MCU Phase 4: 8 Reasons Why It Must Look To The Past
8. The Cold War Era
Marvel Studios
That aforementioned espionage streak has been heavily rooted in the Cold War, with Agent Carter, Hank Pym, Winter Soldier and more all having carved out their own destiny during the period.
We know for a fact that it'll receive renewed attention in the upcoming Ant-Man sequel, which is great news for all concerned, but wouldn't it be great if we got to see more of it in another franchise? SLJ's Nick Fury is crying out for some more love, and while we can all agree that there might not be enough legs in a Howard Stark spin-off, there's plenty to work with in exploring S.H.I.E.L.D's formative years, as Agent Carter so valiantly attempted in its two-year run.
It's clear for all to see that there's plenty more to S.H.I.E.L.D's Cold War days, and if those flashback sequences from Ant-Man get turned up a notch in the sequel, then we can only hope Marvel will set about exploring them further somewhere down the line.
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.
