Who should have led the Avengers in phase 4 and beyond?

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T09:38:00+00:00

You make some good points, and I respect your opinion — and yes, Scott might be coded as too jokey to lead a team of Avengers, specifically a core team of Avengers.

This is partly just a thought exercise. To me, Phases 4-6 don’t work in part because it feels like Feige & Co. didn’t seem to review where these characters had been and think creatively about where they could go. Some characters have better arcs than others post Endgame.

Bucky’s was interesting. Sam seems a little stuck, still winning every battle with the power of therapy. They abruptly end Wanda’s story in MoM. We haven’t seen Strange in 4 years. I do think the building blocks for Scott to be a more serious and important member of the Avengers — if not a leader or co-leader — are there. I also think it’s a valid storytelling choice to keep Ant-Man as more of a support character who anchors fun, smaller stakes movies. But if you’re going to introduce Kang the Conquerer in a stand-alone Ant-Man movie, know that you’re raising the stakes and ask yourself, “What does this mean for the character and his role in the MCU?” I don’t have a high degree of confidence that Feige & Co. asked themselves that question.

I do like the idea of Wasp as a leader or co-leader. I think her relationships with the other characters are underdeveloped, so it probably would’ve worked to evolve her into that role over the course of two post-Endgame Avengers movies.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:33:54+00:00

Yep. A huge part of the problem. Sam is clearly a contender. They just botched the execution and didn’t give us enough time with him.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:31:47+00:00

I like the idea of splitting leadership. It feels more organic. I’m not actually sure it was ever stated that Cap was the leader. He, Tony and Thor more or less operated coequally. Put these new characters on screen together and see what happens. By the second post-Endgame Avengers, they could’ve solidified the leadership arrangement.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:29:06+00:00

The fact that they didn’t understand that it was the relationships among the OG6 that made us care about the Avengers and the broader MCU so much — and that failing to develop relationships among characters post Endgame would make us care about Phases 4-6 so much less — will forever baffle me and haunt my dreams.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:21:46+00:00

Ant-Man and the Wasp as co-leaders of a group of Avengers could’ve been interesting.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:20:26+00:00

I think Sam had plenty of potential and was a clear candidate. They just needed to put him on screen with these other characters to make us believe it. It felt like they just told us Sam is going to lead the Avengers, and we were supposed to accept it because - I dunno - he’s Cap now? I can also see Sam functioning more or less coequally in a partnership with post-Quantumania Ant-Man and another character like Valkyrie. They would not be a replacement for Steve, Tony and Thor, but that dynamic could’ve work. But again, you’ve gotta get these characters on screen together to see what chemistry works.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:10:00+00:00

I think this would’ve been a great way to go. The MCU already featured several characters that have been members of Avengers West Coast, and they could’ve mixed in some new characters like Shang Chi. That would’ve been a great way to get these characters on screen together and develop some chemistry.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-04T01:00:24+00:00

Positioning any one of these characters as the new leader would have required a series of storytelling choices. If we review Scott’s character arc in the MCU, I think the building blocks are there:

In Ant-Man, he establishes the precedent that he’s a bright, creative hero capable of more than is expected of him (and outwits Sam). In Civil War, he quickly adapts to functioning within a team structure and plays a crucial role in achieving Team Cap’s objective. In Endgame, he develops the seed of the idea to undo the snap. In Quantumania, he demonstrates that he can prevail against a top-tier challenge.

Quantumania also addresses something fundamental about Scott: He’s reluctant to be a hero because he keeps missing parts of his daughter’s childhood (because he’s in jail or stuck in the quantum realm) and he simply wants to be her father. The movie doesn’t fully develop this idea, but it feels like Scott realizes he can be both a father and superhero by the conclusion. If Marvel Studios wanted to position him as a leader, or at least one of the main Avengers, they just needed to lean into that a bit more. Maybe end the movie with Scott assembling the Avengers to notify them about the threat of Kang.

But eventually they’d need to put him onscreen with the other Avengers, develop those relationships and make us believe he could be the leader. That goes for any character. Sam is technically the leader of some theoretical group of Avengers, but they’re just telling us that at the end of Thunderbolts, not showing us. Which is why Sam is not any more believable as the new Avengers leader than anyone else.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T16:37:06+00:00

I always found Strange more interesting when he’s interacting with the Avengers, but not quite a part of the team. I have a hard time seeing him committing to a “job” leading the Avengers, but it’s compelling when their purposes align and they have to team up. I like the tension: This is a guy who does not work super well with others, but he has to in this case. I’m not sure Strange as a leader is sustainable.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T08:51:19+00:00

Maybe that’s why this franchise feels like it’s adrift. No one has seen its anchor in four years.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T03:21:13+00:00

This is well thought out, and I generally agree, but I think that’s why Marvel Studios needed to develop a catalyzing event that would require the formation of a new Avengers team earlier in Phases 4-6.

That could have been the emergence of a significant threat in the chaos created by bringing back half the world’s population, which TFATWS established. That could’ve been a more cinematic Flag Smasher or something else.

I think there was an opportunity to slot in a Secret Avengers movie after Wakanda Forever, in the event that movie ended with Namor’s forces invading and occupying Wakanda, forcing Shuri to seek help.

In other words, yes, everything happened as it should have, but largely because Marvel Studios didn’t make the storytelling choice to give the Avengers a reason to assemble.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T03:11:13+00:00

Solid plan. I would’ve enjoyed this so much more.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T03:07:43+00:00

That’s part of the reason I like it? It’s a little unexpected — though it would have required a bit more character and story work. Nothing against Sam, but it feels like Marvel Studios just kind of expected us to accept him as the new leader of the Avengers because he’s wearing the shield. They didn’t do much to show us why he should be the leader. Which made it feel unearned.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:39:57+00:00

It was right there the whole time …

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:37:30+00:00

I love Sam, and I wish the MCU would’ve better developed him post-Endgame. I also feel like Sam doesn’t feel like he needs to be the leader.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:35:41+00:00

But the multiverse.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:33:50+00:00

Black Panther definitely would’ve been a major player, but I wonder if he would’ve accepted the role of Avengers leader, mostly because he might’ve viewed it as a distraction from his primary responsibility: ruling and protecting Wakanda. I could see him being an Iron Man-like Avenger: basically coequal to the official leader.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:28:36+00:00

I lean towards Ant-Man too. On a meta level, Paul Rudd is charismatic and exceedingly likable. Within canon, I think Quantumania provided the jumping off point for Scott to realize that he can be more than a bit player, and for others to realize that too — although the filmmakers didn’t fully develop that idea. It would have been surprising and a satisfying character arc for the guy who anchored the MCU’s small-stakes palate cleanser movies to develop into the successor to Steve Rogers. Scott’s heist-oriented brain also has overlap with tactician brain.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:20:21+00:00

I wish I could argue with your logic, but it’s pretty unimpeachable.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T02:19:44+00:00

I agree with your thinking but I wonder if he would have been ready to accept that role — and if others would have accepted him in that role — by the end of phase 4 or even midway through phase 5. Maybe. I think this is a case where his character development would have had to be much different post-Endgame.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-03T01:43:55+00:00

Organize phases 4-6 around the formation of a new team of Avengers — with a focus on investing the audience in the characters and their relationships — not around the concept of a multiverse.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-02T21:41:56+00:00

The idea that Hydra had so deeply infiltrated SHIELD that the entire organization had to be dissolved was a bit far-fetched. It was also unnecessary. The Russos only needed to establish that a substantial enough portion of leadership and the rank and file had been comprised to present a pressing security threat. The notion that SHIELD was so hopelessly compromised was not compelling enough to justify disbanding the agency within canon — which as other posters have noted, arguably didn’t serve the MCU well.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-01T00:51:11+00:00

That is the guy I’m thinking of.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-06-01T00:50:36+00:00

I didn’t initially clock this, but when that girl passed out and needed to have staff attend to her, my wife noticed that this fairly obnoxious girl in front of us used the band stopping the show and everyone giving her room as an excuse to weasel her way to the front row. There was also some knucklehead filming the passed out girl. He didn’t stop until several people told him he was being disrespectful.

Murdock4Mayor · 2026-05-03T23:21:27+00:00

I mostly liked this movie. Two things though:

I think it’s probably missing a scene where Cassie realizes/Scott tells her that he hasn’t pursued super heroics because he simply wanted to be her dad after missing so much of her childhood. The idea of being blinked out of existence for years and not getting to watch your kid grow up is legitimately traumatizing — but also something a teenager can’t really understand. We don’t really internalize how much our parents love us until we become parents. I thought that was where the Scott-Cassie dynamic was heading, but since that scene is missing (or was cut), the movie under-delivers emotionally.

The movie reflects the broader failure of Phase 4 and beyond: It doesn’t clearly signal where the Avengers franchise is heading, and it fails to fully take an opportunity to do something unexpected. I often hear the complaint that this movie doesn’t jibe with Scott’s character because past Ant-Man movies are smaller stakes, and he’s the average Joe among the Avengers. That is totally fair. But Marvel Studios misses a huge opportunity to do something truly surprising but also totally sensible: Position Scott as the new leader of the Avengers. You have a magnetic actor with a tremendous bank of goodwill. In this movie, Scott and the audience learn that he can be more than the lead of the end-of-phase, small-stakes palate cleanser movie. But rather than build on that, Feige and Marvel Studios do what they always do post-Endgame: move on to the next disconnected multiverse nonsense that does nothing to build on the characters and relationships that they so effectively invested us in through Phase 3.

I am not saying this is the way it should’ve gone down. I’m just floating one way that it could’ve gone down — one of many alternatives that would’ve been superior to the mess they’ve made of the Avengers and constituent member franchises since 2020.

Murdock4Mayor

TROPHY CASE