It’s been seven years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave audiences around the world a chance to see the Avengers in action. That will change in a few months when Avengers: Doomsday comes out and brings an entire multiverse of Marvel heroes together for a new blockbuster event.
In the wake of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios made a conscious decision to sideline the Avengers. Hoping to focus on individual heroes more, start new potential franchises, and form fresh superhero teams, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were completely missing from Phases 4 and 5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ post-credits scene is arguably the closest we came to the Avengers assembling, as Captain Marvel, Bruce Banner, and Wong talked to Shang-Chi about his Ten Rings.
Instead of the Avengers movies being used to end individual Phases, they became events to end Sagas, as Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will do for the Multiverse Saga. The MCU failed to fill the Avengers-sized hole in its slate and give audiences a chance to see the franchise’s biggest heroes unite every few years, but Disney did not.
In 2022, Disney introduced the Avengers: Quantum Encounter as a dinner event aboard the Disney Wish cruise ship. It brought together Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Ms. Marvel for a new adventure that doesn’t take place in the MCU continuity, even if the movie actors all reprise their roles. Years later, it’s proof of what the MCU was missing during Phases 4 and 5.
Avengers: Quantum Encounter Would Have Been A Great Phase 4 Or 5 Release
Coming on the heels of Avengers: Endgame, a movie version of Avengers: Quantum Encounter is exactly what the MCU needed. This was an opportunity to elevate existing heroes to mainstays of the Avengers for a post-Infinity Saga universe. Ant-Man, Wasp, Sam Wilson’s Captain America, and Captain Marvel would all be able to return and be propped up as the characters who could carry the MCU forward without Iron Man, Steve Rogers, and Black Widow around.
These four characters being the focal point of the MCU’s first Avengers without the original team fit the direction of the universe, too. Ant-Man and Wasp headlined Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Sam took the lead role in Captain America: Brave New World, and Carol was at the forefront of The Marvels, alongside Kamala Khan. Their prominent positions in the Multiverse Saga made them logical choices to be central to a new Avengers.
The cruise event united these heroes after Ultron returned to take a new Quantum invention. Considering Spider-Man: Homecoming set up Ultron’s return in 2017, having him return as the first villain a new Avengers team encounters would make sense in the MCU. I can easily imagine this movie coming out at the end of Phase 5. It could even have worked in Phase 4 and better positioned these characters’ solo films for success.
The story of Quantum Encounter would have had to be significantly expanded for it to work as a feature film, as the cruise ship event holds less than 20 minutes of recorded material. That could easily have been done by Marvel Studios’ talented teams by fleshing out Ultron’s return, how the heroes come together, and allowing more time for the characters to interact.
Considering Disney has updated the event over the years to add in Spider-Man, America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Ironheart, an Avengers: Quantum Encounter movie would have wound up being much bigger and exactly what the MCU was missing after Endgame.
The MCU Struggled Without An Avengers Movie Between Endgame & Doomsday
Marvel’s decision to give the Avengers a break after Endgame never really made sense. The thought process was making the event films feel even more special by spacing them out further, with solo films able to fill some of the appeal by becoming grander in nature and including more crossover characters. However, not making another Avengers movie between Phase 3’s culmination and Doomsday made several problems clear.
The biggest is that the MCU lacked a sense of cohesion. Marvel spent the majority of Phase 3 building to Thanos’ true arrival, and it left audiences expecting a similar approach would be used to introduce the MCU’s next big bad and overarching storyline. Instead, most of the early Multiverse Saga stories were either tying up threads from Endgame or telling stories that had no major connections to the state of the MCU.
The interconnectivity that fans had grown accustomed to was largely gone. And while that can work at times, the Avengers movies were a place for storylines to connect, characters to meet, and future setup to take place. Without them in the Multiverse Saga, interest dipped as audiences were flooded with more MCU movies and shows than ever before, but with each one not feeling as necessary to the overall story taking place.
Not only did this result in a failure to elevate major characters to Avengers-leading status, but it also stripped the MCU of its biggest franchise at a time when it needed it the most. In a world without half of the original Avengers, Marvel Studios repeatedly struggled to convince audiences to follow lesser-known heroes in solo films without the promise that certain characters would unite for the next crossover event.
Avengers: Doomsday Would Be Better Off If Quantum Encounter Had Been A Movie
Rather than encounter those struggles and position Doomsday as a release that carries a significant burden on its shoulders to rejuvenate interest in the MCU on a global scale, Marvel should have made another Avengers movie before it. Turning the premise and characters of Quantum Encounter into Avengers 5 would have been smarter for the short term and benefit Doomsday.
In this scenario, Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, and Captain Marvel would already be established as the new faces of the Avengers. Any of their returns in Doomsday would carry more significance, with the movie able to jump right into having a fully-formed team of heroes who audiences have already seen work together to defeat one of the MCU’s most powerful villains.
Doomsday would no longer need to spend time introducing a new Avengers team and making audiences accept that they’ve been together for some period of time off-screen. It would be able to hit the ground running on that front and more easily get to the new Avengers team interacting with the Thunderbolts, X-Men, and Fantastic Four.
Additionally, if Avengers: Quantum Encounter had been a movie released years ago, it would make Doomsday feel less reliant on multiversal cameos and nostalgia. There would inevitably be a bit of a larger focus on Captain America, Ant-Man, and the other core Avengers team that Marvel established after Endgame.
Since that didn’t happen and the MCU struggled without the Avengers for a few years, Avengers: Doomsday turned its focus back to Steve Rogers, Thor, and Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. Had the same outcome have happened after a movie like Quantum Encounter been made, the beginning of the Multiverse Saga’s ending would be in a better position.
- Release Date
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December 18, 2026
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Vanessa Kirby
Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
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Johnny Storm / Human Torch
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Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Ben Grimm / The Thing