Extra, Extra!: Marvel's Phase Three Line-Up

In which I report on the latest in entertainment news.

It's official.  When Marvel announced their film lineup for their upcoming Phase 3, they broke the internet: or at least my news feed.  Within minutes, Facebook exploded with a mix of official reports, independent commentary and friends' reactions, my personal favorite being

I'm sorry I can't hear you over the sound of CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE

Princess Sparklyfists on the big screen!

 I thought that I would briefly spend some time going over the lineup and what we already know (or can reasonably guess) about it.  In the name of brevity (relative as it is, given that I'm about to discuss nine movies), I'll try to limit myself to no more than two paragraphs each.

Marvel's Phase 3

Captain America: Civil War - I bet that DC's happy with their decision to back down from the previously named Captain America 3's release date.  The story of Civil War - one of Marvel's best received and most memorable cross-overs - is so sprawling, so nuanced and so epic in scope that I'm honestly surprised that they didn't wait to make it an Avengers sequel.  And with both Captain America and Iron Man set to square off against each other - and with Black Panther and potentially Doctor Strange both appearing before their solo movies are released - it basically already is.  I honestly expect Civil War to earn Avengers-level money.  It's just that big a deal.

Civil War centers around the Superhero Registration Act.  After public sentiment for superheroes begins plummeting (for the MCU, think of The Hulk's rampages, Hydra's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Black Widow's post-S.H.I.E.L.D. senate hearings), the Commission on Superhuman Activities pushes the bill through congress: legally bringing all superheroes under the yoke of the federal government.  Tony Stark supports the bill, believing that superheroes need to be trained and answerable to more than their own consciousness.  Steve Rogers, however, balks at the blatant curtailment of civil rights (as in Captain America: The Winter Soldier), forms an outlaw band of heroes known as The Secret Avengers, and squares off against both the United States government and Iron Man.

Captain America vs Iron Man.  FIGHT!

Doctor Strange - With final talks starting on who's going to play the titular hero, Doctor Strange has been on everybody's minds lately.  Although Ethan Hawke, Juaquin Phoenix and even Ryan Gosling of all people were allegedly approached about the project, all signs point to Benedict Cumberbatch taking up the good doctor's mantle in 2016.  Given that the MCU has done its best to keep all of its franchises scientifically focused, even making Thor answerable to Clarke's Third Law - "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - it's going to be incredibly interesting to see what they do with a character whose powers are defined as inherently magical.

Name-dropped as a target for Zola's algorithm in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dr. Stephen Strange is a renowned neurosurgeon met with a terrible fate.  After a car accident mangles his hands, ensuring that he will never practice surgery again, he goes on a soul-searching quest to across the world to a mystical temple, where he is trained in the mystical arts, becoming the Sorcerer Supreme: mankind's first defense against supernatural assault.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - The first Guardians of the Galaxy tracked so well with test audiences that its sequel was announced before it was actually released.  And, after seeing how needlessly awesome that movie was, there should be no question in anybody's mind as to why.  Owing as much to Star Wars as it does to Firefly, it proved to be funny, touching and balls to the wall weird without ever seeming forced or out of place.

We don't know anything of the actual plot of the film yet, but there are some basic guarantees that I think are pretty safe bets.  Thanos, who already featured as the villainous mastermind behind The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, and who will invariably headline in Infinity Wars Part 1 and Part 2, is bound to be a key player in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.  As has already been revealed, he is scouring the universe for the Infinity Stones - ancient artifacts that bestow indomitable power to those capable of wielding them.  Each controls a different aspect of the universe - soul, time, space, mind, reality and power - and when combined in the Infinity Gauntlet (depicted in the vaults of Asgard in Thor), they grant their wielder omniscience, omnipotence and a variety of other God-like abilities.  Since we've already seen the Power Stone (the purple gem in Guardians of the Galaxy), Space Stone (the Tesseract in The Avengers), the Reality Stone (the AEther from Thor: The Dark World) and presumably the Mind Stone (Loki's scepter from The Avengers), it's an extremely safe bet that the plot will center around Thanos attempting to obtain one or more of the remaining stones (or possibly raiding Xandar for the Power Stone secured there).

Thor: Ragnarok - With Thor now a permanent resident of Midgard and Loki sitting on the throne of Asgard in Odin's guise, Thor 2 shook the franchise to its very foundations.  It's a safe bet that Odin himself is already dead, although I wouldn't put it past Loki to imprison his adopted father in the exact manner that he was (perhaps likewise glamoured into appearing to be Loki).  With Loki in power (and subsequently in possession of the Tesseract and the Infinity Guantlet), where his ambitions lead him from here is anybody's guess.

Although I am less versed on Thor than on other Marvel characters, it's interesting to note that Ragnarok is the name of a cybernetic Thor clone from Civil War.  Given that we already have Captain America: Civil War preceding this, this could very well address the fallout from that film.  Given that Age of Ultron is seemingly about Tony Stark reviving Captain America: The Winter Soldier's Project Insight (or an offshoot of that), perhaps this is a natural extension of that: superheroic drones to replace their flesh and blood counterparts.  In the comics, Ragnarok eventually malfunctions, thinking that he is, in fact, the real Thor, which would lead to one Hell of a showdown between the two on Midgard.  Alternatively, this could simply be a reference to the Norse End of Days, which would lead to a much different kind of film.

Black Panther - Given the militant civil rights group that shares its name, I'm half surprised that Marvel didn't opt to name it Panther or T'Challa instead.  But this is what I love about Marvel: they embrace their wild, crazy, off-putting and nonsensical canon for what it is.  How else would you explain why they ever decided to make Guardians of the Galaxy into a movie, with all of its weirdness in tact?  The fact that they've already signed the incredibly talented Chadwick Boseman, who headlined last year's 42: The Jackie Robinson Story, to a five film contract that allegedly begins with an appearance in Civil War, is just icing on the cake.

T'Challa is the prince of Wakanda, an African nation that is the world's only source of Vibranium, the metal from which Captain America's iconic shield is made.  So in case you were worried about Cap's shattered shield from Age of Ultron, relax; he's bound to get a new one made now.  Given his debut in Civil War, that might actually set up the plot for his first solo venture: teaming up with Cap to replace his shield (similar to how The Winter Soldier saw him team up with Black Widow and Falcon), lame though it is having to share your first film with a more established hero.  The film might likewise feature the internal workings and politics of Wakanda: an isolationist nation that largely relies on its "lost civilization" mystic as a cover to keep outsiders away, a fact that Black Panther has often been at odds with.

Captain Marvel - Although Captain Marvel has historically referred to the male hero Mar-Vell, it is far more likely that the film refers to the more popular iteration of the hero and current bearer of that title Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel, aka Princess Sparklyfists.  While her colorful history is too long and too complicated to deal with here in only two paragraphs, you should definitely be sure to check it out.  It's a little weird and all sorts of crazy.

While Danvers' story basically begins basically as a tangential off-shoot of the original Captain Marvel, I'm pretty sure that her origins will be streamlined to include aspects of her predecessor's back story so that she's not simply the female equivalent of a hero that the movie-going public is largely unaware of (or, if they are, largely don't care about).  So whether she's actually an alien soldier cum superhero or a human injured in a superpowered explosion which in turn grants her powers - or some variation on the often-used-to-justify-superheroes-in-the-MCU SSR Super Soldier Serum (the one that gave Cap' his powers) - she's bound to get special attention as Marvel tries desperately to make their first solo female hero (and de facto answer to DCs already announced Wonder Woman movie due to come out the year before).

Inhumans - I'll admit it.  I know essentially next to nothing about Inhumans going into this.  They're a group of which I have heard of occasionally, and more recently heard on Marvel fans' wish list of movie adaptations - which is only slightly more than I knew about Guardians of the Galaxy going into that movie.  Still, if there's one thing that Marvel seems exceptionally good with, it's bringing to the mainstream obscure titles, heroes and groups that have little to no appeal outside of the world of comic books.

After the Kree - the blue alien race that prominently featured in not only Guardians of the Galaxy but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well - first arrived on Earth millions of years ago, they began experimenting on nascent homo sapiens in order to, among other things, create an army of mutated super soldiers, a project that they abandoned.  The results of their labors, Inhumans, formed an secluded society that existed in secrecy from the world until very recently.  Lead by their king Black Bolt, they have had on-again off-again dealings with mainstream society, including several Inhumans intermittently joining groups such as The Fantastic Four and The Avengers.  Given that Marvel does not own the exclusive film rights to X-Men (and can only include some members, such as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, in Avengers movies because they technically share the film rights to them with Fox), this seems to be their answer to their current legal stand-off: pitting their group of Disney-owned mutants against their more popular cousins.

The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and Part 2 - And, at long last, we cap off Phase 3 with an unprecedented two-part Avengers finale.  This is it, folks, this is the end game that Marvel's been working towards since the beginning (or at least since the Tesseract's first appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger).

Infinity War is bound to be Thanos' incursion against the Earth in order to complete his collection of Infinity Stones.  Remember, it's believed that Loki's Chitauri scepter - which he received from Thanos - is believed to contain The Mind Stone.  It also, incidentally, is still secured on Earth, courtesy of Captain America: The Winter Soldier's post credit scene.  It seems pretty clear to me that Thanos, Gauntlet and other stones in hand, will lead a invasion force against the Earth for the final stone, only to confront The Avengers and quite possibly the Guardians of the Galaxy as well.  The duology suggests that Thanos will succeed at nabbing the stone in Part 1, transforming him into a nigh-omnipotent being, only to be put down in Part 2: providing a suitable cliffhanger to leave Part 1 on and a satisfying denouement for Part 2.  How the two teams will function together - let alone how The Avengers will function post-Civil War - remains to be seen, but it's bound to be one Hell of a show.

So there you have it: a preliminary breakdown of Marvel's Phase 3.  Obviously there's a lot more to discuss as more information becomes available, but right now we're left with little more than their titles and release dates.  Box Office Mojo predicts that the nine films will earn Marvel over nine billion dollars, averaging out at 1 billion dollars each (although I have to imagine that Civil War and the two Avengers films will makeup for any deficits in the others' intake).

Which movie (or movies) are you most looking forward to in Phase 3?  Who should be cast in the films' major roles?  Is there anything about Phase 3 that worries you?  Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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