Marvel Studios revealed its entire Phase 4 schedule at San Diego Comic Con 2019, but unlike Phase Three that showed a gradual progression of projects that were clearly building to the climax of what we now call The Infinity Saga, Marvel’s Phase Four is decidedly more scattershot. Television series are part of an official Marvel Studios slate for the first time courtesy of Disney+, new franchises like Eternals and Shang-Chi are promising wholly different experiences from what we’ve seen before, and most alarmingly, there’s no Avengers film in the lineup.
Without an installment of their premiere property, what is Marvel’s new game plan? Evidently, it’s to break their established mold, because this new slate indicates they intend to capitalize on their domination of the pop culture landscape by experimenting not just with some of their weirdest characters but also with a new structure where each project can be freed from the expectation of being part of a phase’s overall arc.