Popverse's top stories of the day

• Former comics and pop culture distribution monopoly Diamond might be liquidated after it delays bankruptcy paperwork
• MEMBERS ONLY: Popverse Picks: My favorite horror movie franchises (besides Scream)
• WATCH NOW: Relive the action: VIZ Media's Ninjas, Samurai & Roosters panel from ECCC '25 is available to watch now

---

It’s all change for Marvel’s plans in the next few years, with the news that Blade has been removed from Marvel’s release schedule entirely, and Spider-Man 4 is real and coming out in 2026. What does this mean for the MCU as a whole, especially as things get brought into new focus as everything careens towards Avengers: Doomsday in 2026? Expect to find out in the next few months and years, but for now… it’s time to enjoy the increasingly wild ride.

With all this activity, you might think that you need some kind of guide to what’s coming up in the world of Marvel. Guess what? That’s exactly what you’re reading! Of course, if you’re reading this, then chances are you’re already up to date on the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. (If not, click on that link; we’ll help you catch up.) By this point in time, fans have made it through no less than four-and-a-half “phases” of storytelling, from the debut of Iron Man back in 2008 through the rise and fall of Thanos and the aftermath that followed.

Part of what followed included setting up the next few years of Marvel projects. We’ve had the introduction of Kang the Conqueror, who at one point certainly looked to be the new big bad to threaten reality, as well as the establishment of a multiverse in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with last year’s The Marvels really underscoring what that might mean going forward. Expect the larger story of this second big uber-story for the MCU come into sharper focus across the next couple of years, with The Fantastic 4: First Steps, Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts* emphasizing the shape of the playing field of the multiverse, right before Doctor Doom comes in to upset everything. 

Marvel has been calling the next few years worth of storytelling ‘The Multiverse Saga,’ but what does that mean in practice? Keep reading and we’ll make everything clear.

---

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters

---

Upcoming Marvel movies and TV show schedule

If you're looking for a quick rundown of everything with a date (or at least a year), we have that for you here:

Release Date	Project	Type	Platform
December 13, 2024	Kraven the Hunter	Live-action movie	Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)
December 22, 2024	What If…? season 3	Animated series	Disney+
January 29, 2025	Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, season 1	Animated series	Disney+
February 14, 2025	Captain America: Brave New World	Live-action movie	Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)
March 4, 2025	Daredevil: Born Again, season 1	Live-action series	Disney+
May 2, 2025	Thunderbolts*	Live-action movie	Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)
June 24, 2025	Ironheart, season 1	Live-action series	Disney+
July 25, 2025	The Fantastic 4: First Steps	Live-action movie	Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)
August 6, 2025	Eyes of Wakanda, season 1	Animated series	Disney+
October 2025	Marvel Zombies, season 1	Animated series	Disney+
December 2025	Wonder Man, season 1	Live-action series	Disney+
February 13, 2026	Unannounced Marvel Studios movie	Live-action movie	Theatrical
May 1, 2026	Avengers: Doomsday	Live-action movie	Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)
July 24, 2026	Spider-Man 4 (Title TBD)	Live-action movie	Theatrical
November 6, 2026	Unannounced Marvel Studios movie	Live-action movie	Theatrical
TBD 2026	Untitled Vision series, season 1	Live-action series	Disney+
May 7, 2027	Avengers: Secret Wars	Live-action movie	Theatrical

There are two things to note about the above list. Firstly, not all of the projects on there are part of the official MCU timeline: Kraven the Hunter is notably part of Sony’s separate shared universe filled with Spider-Man supporting characters, and the animated Spidey and his Amazing Friends and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man shows exist in their own separate continuity apart from everything else.

Secondly, there are some high profile projects missing from the above calendar: In terms of movies, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has been officially taken off Sony's release schedule altogether. (It's still coming, it's just that Sony isn't willing to say when.)

Want more information about all of this? We’re here to help, and we’ll even break it down by where it falls in the larger scheme of the MCU.

MCU Phase Five: The Multiverse Saga Part One

What If…? Season 3

 

The third season of the animated series set in the heart of the Marvel Multiverse was announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, with an official preview released after the conclusion of the second season at the end of 2023. Footage from the season was featured in Marvel Studios’s “Look Ahead” video on YouTube promoting its upcoming release slate. 

Release Date: December 22, 2024

Platform: Disney+

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

A little over a year ago Disney+ announced a new Spider-Man animated series set in a slightly alternate universe just before the events of Captain America: Civil War, with Peter a freshman in high school. At San Diego Comic Con it was revealed that the cast will involve a wild arrangement of characters that includes many classic Spider-Man villains, a number of teenage characters that have yet to be seen in the MCU proper (hello, Amadeus Cho, Wave, and Finesse!), and the Kingpin and Matt Murdock/Daredevil, voiced by their live action counterparts.

The series was originally titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year, with a follow-up titled Spider-Man: Sophomore Year reportedly in development; the new title will consolidate the two projects.

Release Date: January 29, 2025

Platform: Disney+

Captain America: Brave New World

With the Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series resolving the question of whether Sam Wilson should become Captain America after Steve Rogers told him he should become Captain America (Answer: Yes, he should), we’re finally getting a Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) Captain America film. The big bad is going to be the Leader (Tim Blake Nelson), who in Marvel's comics is a gamma-irradiated genius with an enormous cranium. That could be fun! Harrison Ford is also joining the MCU as Thunderbolt Ross after the death of actor William Hurt... and, yes, he's a Thunderbolt Ross who also happens to be both the President of the United States and a Red Hulk. 

The movie also brings back Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), the original recipient of the Super Soldier serum, as introduced in the TV series, and Joaquín Torres (Danny Ramirez), a soldier who helped Sam in the series, who is expected to become the new Falcon. And, as footage shown at SDCC 2024 suggested, it's a movie that officially reveals that the President and Cap himself are discussing the next team of Avengers. Consider this one a very important movie in the grand scheme of the MCU.

And for anyone wondering why the graphic above says "New World Order," that's what the originally announced title of the movie was; the change was announced months later.

Release Date: February 14, 2025

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Daredevil: Born Again

The internet pretty much lost its mind after Spider-Man: No Way Home brought Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil into the MCU. And the few fans that didn’t, definitely lost their marbles after seeing him on last fall’s She-Hulk. (As Jen Walters might say: "Hubba hubba.")

Now Daredevil is getting a new series of his own on Disney+, with a whopping 18 episodes and named after the most famous Daredevil comic book run of all time, in which the Kingpin learns Daredevil's identity and uses it to pretty much destroy his life. (There’s no word yet whether the TV series might follow that particular story.)

The show was originally announced for a Spring 2024 release, but its production was put on temporary indefinite hiatus due to the WGA strike, and further delayed when Marvel retooled the show, replacing head writers and directors. The new version of the show, which will now run for 9 episodes instead of the originally-announced 18. A second season is reportedly already in the works.

Release Date: March 4, 2025

Platform: Disney+

Thunderbolts*

So you know how Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been making these kind of weird cameos in Marvel TV shows and movies where you’re like, She’s clearly a villain, but then it turns out she’s also the head of the CIA and the ex-wife of Everett Ross?

Well, apparently all of that has been building to this movie, in which some of the more messy characters of the MCU are brought together by Dreyfus’ Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to do… super hero stuff, I guess? Details about just what the cinematic Thunderbolts are remain tightly guarded, but the team includes the Winter Soldier and John Walker (Wyatt Walker), the crazy Captain America wannabe from Falcon/Winter Soldier; Black Widow’s sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh, who rocked in 2021's Hawkeye) and her sort-of dad Alexei (aka Red Guardian) (aka David Harbour) and their enemy Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko); and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), the spy with Kitty Pryde-ish powers from Ant-Man and the Wasp.

And, yes, the asterisk in the title is intentional. And maybe important. If only someone would tell us what it actually means...

Release Date: May 2, 2025

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

MCU Phase Six: The Multiverse Saga Part Two

Ironheart

Wakanda Forever introduced Chicago tech genius and super hero Riri Williams to the MCU. In the six-episode Ironheart coming to Disney+, we follow Dominique Thorne’s Riri home, where she goes head to head with the Hood, who in the comics is a small-time criminal who uses a magic hood stolen from a demon to become a serious gangster.

Release Date: June 24, 2025

Platform: Disney+

The Fantastic 4: First Steps

At San Diego Comic-Con in 2022, Kevin Feige announced a new Fantastic Four movie, and Disney definitely teed up the possibilities in November’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, when John Krasinski showed up as an alternate-universe Reed Richards.

That said, the FF of the MCU proper isn't going to feature the Quiet Place creator, with Marvel announcing a team made up of Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm. Based on the footage shown at SDCC 2024, we know that the movie will not be an origin story - that was hinted at in the con footage! - but will be set on an alternate Earth in the 1960s, with visuals inspired by the era and designers including Syd Mead. We also know that the villain in the movie will be Galactus, who was very briefly glimpsed in the con-exclusive footage. At SDCC 2024, the name of the movie was officially announced as not Fantastic Four, but The Fantastic 4: First Steps. 

(Yes, we're aware that as things currently officially stand, Fantastic 4: First Steps launches Phase 6 ahead of the official end of Phase 5; don't be surprised if Blade gets officially moved into Phase 6 before too long.)

Release Date: July 25, 2025

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Eyes of Wakanda

A second Black Panther spin-off with Ryan Coogler involved, the animated Eyes of Wakanda was recently announced quietly by Marvel. No information is known about the series outside of the official description released by Disney: "Throughout Wakandan history, brave warriors have been tasked to travel the world retrieving dangerous vibranium artifacts. This is their story." Start your speculation engines. 

Release Date: August 6, 2025

Platform: Disney+

Marvel Zombies

In What If…?'s first spinoff, the universe in which Marvel super heroes and villains became zombies will get its own four-episode animated show. Reports from the panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 indicate that it will involve many of the new generation of Marvel heroes—including Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, Shang-Chi, and Ms. Marvel—fighting zombie versions of Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel. Also, somehow, Galactus?

Release Date: October 2025

Platform: Disney+

Wonder Man

Previously, Marvel announced that a Wonder Man TV show is coming, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, HBO’s Watchmen) as stunt man/movie star/super hero Simon Williams. Ben Kingsley is also due to return as bad actor/fake super villain Trevor Slattery. Recently, footage from the Wonder Man show was revealed in a new “Look Ahead” video that Marvel Studios posted onto YouTube. The Wonder Man show was promoted alongside other shows on Marvel Studios’s 2025 release slate. 

Release Date: December 2025

Platform: Disney+

Avengers: Doomsday

The first Avengers film in 7 years was originally titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but Marvel pivoted away from that title - and seemingly from the Kang storyline it's been building to over the past few years - due to Jonathan Majors being found guilty of assault and harrassment of a former girlfriend. Instead, the new title of the movie reflects the movie's new nemesis, who is a character audiences have been waiting a very long time for: Doctor Victor Von Doom. Almost nothing is known about this version of the iconic Marvel villain (perhaps this iconic Marvel villain), other than one all-important fact: he'll be played by Robert Downey Jr., as revealed at SDCC 2024. How? Why? That remains to be seen, but it's going to be a trip finding out.

Downey Jr. isn't the only one returning for this fifth Avengers movie: the film (and its sequel, 2027's Avengers: Secret Wars) will be directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, and written by Stephen McFeely. This particular creative team have worked together before on a handful of little-known movies, such as Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.

Release Date: May 1, 2026

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Spider-Man 4 (Title TBD)

What happened to Peter Parker after he successfully made the entire world forget all about him? We'll finally get some closure on the astonishingly downbeat ending of 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home with the much-rumored, now-official fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie, scheduled for July 2026. Almost everything about the movie remains under wraps, outside of its release date, the fact that it will be directed by Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Daniel Destin Cretton, and the fact that Tom Holland will star in it. What's it called? We don't know. Who's the villain? No idea. Will Zendaya be in it? Well... we certainly hope so.

Release Date: July 24, 2026

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Untitled Vision series

Fans have been waiting for three years to find out just what happened to the Vision after he flew off in the final episode of 2021's WandaVision, but an answer is finally forthcoming... as long as we can wait a couple of years. Terry Matalas, who was showrunner for the final season of Star Trek: Picard, will step into a similar role for an as-yet-untitled show that sees Paul Bettany reprise his role as the synthezoid Avenger. No further details are known as yet, but it's good to know it's happening, if nothing else...

Release Date: TBD 2026

Platform: Disney+

Avengers: Secret Wars

The second half of the climax to the current era of the MCU will have the same writer/directors team as Doomsday, and according to Kevin Feige on stage at SDCC 2024, will feature the casts of The Fantastic 4: First Steps, Thunderbolts*, and Captain America: Brave New World, plus (I suspect) some more special guests. (I mean, Deadpool's got to show up, right?) Beyond that, we have no idea what to expect from this one, but we're very excited to find out when it happens.

Release Date: May 7, 2027

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

TBD

Between Fantastic Four and Avengers: Doomsday, Disney has allotted three spots for other Marvel films, on July 25th 2025, November 7th 2025, and February 13, 2026. There are many possibilities as to what might fill those slots (see the end of this article for some possibilities) Given that these films are coming in the middle of the MCU’s Big Multiverse Event, we should probably expect those films to somehow play a role in that.

Marvel has also announced slots for two films between Avengers 5 and Avengers 6, on July 24, 2026, and the other November 6, 2026. At this point we really have no idea what those might be — they’re coming out in between the two big Avengers movies, that wrap up the Multiverse Saga, after all — but should we be preparing to yell "TO ME, MY X-MEN"?

Not Part of the MCU at all

Venom: The Last Dance

And speaking of Sony, 2024 will also see the conclusion to the Venom trilogy, with the just-recently-titled Venom: The Last Dance. Once again starring Eddie Brock, the film will be the first time we've seen the symbiotic superhero on screen since he made a cameo appearance in the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

So far, details as to the plot of the film are scant, but we do know that the movie will star (along with Hardy) Juno Temple, Clark Backo, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who MCU fans will recognize as Dr. Strange's frenemhy Baron Mordo. Kelly Marcel, who cowrote the script for the first two Venom films, will make her directorial debut with this third entry.

Release Date: October 25, 2024

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Kraven the Hunter

In the next entry into what seems to be Sony’s slow-brewing Spider-Universe build to the Sinister Six, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kickass, Avengers’ Quicksilver) stars as one of Spider-Man’s greatest nemeses, big game hunter Sergei Kravinoff. Like Venom and Morbius, it's believed that Kraven will offer an origin story that takes Sergei from deposed Russian aristocracy to enemy of Spider-Man, with the twist that instead of being a hunter, the Sony Kraven is, in Taylor-Johnson's words, “an animal lover and a protector of the natural world”).

The cast includes Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Ariana DeBose, as well as Christopher Abbott and Fred Hechinger as Spider-Man villains the Foreigner and the Chameleon and Alessandro Nivola in an unknown role. Screenwriter Richard Wenk has frequently namedropped J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck’s Spider-story Kraven’s Last Hunt, considered by many to be one of the greatest Spider-Man stories of all time. True believers, stay tuned!

Release Date: December 13, 2024

Platform: Theatrical (Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets)

Movies & TV Shows With No Dates Yet

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse

How is Miles Morales going to escape not just his alternate reality villainous self, the Prowler - it's just like that Mirror Universe episode of Star Trek, but with more costumes? - but also the wrath of the Spider Society and Miguel O'Hara? We'll have to wait to find out; what had initially been set for a spring 2024 release was entirely taken off Sony's release schedule last year, in light of production slowdowns and the writers and actors strikes.

Platform: Theatrical

Armor Wars

Marvel originally announced Armor Wars in 2020 as a TV mini-series to star Don Cheadle’s James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, aka War Machine. Word on the street now is that it’s going to be a movie instead. According to producer Nate Moore, the project just got too big for a series. “When you’re talking about a show that wants to be about seeing all the cool armors and, you know, Don Cheadle interacting with all these armors and sort of the legacy of Tony Stark, that became kind of cost prohibitive to do as a show.”

Kevin Feige has indicated that the series will somehow follow on the events of Secret Invasion, and that it will involve War Machine having to deal with Tony Stark’s tech falling into the wrong hands.

Platform: Disney+

Shang-Chi 2

The sequel to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been greenlit since December of 2021. So far that’s all we know.

Platform: Theatrical

Untitled Wakanda/Okoye Show

Marvel hasn’t officially announced this, but in 2021 Ryan Coogler announced he’s working on a Wakanda TV show for Disney+. A few months later Hollywood Reporter reported that the series will be an Okoye origin story. And recently on the Late Show Okoye actress Danai Gurira told Stephen Colbert that she can "gently allude to this possibility."

Platform: Disney+

Thor 5

No one at Disney has said anything about a fifth Thor movie, but Love and Thunder did end with Jane Foster’s surprising death, Thor adopting a super-powered daughter, and the introduction of Hercules, who is missioned by Zeus to destroy Thor. So there’s a lot there...

Chris Hemsworth has said he might be open to doing another one, but only if it takes a very different tone from the last two.

Platform: Theatrical

X-Men

The first (and so far, only) piece of news regarding the X-Men's official introduction into the MCU (beyond Deadpool & Wolverine, who are carryovers from the 20th Century Fox universe) came to us May 21, 2024, when Marvel Studios announced that Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes scribe Michael Lesslie would be writing the screenplay for the film.

At the moment, that's all we know about this project, but we're keeping our mutant ears to the ground.

Platform: Theatrical

---

What’s coming out next for Marvel?

If you’re wondering what the next movie set in the MCU is going to be, that’s Captain America: Brave New World, which hits theaters February 14, 2025. If you're looking on the small screen, Agatha All Along ends 

Is Tony Stark coming back?

Ever since his tragic demise at the climax of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, fans have wondered if there could ever be a return for Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU — a question that gained extra weight with the introduction of a multiverse that presumably includes worlds where Tony Stark didn’t sacrifice himself for the good of reality. A 2023 Vanity Fair profile of Downey offered what looks like a definitive answer, and it might not have been what people were expecting: Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said that there would not be a reversal of the character’s death.

“We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again,” Feige was quoted as saying, seemingly closing the door on Downey Jr.’s return as Iron Man. Of course, with Downey now returning to the MCU as Victor Von Doom, it's a very fair question to ask whether or not Doctor Doom is an alternate world's Tony Stark...

Is Kang still in the MCU?

Following Jonathan Majors’ conviction of of 3rd degree assault, 2nd degree harassment, and recklessly causing physical injury in late December 2023, Marvel officially cut ties with the actor — despite his having appeared as Kang or variants thereof in Loki seasons 1 and 2, as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, all of which were intended to set up the next major story arc for the MCU, which would culminate in the two movies Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Quite what this means remains open to question, especially considering Marvel has removed the “Kang Dynasty” subtitle from the fifth Avengers movie, and replaced Kang as the villain of the movie. Will we ever see Kang again, or should we just accept that his story ended in the second season of Disney+'s Loki?

Will Loki return?

There’s no denying that the Trickster God proved his worth to the MCU — and reality as a whole — at the end of the second season of his Disney+ series, but his fate at the end of that season left a lot of people curious about whether or not we’ll ever see Tom Hiddleston’s version of Loki ever again. After all, surely he’s going to have stay the keeper of time for awhile to stop reality collapsing, right…? Of course, that doesn’t mean that Hiddleston can’t show up as another Loki from elsewhere in the multiverse when we least expect it. After all, the Loki of the Disney+ series was himself a variant of the original…

Will there be an Echo season 2?

One of the most recent projects from Marvel Studios was on Disney+; Echo — the first Marvel Spotlight project, which is the banner to signify projects intended to have more of a character focus than a connection to the larger MCU storyline.

In fact, the show was developed as a miniseries that could very well stand on its own - perhaps this is why there's been no official word of an Echo season 2 heading to streaming. However, fans of Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk (who appears in Echo), will show up in the MCU again, as the character is confirmed to be a part of Daredevil: Born Again.

What will Secret Wars be about?

As things previously stood, it was expected that Avengers: Secret Wars would mirror the 2015 Secret Wars comic book series, with the incursions of multiple Earths resulting in one patchwork planet made up of different timelines being all that remained of all reality, with one villain controlling everything as an omnipotent despot… before things go wrong and the good guys try to restart existence itself. Curiously enough, onstage at SDCC 2024, Joe Russo explicitly referenced the 1984 Secret Wars series when talking about the inspiration for the story the movie will be telling, so... huh. Consider this one purposefully vague, I suspect.

---

While we wait for what's to come, make sure you've watched everything so far - with a little help from our guide to how to watch all the Marvel movies in order.