10 Problems With Marvel's Phase 4 (And How To Solve Them)
6. We’re Not Getting Any New In-Continuity Stories For A While
At the risk of repetition, the Black Widow movie is set several years in the past. Neither the Eternals nor the Shang-Chi movies have any indication that they’ll reference any current events for other Marvel heroes.
So when do we get to find out what’s happening with our favourite characters?
Spider-Man’s stuck in a nasty cliffhanger - when will that be resolved? No idea. Who took the Wakandan throne when Black Panther died? No clue. Nearly three decades ago, Captain Marvel vowed to the Kree that she would take the fight to them - what happened there? Who can say.
Previously, the waiting time for an MCU sequel was a couple of years - now we’re reliant on Disney+ shows to give us post-Endgame stories for these characters we’ve become so invested in.
Those who can’t get Disney+ when it launches will have to wait nearly two years just to see Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff again, and a further six months after that to see Thor and Valkyrie. They're still keeping you guessing about the Guardians and Spider-Man.
Even for those who can get Disney+, two of the projected shows are out-of-continuity: the version of Loki they’re using is one from a branched timeline, and the whole point of What If? is that it’s not part of MCU continuity.
This isn’t just Phase 4. It’s an issue that’s affected the MCU for a while. Because Marvel Studios can only make a certain number of projects at once, everything else is queued for development and production. However, Phase 4 is the worst it’s ever been.