One of the the biggest questions in the back of my mind with each installment in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe is one that we get a small taste of in May. With Captain America: Civil War hitting theaters, we will see one of, if not the largest, casts of Marvel characters to ever grace a feature film.
Aside from the massive battle of X-Men: The Last Stand, we are seeing the names of Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Vision, Bucky Barnes and War Machine getting another big screen feature. Adding to that list, Spiderman and Black Panther getting their first taste of the MCU continuity. All in all, we see a major uptake in the body count from years past culminating into this major release.
Aside from this, you still have Thor, the Hulk, Doctor Strange and the entire ABC and Netflix properties that exist in this massive universe, all looking to make a break into a massive conglomerate of Marvel characters.
Possible? Absolutely. Likely? Not very.
Year by year, Marvel has grown each and every property, with new movies and new characters galore that create this world around themselves and opens up great storylines that may be inclusive to their respective titles, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Much like how everyone thought that 2008’s Incredible Hulk was the red-headed stepchild of the MCU, the reestablishment of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Civil War shows that the events in Harlem have existed.
As mentioned above, among the movies we also have Agents of Shield and some plot lines from Agent Carter, but more of the former and not the latter. Add Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, the Punisher and Iron Fist in the Defender series, with the likelyhood of Marvel adding new names to the mix each year.
In the wide scope of things, we deal with a lot of mismatching when it comes to including each and every character in the MCU. One being the content of each property. As it is now, the movies and ABC shows are lighter, opposed to the darker toned Netflix series. But that is an easy route to avoid, simply have the characters there and sub out some of the more explicit content.
Of course, there is a hard concept of the SHIELD characters making a jump from TV to film, with the elusiveness of Agent Coulson and the lack of the heroes knowledge of his existence still might make for a hard crossover.
First, is the Civil War storyline, the entirety of the MCU is at war. Sides are taken and lines are crossed. Every hero has their alliance and it culminates into epic battles between people who should be allies, but are more threatening to each other. We could see the sides divided and spend the entirety of the story in a massive battle that could set up a lot of stories down the road.
My second thought of every single character making the jump to a single movie would possibly be down the road for Avengers: Infinity Wars Pt. 1 & 2.
With the thought of the Infinity Stones coming into play and Thanos ramping up his search for them, it’s only a matter of time before he comes into possession of them and merges them to the Infinity Gauntlet and truly hones in on his power. This power will be unmatched by the mainstay heroes and will require all of the MCU to band together. We still have Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Spiderman getting ready to establish themselves in the universe, along with those coming along in Netflix over the next few years.
So my thought is, when Thanos assumes his unlimited power, it will be the call that someone makes and calls all of the heroes together to try and defeat him. While it’s a bold prediction, I don’t see any avenue earlier that makes sense for all of them to join up, and with as big of a villain as Thanos, it makes total sense that everyone introduced up to that point when Part I hits theaters in 2018.
I would love to see the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe be on the big screen all together when Thanos attempts to take over the universe. And I fully think that they can do small crossovers in the mean time with the big stars and the Agents of SHIELD, whether it’s bringing some down to the TV screen or giving some of the characters a bit of a promotion.
Finally, and this is the most out there, but the introduction of a Secret Wars storyline. This would be a huge budget film and likely wouldn’t be in the realm of going into production until after 2020, but it would be a great way to explore the outer space portion of Marvel, outside of Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy.
So the question is asked to you, Monkeys Fighting Robots readers, will we ever see every character together in one movie?
