10 Perfect Marvel Comics Stories Phase 4 Must Adapt

by Ewan Paterson

1. Secret Avengers: Secret Histories

Marvel Comics

While we can all get behind the MCU's current cosmic inflections, it is true that the franchise's most successful films have all taken inspiration from the espionage genre.

Both The Winter Soldier and Civil War borrowed heavily from seventies conspiracy capers and spy films, and came out the better for it. It would make sense, then, to pursue that genre further in a team-based feature. Luckily for Marvel, such a team already exists in the comics, under the Secret Avengers.

Led by the likes of Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton and Sharon Carter, the Secret Avengers were the off-the-books counterpart to the public-footed Iron Man-led team, with discretion very much the group's priority. They had some superpowered members over the years, but the bulk of the team's ranks drew from S.H.I.E.L.D., and even - in Moon Knight's case - Marvel's street-level contingent.

It's not so much the storyline here as it is the premise that should serve as the basis for a full-length feature. The book was of course good, with Brubaker having again handled writing duties for the series' first volume, but neither the roster nor that opening arc would fit the tone of a superhero thriller through and through.

If Marvel were looking to further diversify the Avengers brand, and continue the trend set by Winter Soldier and Civil War, then the Secret Avengers have to be the way to go.

-

Are there any other storylines you'd like to see in the MCU? If so, be sure to post your thoughts in the comments!

Advertisement

20 Awesome 90s Movies The World Forgot

Horror

20 TERRIFYING Scenes In Non Horror Movies

20 Upcoming Movies That Just Got Cancelled

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.