The Strange Future of Marvel Phase 3
Phase Three of the MCU has unofficially begun with the promise of Civil War making things bigger and bolder than ever. The end result of all of this will be the clash in Infinity War so big that they have to use two movies, so things were bound to go a little crazy. Here, I’m arguing that not only will the Infinity War movies be strange but the entirety of Phase Three will go down as the single strangest period of the Marvel design.
The Obvious Reason
Yeah, it’s in the title, so we’re going to talk about Doctor Strange. Magic’s been a given in the comics, but Doctor Strange will be the first time Marvel’s decided to use the term ironically. This is the same universe that bent over backwards to try and go around Thor being a technical god by just calling him an alien, even though they’ve never gotten around to explaining how the hammer works. Now they’ve moved to openly casting someone for a character called the Ancient One. Once this movie comes out, there’s no going back.
What that means is just the concept of magic and using it for good or evil will always be an option now. For months afterwards, we will be discussing why Doctor Strange can’t just fix the world’s problems or why we haven’t heard of magic as a decent option until this point. I’m not saying that they aren’t going to have decent explanations for this answer considering Marvel’s not that stupid, but there will always be people asking these tiring questions. Sure, it will be a lot easier to get to the concept of the Infinity Stones with something more than alien science, but it goes without saying that it’ll be…I don’t even want to say it. It’ll be used by every other reviewer come October.
Marvel So Far
I’m also going on the record that Phase 2 didn’t leave us with anything that was non-strange. Age of Ultron is literally about robots trying to take over the world by dropping a city on the planet. Granted, Phase 2 was a hit and miss with its films with a Winter Soldier next to its Thor: The Dark World, but those still have evil elves and people surviving death. And Guardians of the Galaxy. And Ant-Man. Those make Phase 2 a strange case in its own right. We’re just sitting around hoping that Doctor Strange would be just as good strange as those crazy films.
Marvel’s always about bigger and better with various degrees of success on the latter. It’s only a matter of time that in the midst of the big getting bigger the strange gets stranger. After all, there’s a whole world of comic canon out there to adapt that isn’t under Fox’s blanket on mutants. And when the mutants are beating you at strangeness with time travel and apocalyptic threats, it’s time to raise the stakes a bit.
The Shows
It’s debatable whether or not the Marvel shows, whether good or not, matter at all in the MCU, but they are definitely the strangest works so far. This year is over the top with tears in the universe, dark matter, Inhuman fish oil pills, alien parasites, and zombie ninjas. Yes, all those things happened in Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD, and Daredevil in just this year alone. If we are considering these shows as part of the MCU, and therefore part of Phase 3, then Phase 3 is already strange enough without having the title. Sure that doesn’t exactly bode well for strangeness in this universe, but we need to wake up and accept that the characters now live in a world where there are zombie ninjas. That’s not too bad.
Build-Up
I believe also by logic standards, ironically, Phase 3 will have to be the strangest just because of the loads of superheroes we’re talking about here. Not only are we building up to the massive Infinity War, but we’re also introducing (or trying to introduce) Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel as well as reintroduce Spider-Man. These are all brand-new heroes with different tones and characters ranging from a Wakandan prince to a smartass teenager. There are few things more bipolar than that. Plenty of people are looking forward to what Marvel can do with these heroes, especially a black or female lead, but by rarity alone, they are strange.
Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the other sequels too. The latest rumors pair Thor with the Hulk in Thor: Ragnorak, and the other one is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I dare anyone reading this to tell me that they won’t be strange. Hell, if Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 isn’t strange, I may demand a refund. And Thor: Ragnorak may have to be strange to save the franchise. By these standards, Civil War might be the most normal one out of the bunch, and it’s an Avengers flick disguised as a Captain America sequel.
Marvel’s always been an oddball, that’s why we love it. The title’s not meant to be a total insult so much as a warning to those who’d think it would slow down. Maybe one day, we’ll look and see some more mainstream Marvel movies as the world works through Phase 6, but not today. Not this year or next year anyway.
