After more than a decade and 23 films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come a long way. When Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark put together his first suit of armor in 2008's Iron Man, few fans could have imagined his journey ultimately culminating in Captain America leading an army of Avengers into battle against Thanos for mastery of the Infinity Stones. Thanks to Marvel Studios' continued commitment to growing their cinematic universe, bolstered by their incredible ongoing success, the MCU is now a far more complex and heavily populated place than audiences might have believed possible at the outset. But with the Infinity Saga now complete and new generations of fans to consider, Marvel's next best move could involve the death of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the world of comics from which the MCU draws its inspiration, occasional continuity reboots are fairly commonplace. Sometimes these are in-universe events that leave a lasting mark on the heroes' world, other times entire universes are overhauled and relaunched from scratch. The Marvel Universe has seen its fair share of both forms of reboot, with events like Infinity (Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver) shifting the status quo, while 2015's Secret Wars (Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribić) saw the Marvel multiverse annihilated and replaced with a brand-new patchwork reality. Now, it could be time for the MCU to follow suit.
Avengers: Endgame saw Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) meet their respective demises, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) time travel his way to old age and retirement, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) leave Earth for a bit of soul-searching and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) turn into more of a thinker than a brawler. In the wake of this, it's fair to say the MCU is already going through something of a soft reboot. Newer heroes are coming to the fore, old mantles are being passed on -- Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) has abandoned the Falcon moniker to become Captain America, while Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is set to become the new Thor in next year's Thor: Love and Thunder -- and the MCU's horizons are moving beyond the schemes of Thanos. While all of this makes the MCU's Phase 4 a good jumping-on point for new audiences, it could also be a good time for a more drastic overhaul of Marvel's on-screen continuity.
With the MCU in a post-Blip state of uncertainty and projects like WandaVision and the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opening the door to reality-bending story possibilities, a Secret Wars-style reboot could help re-solidify the status of the MCU. As in the comic story arc, Marvel could explore the destruction of the entire multiverse, with a new reality emerging from the ashes. Such a storyline may necessitate the annihilation of the current MCU to pave the way for a new cinematic universe, utilizing the same beloved cast but without the story baggage from years of history, which can be off-putting to new viewers. This could afford Marvel more freedom to reinvent characters, redefine their relationships to one another, and redesign the universe in a way that better allows them to tell stories about a new generation of characters.
Just as in Marvel's major comic continuity reboots, new or less developed characters could be given more prominent roles, and characters who were not previously part of the MCU, such as the X-Men, could be introduced and retroactively worked into the MCU's history. In addition, the formation of new superhero teams, such as the next Avengers roster and the Young Avengers, could be accelerated to have these teams established and ready to hit the ground running in subsequent films.
An in-continuity reboot may seem like a radical idea, given the sheer amount of world-building that's occurred in the MCU up until now, but these continuity shake-ups have always been part of the DNA of superhero comics. Rather than simply destroying everything fans have loved about the MCU so far, a reboot of this nature could disassemble the MCU and then reconstruct it in a form better suited to new fans, new characters and new adventures.