't think Phase Four has much beyond the surface level when compared to earlier Phases. 

I also think this is the Phase where the focus on quality vs quantity has been thrown out of the window and then some, and as a result, I don't think there's been a single project in Phase Four so far which hasn't had a fair few moments of cheap looking CGI. It's not surprising given how much they've churned out, but it's very jarring going back to the first Iron Man and realising it has better used and more consistent CGI than anything Phase Four has offered up so far. 

I'll have to wait and see, maybe Love and Thunder will save it for me (still haven't seen it), maybe Wakanda Forever will, maybe they won't. I feel like before I was along for the ride and through a lot of Phase Four I've kind of just found myself being dragged along 

1 hour ago, Happenstance said:

One show I'm surprised didn't get announced was Young Avengers. So many of those characters were introduced in Phase 4 that I felt that show had to be on it's way but nothing so far.

Yeah, that's an interesting thing to point out. Maybe they're saving it for D23? Honestly, with D23, I'm surprised they had a slate and a half to announce at SDCC. This SDCC has had a crazy number of announcements, it's nice to still see that energy and excitement when things like E3 have made choices which have seen them nosedive. 

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

So far, Phase 4 hasn't really done any of this, outside of the Loki series mentioning Kang.

Yeah, we're getting a variant of him in Quantumania at least, but it is pretty weird that we went from having a concrete idea of "oh they're doing Kang!" with Loki, to a while later being like "are...are we still going Kang?", but looking back at the original Phase Four slate, it just looks like a knock-on effect of the pandemic and needing to shuffle things around, as Loki and What If...? were supposed to be after a lot of these other projects:

Makes sense too when you consider that we've had a lot of multiverse stuff happen since Loki aired but literally no-one has questioned what the hell is going on, based on its original positioning Loki was probably meant to be a grand reveal of "ooooooohhhhhhh so it is Kang". 

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I think the TV shows have done more damage than good because people are having to watch a lot of content now just to keep up with things. A few at work didn't realise that they needed to watch Wanadavision before Multiverse of Madness and I imagine lots of people will be lost when The Marvels arrives but haven't watched Ms Marvel. 

Yeah, it's definitely felt like an obligation at times more than anything else which has seen me check some of these shows out and continue watching the films. It wasn't a massive thing in Black Widow, thankfully, but two of my mates hadn't seen Falcon and The Winter Soldier, so could get the general gist of the post-credits scene based on its contents, but had no idea who it was that just turned up. And the Eternals post-credits scene basically wanted you to have the slate up to try and guess whose voice you were hearing  

Edited July 24, 2022 by Julius

[Mr_Odwin]

22 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The issue with Phase 4 is that a lot of it doesn't seem to knit together, at least not yet. With the Phase 1 you knew they were setting up to a big team up in Avengers and then the next few years was getting the stones and prepping for Thanos. So far, Phase 4 hasn't really done any of this, outside of the Loki series mentioning Kang.

I think the TV shows have done more damage than good because people are having to watch a lot of content now just to keep up with things. A few at work didn't realise that they needed to watch Wanadavision before Multiverse of Madness and I imagine lots of people will be lost when The Marvels arrives but haven't watched Ms Marvel. 

I'll continue to keep track of things but I can see why so many have dropped off during this phase. I know a few of my mates were happy enough to leave it at Endgame and will jump back in once the X-Men arrive. People really want the mutants to arrive in the MCU, myself included.

It's all about the multiverse isn't it? Like that's the consistent theme through everything at the moment. Spiderman, Dr Strange, Loki, What If, Ms Marvel .... all giving us knowledge about the multiverse.

[Hero-of-Time]

24 minutes ago, Mr_Odwin said:

It's all about the multiverse isn't it? Like that's the consistent theme through everything at the moment. Spiderman, Dr Strange, Loki, What If, Ms Marvel .... all giving us knowledge about the multiverse.

Yeah, but it still doesn't seem to gel like the original phase did and there are other things in the background as well. Things like the Thunderbolts and Young Avengers being teased, not to mention whatever was going on in The Eternals. I'm sure it will all come together in the end but at the moment it just seems like a bit of a message.

[BowserBasher]

2 hours ago, Mr_Odwin said:

It's all about the multiverse isn't it? Like that's the consistent theme through everything at the moment. Spiderman, Dr Strange, Loki, What If, Ms Marvel .... all giving us knowledge about the multiverse.

 

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, but it still doesn't seem to gel like the original phase did and there are other things in the background as well. Things like the Thunderbolts and Young Avengers being teased, not to mention whatever was going on in The Eternals. I'm sure it will all come together in the end but at the moment it just seems like a bit of a message.

I read a idea that it's not so much about the phase now but more the Saga, so we had the Infinity Saga and we are now in the Multiverse Saga. I know they have labeled these phase 4 and 5 but the Saga thing does make a little sense.

[Happenstance]

To be honest at this point I'm just happy to watch and see where it goes. I'm enjoying the majority of what they've put out so far this phase and anything I'm not I just skip and read up on any important bits I may need to know later. I know this isn't necessarily what some people will want to do as has been mentioning with people missing info because they don't watch the tv shows but if this is how Marvel is going to do it from now on then there isn't really much people can do. It's very much like what the Wachowski's wanted to do with the Matrix and the interconnected stories throughout various media, only a lot more successful at pulling it off.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, but it still doesn't seem to gel like the original phase did and there are other things in the background as well. Things like the Thunderbolts and Young Avengers being teased, not to mention whatever was going on in The Eternals. I'm sure it will all come together in the end but at the moment it just seems like a bit of a message.

I think the other thing that's important to note here is that the entire Multiverse Saga (Phase Four through to the end of Phase Six) is releasing within a five year frame, having started with WandaVision in January 2021 and ending with Secret Wars in November 2025, compared with the Infinity Saga taking eleven years. And then there's the fact that after Ms. Marvel we're already at a stage where Phase Four is longer than the entirety of the Infinity Saga, if you count only the films for that Saga (50 hours 21 minutes vs 49 hours 56 minutes) – which you probably should, considering how much of a mess Marvel Studios was then with its TV and movie departments being at loggerheads. 

So we're already further into this whole multiverse ordeal than we got with the entirety of the Infinity Saga. It's too much, too fast, and too little of consequence (so far) – I think that's the big issue, because nothing gets time to breathe, we don't really get time to absorb it, and shorter gaps between projects releasing means an objectively lower quality, too. There's not much of a conversation to have, I feel, on smaller projects after they're finished like there was before, instead it's all the big picture stuff because there's stuff constantly being released, and as a result I think that's why we notice the fact that we don't have a solid direction to head in yet: because the conversation isn't "wow, what do you think is going to happen in the next Cap after Bucky saved him at the end of Winter Soldier? And how could this impact Age of Ultron?" and more "we have no idea where we're going with the next Avengers films...and now where we're going is some 3½ years away." 

I think with how much we've got in so condensed a space of time that it's only natural some of us feel this way 

3 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

I read a idea that it's not so much about the phase now but more the Saga, so we had the Infinity Saga and we are now in the Multiverse Saga. I know they have labeled these phase 4 and 5 but the Saga thing does make a little sense.

I think the Phases are still important in the sense that they're going to be markers of story progression in the way it was before: Phase One was the Avengers coming together, Phase Two was about the team living together, and Phase Three was the splintering of the team and eventually having to deal with the overarching Big Bad. All three of those were part of the Infinity Saga, so it was basically three acts. 

Phase Four has been a weird epilogue/prologue space so far, I've said this before but more of a "this is what everyone's up to now", really filling up the roster. It's pretty much been the post-Endgame breather, Feige has said as much. I think Phase Five will be much more like what we were used to before (at the moment we've got a cosmic Big Bad set up but nothing really on a local scale), and I have to imagine whatever is teased at the end of Wakanda Forever will likely spell it out for us. Phase Six is naturally going to be the third act of all of this, and there are eight projects to still announce for it, which I imagine will give us a much better idea of what the deal is. 

I think it could quite easily be the case that we see Doom at the end of Wakanda Forever, as I can't see them waiting until Fantastic Four to introduce him and then having him potentially be the main villain for Secret Wars within the space of a year, and I feel like he'd fit into a lot of these Phase Five projects (either as an actual presence or pulling the strings) too. There's also the likely fallout and explanation of Atlantis duking it out with Wakanda, that seems exactly like the type of thing Doom would be orchestrating. 

But, anyways: yeah, I agree with you. I think they're looking at the bigger picture too, and at the end of the day, while I imagine we'll be able to look back and split the Multiverse Saga into three acts similar to the Infinity Saga based on its Phases, I think this is more a term focused on clearly conveying a production conveyer belt to fans and stockholders alike. 

@Happenstance, I think the way you're doing things where you skip things if you're not feeling them and then just checking out highlights/getting the details is probably the best way to deal with it. I think where I come unstuck is that after watching the MCU for so long it's just hard for me to take that approach I guess, but given how much is releasing these days outside of the MCU too, I think picking and choosing those battles seems like a fine idea, and something I'll have to consider moving forwards for some of the Disney+ series 

[Happenstance]

43 minutes ago, Julius said:

@Happenstance, I think the way you're doing things where you skip things if you're not feeling them and then just checking out highlights/getting the details is probably the best way to deal with it. I think where I come unstuck is that after watching the MCU for so long it's just hard for me to take that approach I guess, but given how much is releasing these days outside of the MCU too, I think picking and choosing those battles seems like a fine idea, and something I'll have to consider moving forwards for some of the Disney+ series 

Usually that would be me as well. I'd want to see everything as soon as I could. I think I've just gotten better at allowing myself to miss things over the years which in turn means I'm enjoying everything else more as It's not mixed in.

To be honest the only things I've skipped so far have been the second half of What If and the rest of Ms Marvel after that first episode.

[Hero-of-Time]

I think What If has been one of the better shows they put out and I look forward to seeing what's in store in the next season. 

Reading the conversation in here got me thinking about Marvel comics and how they handle things. They've always had big events and to get the most out of the stories you had to read a variety of comics from different series. The Onslaught saga was a nightmare for this. You pretty much had to buy a comic from every series going at the time just to keep track of what was going on. Some were called Phases and these were the main story hooks and others were called Impacts and these had less important events going on in them.

I kinda feel that's how things are in the MCU now with the movies and TV shows. You have the Phases which are the movies and the Impacts that are the TV shows. You can get through just watching the Phases but you'll miss out on things if you skip the Impacts.

[Eddage]

I'm perfectly happy with how they've handled Phase 4 so far and I think comparing it to Phase 1 is a little harsh. Phase 1 we all knew they were building towards a team up, but that's all it was - the characters introduced in their own movies would join together in The Avengers. At a very surface level that is easy to do and build towards.

Phase 4 on the other hand has had to deal with the aftermath of the Infinity Saga and at the same time try and introduce a new saga, and what they are building towards can't be something as simple as six people teaming up as that has already been done. This is why I think it is seeming a little disjointed as some projects have been focused on the aftermath and developing existing/introducing new characters (Black Widow (in a weird prequel way), Falcon & Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Wanda Vision, MoonKnight, Ms Marvel, Love and Thunder), and some have been hinting towards the bigger picture by focusing on Multiverse stuff (Loki, What If, No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness). At the same time we've also had the first confirmed mutant introduced which is obviously building for the future, with the second possibly appearing in Wakanda Forever. As well as introductions/clarification of different 'realities' in the form of timelines (Loki), Universes (What If, No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness) and Realms/Dimensions/Afterlives (Shang Chi, Moonknight, Ms Marvel, Love and Thunder).

Regarding quality I am also happy with this phase. I don't think there have been any stinkers, I would even go as far as to say that I think I have enjoyed all of Phase 4 (with the possible exception of The Eternals which I thought was a bit meh) more than I did some Phase 1 films (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 2) so I have nothing to complain about there.

Out of interest how does everyone think the Multiverse / Timelines / Realms situation works? The way I see it each Universe (616, 838) that we saw in Multiverse of Madness can have it's own different timelines as seen in Loki. Then in between the Universes is where the Dimensions/Realms sit such as the afterlives (Ancestral Plain - Black Panther, Valhalla - Thor, The Duat - Moonkinght), Dimensions (Dark/Astral/Mirror - Doctor Strange, Noor - Ms Marvel, Ta Lo - Shang Chi).

[bob]

I'm really enjoying the films, but the TV shows haven't exactly lived up to my expectations. With each one, they seem to be getting worse and more missable.

I'm happy with the whole Phase situation as well. I'm assuming that the tentpole 'Avengers' film at the end of the phase will lay out what's happening, in the same way that Avengers Assemble tied up the first phase of films.

[Happenstance]

 

[Happenstance]

Spoiler

 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Not my Thunderbolts. What a shoddy lineup. No Zemo/Citizen V? Hype deflated.

[Happenstance]

I never read a lot of Thunderbolts. Need to check what my lineup was.

Ok apparently it was Norman Osborn, Bullseye, Gargan Venom, Songbird, Penance and a few others.

[Hero-of-Time]

Penance was in Thunderbolts? As in Penance from Generation X?

The original Thunderbolts story was such a cool concept. This just looks like Suicide Squad. 

[Happenstance]

4 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Penance was in Thunderbolts? As in Penance from Generation X?

The original Thunderbolts story was such a cool concept. This just looks like Suicide Squad. 

No if I remember right this Penance was what Speedball called himself after he blew up Stamford and caused Civil War.

[MindFreak]

I believe the new trailer for Antman and the Wasp belongs in this thread? 

 

This caught my attention, unlike the previous trailer. 

[Julius]

New trailer for GOTG Vol. 3:

 

[bob]

Not sure i'll ever get used to W I D E Groot, but the rest looks good.

[MindFreak]

Watched Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania yesterday. It was terrible, and Kang and MODOK were the only uplifting things about it. It just made no sense at all, the story progressed at a weird pace, and Ant-Man was basically completely useless. Everything that happened just felt so convenient and artificially timed. And it wasn't even funny, I literally only laughed when MODOK appeared. Basically no jokes at all and the ones that were there fell short.

So wait for streaming premiere, don't waste the money.

I had a hard time believing in the premise for the movie. The quantum realm is just a major WTF, and the physics is just wonky - I know I shouldn't complain about physics in a superhero movie but I just dislike that it's not coherent - when Ant-Man is big, he is heavy and strong, when he is small, he is light.... where does his mass come from / go?