Black Panther – November 3rd 2017
Now this is the one I’m perhaps the most excited about. T’Challa, aka Black Panther was the first prominent black superhero. He emerged in the mid 60s, around the same time that the actual Black Panther Party was coming about (although the character name predates theirs) and his origin story is set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, a seemingly utopian nation fueled by the largest supply of Vibranium on Earth. Vibranium is the material which Captain America’s shield is constructed from. T’Challa was appointed the leader of the Panther tribe and thus endowed with mystical power, included increased strength, agility and heightened senses. He’s also one of the most morally polar heroes in the Marvel cannon, often doing very unpleasant things in service of the greater good (the greater good).
The racial undertones of his character and political, allegorical nature of Wakanda played a massive role in the comics and are unlikely to be missing from the big screen version, unless Marvel want to be lambasted by the majority of their fanbase, considering how long it’s taken them to bring a black character to center stage. Panther’s confirmed role in Civil War suggests that he will already be a superhero when this film picks up his story, meaning that this may not be an origin film, refreshingly.
Captain Marvel – July 6th 2018
The Captain Marvel character has been through numerous different renditions throughout the years (there’s a DC one, too), but this film is set to feature the most recent one: Carol Danvers. Fans clamoring for a female hero to take center stage can rejoice, they’re getting one and she’s a lot more interesting than Black Widow. Danvers is one of the most popular characters currently doing tennure at Marvel with the wider universe already established in Guardians of the Galaxy, it shouldn’t be too difficult to factor her in.
Marvel has the ability to fly through space, absorb energy and redirect it. It’s likely that her storyline will tie in with Guardians of the Galaxy and the third Avengers film, given her connection to the Kree and Thanos. It’s possible once again that the character might even make an appearance in one of the earlier entries before stepping up to the plate.
Inhumans – November 2nd 2018
This could be characterised as a bid from Marvel to compensate for the lack of X-men in their on-screen pantheon (Fox have all the rights locked up), since the Inhumans follow a similar thematic route. Essentially, they are a strain of homo-sapiens that were plucked from the Earth during the caveman days and experimented with, resulting in DNA mutations that deformed them and endowed them with powers. They then formed a secular monarchy in the Himalayas during which they bred out the deformities. They later relocated to the moon. Notable members include their ruler, Black Bolt, a man who has trained himself to remain perfectly silent, lest his massively powerful voice tear the world apart, Medusa, a woman with literal super-hair and Lockjaw, a super-strong teleporting bulldog.
This is one of the craziest, most fascinating franchises Marvel has to offer, it makes Guardians of the Galaxy look like a walk in the park. Like Captain Marvel, the path that Marvel will take to tie this one in is easy enough to track, but they end result has every chance of being perhaps the most challenging, unusual film yet made under their banner.
Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1: May 2018, Part 2: May 2019
Right, party time. This is what nearly everything since the first Captain America film has been working up to. The Infinity in the title refers to the Infinity Gauntlet (spied in The Collector’s lair during GotG) and the Infinity Stones. Said stones have been gradually introduced one by one as the franchises have progressed. The Tesseract from Captain America was the first, the Chitauri scepter from The Avengers came next, followed by the Aether in Thor: The Dark World and the Orb in Guardians of the Galaxy. Two more are yet to appear. Once combined with the gauntlet, as seen in the image above, they grant the user with the power to control space, time, reality, power, mind and soul. Thanos, the pre-established big bad from the end of Avengers and GotG gets hold of it. Shenanigans ensue.
Thanos himself is actually a fascinating character, he falls in love with the embodiment of death and seeks to destroy everything in order to win its affection. Numerous established characters will feature in this showdown and crucially, there is no guarantee that they will all survive. Thor and Iron Man may not even appear, whilst new heroes like Captain Marvel and Black Panther will likely have pivotal roles, as well as GotG’s Drax the Destroyer. The fact that both Captain Marvel and Inhumans are coming out in between part one and part two also suggests that both these films might take place within the Infinity War. It’s difficult to know exactly where Marvel will go from here, since the stake will be higher in this two-part royal rumble than they’ve been in any previous film. No word yet on whether Joss Whedon will direct, but I’d say the odds are good. At any rate, this appears to be the absolute perfect bookend to Marvel’s most interesting, daring phase yet and I absolutely cannot wait to see it.
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