10 Important Milestones The Marvel Cinematic Universe Must Pass

10. Getting Away With The Cosmic Universe

The Marvel Universe is a rich seam of characters, locations and international terrorist/peace-keeping organisations with incredibly forced acronyms, and that's just on Earth alone. Aside from Asgard in the Thor movies and brief glimpses of other dimensions and far-off reaches of space in those films and The Avengers, most of the action has been terrestrial in nature, which is pretty well familiar to almost all live-action superhero movies. Now Marvel is attempting to change all of that with August's Guardians of the Galaxy, which properly introduces the 'cosmic' chunk of the Marvel Universe along with a complete cast of characters we've not seen (and most audiences won't have the foggiest clue about) in the MCU before. It's certainly a gamble as, by flipping the tables and producing something completely different to what's come before, the studio risks alienating (snigger) an audience that's been extremely faithful to them through a series of films that have essentially been improving on the same formula. There's a lot riding on how successful GotG is, as if it goes down a storm then the cosmic universe is legitimised and a whole host of new properties (and sequels) are open to the studio, as are the possibilities of incorporating more space-based and sci-fi storylines like the possible future adaptation of the Planet Hulk arc from the comics. If Guardians flops, on the other hand, then Marvel will be unlikely to want to branch out further with an untenable franchise and we'll be staying Earth-based until Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige thinks up a take on the cosmic characters that sticks.