When “Avengers: Endgame” hit screens last year, fans walked out of theaters knowing that they’d reached the end of an era. After building up the story of the Avengers for over 10 years, “Endgame” was the final chapter, closing on the stories of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) leading heroes like Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen).
Now, nearly a year after “Endgame,” the MCU has found yet another way to drag the fans back to its doors: with an eagerly anticipated “Black Widow” prequel movie releasing in May, and “The Eternals” (November 2020), Shang Chi (spring 2021) and Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (spring 2021) soon to follow, the MCU is far from over. While all movies except “Black Widow” have remained vague on details, Disney+, the new streaming service with everything Disney, Star Wars and Marvel related, has revealed its lineup of MCU shows: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Loki” and “WandaVision.”
Disney+ recently released a trailer for each upcoming title a few weeks ago, and as of now, the shows are expected to come to Disney+ in fall 2020 (“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) and spring 2021 (“WandaVision,” “Loki”). Each show is reported to have six episodes, as well as bridge the gap between the Infinity Saga-phase into the next phase of Marvel movies.
“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” for instance, will follow Falcon Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Although the exact storyline of the show remains vague, the Disney+ trailer reveals shots of Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl), who fans will remember was the main villain of “Captain America: Civil War.” There are additional shots of Sam and Bucky with Steve Rogers’ (Captain America’s) shield, which was passed on to Sam at the end of “Endgame.” Given the two brief glimpses, we can safely assume that “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” will continue to tie up what strings were left after the “Captain America” movie trilogy, but with deeper exploration of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes.
“Loki,” meanwhile, will follow the god of mischief as he’s unleashed on his timeline. In the events of “Endgame,” the Avengers went back in time and accidentally released Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from SHIELD’s custody, with Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) brother escaping with the powerful Tesseract. As a result, in his own series, Loki of the 2012 “Avengers” movie will be traipsing through history. Given that Loki in the trailer says that he’s going to “burn this place to the ground,” we can anticipate that Loki has a few more tricks up his sleeve. How his story might connect to future Marvel movies, we’re not entirely certain, but given that “Thor: Love and Thunder” (the fourth movie to the “Thor” series) is coming out in late 2021, perhaps Loki might make an appearance.
“WandaVision” looks like the weirdest of the shows: in the trailer, we catch clips of a seemingly happily married Scarlet Witch Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), even though fans know that Vision died in “Avengers: Infinity War.” The trailer skips through scenes of Wanda and Vision in different decades: a black and white 1930s take, a colorful and cheerful 1950s take, followed by more shots of Wanda dressed in clothes straight out of the 1970s and ‘90s. However, the fantasy dissolves to reveal an anguished looking Wanda being torn apart from Vision, which leads fans to speculate that this show will revolve around Wanda’s own false reality. Considering the fact that Wanda has the ability to manipulate minds, such a theory does not seem far off. There is further speculation that “WandaVision” could be connected to the upcoming “Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness” movie, as Wanda has been reported to be a main character in the aforementioned movie.
Since “Endgame,” fans have been reasonably curious about MCU’s next plans for the next generation of superheroes. However, before going into the new phase of characters and storylines, it would appear that MCU still needs to mend some of the loose strands after its grand finale to the story’s well-loved characters. Before plunging its fans into a set of completely different and unfamiliar stories, the new Marvel shows coming to Disney+ serve as the last knots tying the past phase into the new one.
Although we have yet to see what might become of the characters of said television shows once MCU’s schedule of movies start up, fans will have much to look forward to in the shows that will bridge them from one era into the next. In that manner, these shows will differ from those previously produced by Marvel, such as “Agents of SHIELD,” “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist” and “The Defenders.” While those shows dealt with lesser known characters of the Marvel comics, the shows coming to Disney+ will act as a part of the explicit transition period from the stories of the original Avengers into the new batch of stories. But in the meantime, if you can’t wait for the shows to come to Disney+, it’s never too late to start a Marvel re-watch!
