Ooh, the MCU is a lot, isn’t it? It was always a lot, but now it’s a LOT lot. With the rollout of Phase Four, fans didn’t just have a handful of blockbuster films to keep up with, there were also multiple TV shows streaming on Disney+ that introduced important new characters and corners of the Marvel Universe that interconnected with big budget theatrical releases. It’s been a gamble for Marvel Studios, who first properly tested audience reactions with the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in the first half of 2022. Fully understanding the plot of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led sequel meant you really had to have seen WandaVision on Disney+, and in the next batch of MCU movies, characters and stories from other shows will be important, too. 2023’s The Marvels, featuring Brie Larson reprising her role as Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, also co-stars Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau (introduced in WandaVision), and Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan (introduced in Ms. Marvel). Loki villain He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) will also pop up again in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as an even more villainous multiverse Variant called Kang the Conqueror. Fans who missed the beginning of these journeys on Disney+ may end up being a little confused!
Yelena Belova
The first movie of MCU Phase Four was Black Widow, a swansong for Natasha Romanoff who sacrificed her life in Avengers: Endgame. The project was a prequel, which meant we got to see what Natasha was up to between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. This adventure marked the end of Natasha’s quest to wipe out the red in her ledger from years of unpleasant missions that occasionally ended with innocent blood being shed. Here, she was seeking to put an end to the Red Room – a top-secret Russian training program for young girls – once and for all. Along the way, we met Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who once posed as Natasha’s sister when they were working undercover in America as kids. They were both trained in the Red Room, but Yelena had continued working for the Russians after Natasha defected. Yelena’s mind was being controlled by the leader of the Red Room programme, Dreykov, but she managed to finally escape his grasp and met up with Natasha while she was on the run. Amidst the destruction of the Red Room, the two mended their bridges, so Yelena was upset and angry when she found out that Natasha had died soon after. When she was told that Clint Barton aka Hawkeye was the one responsible for Natasha’s death, Yelena picked up an offer to assassinate him in Marvel’s Hawkeye, but the truth eventually emerged and she let him go.
Taskmaster
Natasha thought she had accidentally killed Dreykov’s daughter Antonia (Olga Kurylenko) in a bombing when she was a child, but it turns out that Antonia had survived the blast. She was maimed, however, and a disappointed Dreykov had then raised Antonia to be a weapon against his enemies. Under the moniker “Taskmaster” Antonia can mimic opponents’ fighting styles, and has been shown using battle techniques copied from the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, Spider-Man, and Black Panther. We haven’t seen Taskmaster re-emerge since the events of Black Widow, but Taskmaster is regularly an iconic villain (and sometimes an anti-hero) in the pages of Marvel Comics, and will be a part of Phase Five’s Thunderbolts lineup.
Red Guardian
In a coup by Marvel Studios, Stranger Things star David Harbour joined the MCU as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in Black Widow. Alexei is a super soldier, and is known to rattle on about his heyday as Russia’s version of Captain America. He even claims to have fought Captain America in the 80s, but this has been disputed by people who knew that Steve Rogers was still in the ice back then. He may be telling the truth, though, and we go into that further right here! Red Guardian was an ally to Natasha Romanoff, and may continue to be an ally to Yelena Belova. He originally masqueraded as the pair’s fake father when they were sent on an undercover mission to America in the 90s.
Agatha Harkness
Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) is a Salem witch who was condemned by her own coven for practicing dark magic. She then somehow acquired the Darkhold, a grimoire based on carvings by the elder god Chthon. This boosted her powers substantially but she became even more villainous, and when she sensed Wanda Maximoff using “chaos” magic in the small town of Westview during WandaVision, she also sought to steal that magic. She wasn’t afraid of killing an innocent dog to get the job done! Wanda, who had meanwhile found her destiny as the Scarlet Witch, dealt with Agatha by forcing her to live out her life in Westview and cast a spell to convince her that she was just another regular resident of the town. A spinoff series awaits, though, so we haven’t seen the last of Agatha Harkness!
Monica Rambeau
Also getting mixed up in the drama in Westview was Monica Rambeau, the daughter of air force pilot and Carol Danvers’ best friend Maria, who eventually founded S.W.O.R.D.. after Carol went back into space. Monica also joined S.W.O.R.D. when she was old enough. In WandaVision, Monica tried to help Wanda Maximoff several times by travelling through a Hex barrier that Wanda had cast over the town of Westview. Repeated interactions with the barrier caused Monica to develop superhuman abilities, and she was then recruited by the Skrulls for mysterious reasons. Monica will return in The Marvels next year alongside Brie Larson and Iman Vellani’s Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel.
Shang-Chi
In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, we met a host of new characters from a new corner of the Marvel Universe that had actually been referenced since the first Iron Man film back in 2008! Lead character Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) was trained to be an assassin by his father Wenwu – leader of criminal organization the Ten Rings – when he was a child. Leaving his father’s circle as a teen and travelling to America, Shang-Chi spun his wheels in several dead-end jobs before he was pulled back into his father’s dangerous orbit.
Wenwu
It is not clear how long Wenwu (Tony Leung) possessed the Ten Rings before they were passed to his son Shang-Chi, but he used them to become a very powerful figure for a very long time. Historically he was thought of as a villain, but when he started a family Wenwu softened for a while before his wife was killed and he deteriorated into a much harsher person. Wenwu died toward the end of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings while mistakenly trying to find his dead wife, unleashing the Dweller in Darkness who was later slain by his son. But Wenwu’s story seems far from over: an old Ten Rings temple was later uncovered during the 1940s part of the MCU timeline that once contained many of Wenwu’s artefacts, including the a Kree arm and a bangle that Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel now uses to access her powers.
Xu Xialing
Xu Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) is Shang-Chi’s sister and the current leader of Wenwu’s criminal organization. As a child, she watched as Wenwu trained Shang-Chi, and always felt left out and eager to master the same skills as her brother. By staying close during Shang-Chi’s training, she was able to grasp the same fighting techniques and is now so adept at them that she can easily beat Shang-Chi in battle. Although Xu Xialing appeared to be on the side of good, she secretly took over the Ten Rings organization as soon as Shang-Chi’s back was turned, and is now likely a powerful figure in the criminal underworld as a result. It’s unclear if we will see Xu Xialing in the planned sequel to Shang-Chi, but we may see her again in other MCU projects before that film emerges.
Sersi
Sersi (Gemma Chan) is the defacto leader of the Eternals, a race of synthetic alien beings formed by the godlike Celestials to help populations blossom on healthy planets, therefore building enough energy to fuel the creation of a new Celestial. She led the Eternals on a mission to prevent a new Celestial being born on Earth, which would have wiped out the human race. This went against the group’s orders to usher in the birth, and the Celestial Arishem discovered Sersi’s betrayal at the end of Marvel’s Eternals. He snatched her from the Earth to pass judgment on both her actions and her reasons for preserving humankind. When the Eternals decided to go against the wishes of the Celestials and save the human race, Kingo didn’t want to take either side of the argument and chose to abandon the group instead. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and Ms. Marvel have since referenced Kingo’s Bollywood fame, and with Loki Season 2 planning to do the same, we likely haven’t seen the last of this irreverent character in the MCU.
Black Knight
Kit Harington’s appearance in Eternals is just the beginning of a potential journey for the character of Professor Dane Whitman, as it is thought he will ultimately fulfil his destiny to become the iconic Black Knight. Whitman is a scientist and a historian who happens to be heir to an ancient family line, and he had just begun a romance with the Eternal Sersi when an apocalypse on Earth loomed once again. Whitman then tried to make amends with his mysterious uncle after that close call with oblivion and continued investigating his family’s history, which led to him possessing the Ebony Blade – a sword that can imbue its wielder with incredible power. But that power comes at a great cost, and he now seems to have caught the attention of the MCU’s rebooted daywalking vampire, Blade.
Eros
All we’ve seen of Eros so far has been a brief appearance in the post-credits scene of Eternals, but what an entrance he made! Cutting a rather more human-looking figure than his adoptive brother Thanos, Eros (also known as Starfox) is played by none other than pop sensation Harry Styles, and he is sure to get much more screen time later in MCU Phase Four or Five. Eros was also an Eternal created by Arishem and hails from Titan, where he was a prince until he too rejected the Celestial mandate and ran away. He’d been traveling the cosmos ever since, but when he was made aware of the Earth Eternals’ Celestial troubles, it piqued his interest to meet the remaining members of the group as their potential ally. Eros hopes that more Eternals who reject Arishem’s rules can be found amongst the stars. Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson did not respond well to Walker becoming the next Cap, as you can imagine, and things went from bad to worse when Walker decided to take some supersoldier serum in a quest to be as powerful as Steve. He wound up committing murder in full view of the public, which led to his downfall. Walker did redeem himself somewhat in the end, but by then he’d caught the eye of someone with their own agenda who could see potential in Walker for missions that utilized his more “heavy-handed” tactics as US Agent so he’ll be back for Marvel’s Thunderbolts.
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a mysterious figure who has made several appearances in Phase Four. Coming across a bit like a more sinister Nick Fury, Val’s motives and origin story are currently unknown, but she recruited both Yelena Belova and John Walker to her cause in Black Widow and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier respectively. Valentina’s deal is the beginning of the Thunderbolts in the MCU. In the comics, the Thunderbolts were a team of villains who masked up and pretended to be heroes so that they could manipulate key events to their advantage. Their original leader? The villain of Captain America: Civil War, Baron Zemo, who remains alive but who is still cooped up in a maximum security prison. The MCU’s Thunderbolts are currently composed of Taskmaster, Red Guardian, Bucky Barnes, Yelena Belova, Ghost, and US Agent, and their team up movie will cap off MCU Phase Five.
Mobius M. Mobius
Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) managed to do the impossible: he actually got through to Loki. And not just any Loki, but a Variant Loki fresh from a Battle of New York beatdown by the Avengers. It was weird enough that Loki had now made a genuine human friend, but the pair also immediately faced danger when they uncovered clues that the TVA was not all that it seemed, and Mobius then had to risk everything in the face of a crackdown by his employers, who had captured Loki and were planning to kill him when he’d worn out his welcome. After the events of Loki played out, we discovered that Mobius no longer recognized the trickster, and Loki now has to earn Mobius’ trust in Season 2 if the two are to set right what has gone wrong and become the best of friends again. Oh, and Mobius loves jet skis! Very important information. When we last saw Ravonna, she was departing the TVA to find free will after it became clear that her bureaucracy was a sham. We will definitely see her again in Season 2 of Loki, as she has heavy ties to Phase Four villain Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Comics.
Sylvie
Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a female multiverse Variant of Loki (an MCU mashup of The Enchantress and Lady Loki) who managed to escape the clutches of the bureaucratic Time Variance Authority by hiding in apocalyptic events. Like Loki, she is also very clever and can be spiteful. Naturally, our new Loki has fallen in love with this other version of himself! Unfortunately, Sylvie is far more dedicated to seeing a plan through its bitter end than he is, and she defied Loki to kill off He Who Remains, a version of Kang the Conqueror who created the Sacred Timeline to prevent the multiverse from existing in the MCU. This is the reason that the MCU is now deep into its multiverse stage! Sylvie’s whereabouts are currently unknown, but she will return to wreak more havoc on Loki’s heart in Season 2 of the God of Mischief’s Disney+ series.
He Who Remains
This gentleman was a very complicated sort, and even the motivations he revealed before meeting the end of Sylvie’s blade in Loki are extremely questionable. He Who Remains claimed to be from the future. He said he was the first person to make contact with other universes, and had met various other versions of himself in the process. Some of them were apparently so damn dangerous that they started a Multiversal War, so He Who Remains decided that the only way to protect everyone was to found the TVA and create a “Sacred Timeline” where any pesky alternate timelines and Variants who strayed off the path were destroyed. He gave Loki and Sylvie a choice: kill him and allow the multiverse to exist, possibly creating unbelievable violence and chaos, or take over his job running the TVA and the Sacred Timeline. Loki heeded his warning and chose the latter, but lost out to Sylvie, who…did not. We will also be introduced to a different Variant version of He Who Remains (as played by Jonathan Majors) in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: Kang the Conqueror.
The Watcher
Uatu The Watcher (voiced by The Batman star Jeffrey Wright) observes the blossoming MCU multiverse from the Nexus of All Realities. He has made an oath not to intervene in any events, but let’s just say he can be convinced fairly easily if the occasion calls for it! When an extremely powerful Variant of Ultron emerged in Marvel’s What If…?, Uatu decided to put a team together to stop everyone’s favorite MCU murderbot. Captain Carter, Star-Lord, Doctor Strange, Erik Killmonger, Gamora, Thor, and Black Widow all eventually joined the gang, and they called themselves the Guardians of the Multiverse.
Captain Carter
Captain Carter is a multiverse Variant of a Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) who took the supersoldier serum during WWII instead of Steve Rogers. She fights on the side of good with a Howard Stark-made vibranium shield much like Steve, but their similarities are only vague aside from that. Captain Carter is known to be a member of the Avengers, the Illuminati, and the Guardians of the Multiverse, but she has a much more brutal fighting style than Steve, and will often easily make decisions that Steve might struggle with. Captain Carter has shown up several times in the MCU to date, first in Marvel’s What If…? and then in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The former Captain Carter lived to tell the tale, but the latter didn’t as she was killed by Scarlet Witch! Peggy Carter’s ongoing importance in Phase Four was also hinted at in Loki, where yet another Variant version of the love of Steve’s life was pruned by the TVA for straying off the set timeline.
Kate Bishop
A gifted archer in her own right, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) teamed up with Hawkeye to take down Kingpin, the Tracksuit Mafia, and her own mother in Marvel Studios’ Clint Barton spinoff series. Kate is very different to Clint. She’s bright-eyed, eager to learn, and keen to pick up the “Hawkeye” mantle as soon as possible. The origins of her obsession date back to the Battle of New York, where she saw Hawkeye in action on the day her father died and was inspired to pursue that superhero life. She quite accidentally made friends with Yelena Belova when the former Black Widow arrived in New York to kill Clint towards the end of the series, and the two have some great chemistry that is sure to endure through MCU Phase Four and Five. Cox will return as Maya Lopez in Echo, a spinoff series on Disney+ that will team her with Charlie Cox’s Daredevil now that he’s officially a part of the Disney version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The two are also heavily linked, along with Kingpin, in Marvel Comics.
Moon Knight
Marc Spector is a former mercenary with Dissociative Identity Disorder. He has two other identities inside him: Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. All three are played by Oscar Isaac, and all three make up “Moon Knight”, an avatar of the Egyptian god Khonshu who guides those travelling by night and seeks vengeance on any villainous sorts who might trouble them on their path. The character was introduced in the limited TV series Moon Knight, but currently it is Jake Lockley in place as the Fist of Khonshu, while the others remain blissfully unaware of his existence. Isaac only signed on to play Moon Knight for one season of the Disney+ show, but he will almost certainly be back in the future, as the character remains a cult favorite amongst comic book readers. However, Moon Knight is a rare studio project that currently remains unconnected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Scarlet Scarab
Archaeologist Layla Abdallah El-Faouly (May Calamawy) is the estranged wife of Marc Spector, who joined him in his guise as Moon Knight to thwart the plans of the villainous Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke). During their final battle against him in Marvel’s Moon Knight, she struck a deal with the Egyptian goddess Taweret to become her avatar on Earth. Layla is now the Scarlet Scarab! Her relationship with Marc, however, has yet to be resolved, as Marc’s alternate identity Steven Grant has also fallen in love with her. It’s a very complicated love triangle.
America Chavez
America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) joined the MCU in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness when it was revealed to Stephen(s) Strange that she could travel the multiverse utilizing portals. She is unique in the Marvel multiverse, because she has no Variants. Thanks to her dimension-hopping abilities, she drew the attention of many bad people and creatures, including a Darkhold-twisted Scarlet Witch, who hunted her and planned to take her powers.
Clea
Stephen Strange met Clea, played by Charlize Theron, during a mid-credits scene in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where she sought his assistance. In the comics, she is the niece of Dormammu, the villain that Stephen struck a bargain with at the end of his MCU origin story back in 2017. Hailing from the Dark Dimension, Clea is indeed a dimension-hopper of sorts who is incredibly powerful. Whether she will later marry Stephen and then become Earth’s next Sorcerer Supreme when he dies, as she did in Marvel Comics, remains to be seen.
Ms. Marvel
Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is a young Pakistani-American Muslim girl from New Jersey who fan-worshipped the Avengers – especially Captain Marvel – and longed to become a superhero herself. She got her wish when she was sent a mystical bangle by her grandmother that unlocked her natural powerset. Kamala’s story is only just beginning to unravel with Ms. Marvel, but she will join Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers in an MCU team-up movie next year called The Marvels. Kamala has been associated with several superhero group rosters in Marvel Comics, including the Avengers, the New Avengers, the Champions, and the Secret Warriors, and has been a fan favorite character since she was first created back in 2013.
Zeus
Zeus (Russell Crowe) is the pompous King of the Olympians. He’s the God of the Sky and Lightning, and also the leader of Omnipotence City, where Thor travelled to in Thor: Love and Thunder when he needed help to defeat Christian Bale’s terrifying Gorr the God Butcher. However, Zeus brushed away Thor’s pleas, and he and Thor fought. After being injured during the confrontation, Zeus was angry, and sent his son Hercules to take Thor down. This won’t be the last we’ve seen of either of them!
Hercules
Ted Lasso breakout Brett Goldstein entered the MCU in 2022 in a major way as Zeus’s son, Hercules! Thor: Love and Thunder’s mid-credits scene provided the backdrop for Hercules to be sent on a mission by his wounded father: strike fear into our hearts on behalf of all the gods who feel they have become a joke to those who once worshipped them without question.
She-Hulk
Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) was a single, LA-based lawyer whose existence was fairly humdrum until a fateful car accident with her cousin Bruce Banner put paid to her normie lifestyle in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. After being infused with his gamma Hulk blood, she was able to transform into She-Hulk – a powerful and seemingly indestructible green-skinned version who has a lot more control over her powers than Bruce, even in his Smart Hulk form. Continuing on as a lawyer in her day-to-day life, Jennifer now uses her alter ego to help bring down the bad guys, who she then fights with more traditional legal justice in the courtroom. Oh, and she smashed Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, too. Just, erm, in a different way, and she would like to remind you of that as often as she can! One power that only Jennifer (and we assume Deadpool) also has in the MCU is that she is able to break the fourth wall and interact with the writers of her show, the Disney+ menu screen, and even Kevin Feige to forge her own path in the cinematic universe.
K.E.V.I.N.
Introduced in the absolutely wild finale of Marvel’s She-Hulk, K.E.V.I.N. is a tongue-in-cheek A.I supercomputer facsimile of Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige, complete with a baseball cap-topped design. According to the show’s lore, K.E.V.I.N. is the real brains behind the MCU formula and algorithm, and spends his time hard at work creating spectacular comic book adaptations for the masses (although he admits that some of their output is better than others). If you want anything changing behind the scenes, you’ll have to go see K.E.V.I.N. to get the job done, but when it comes to getting spoilers for Phase Five and Six, or thwarting moments that set up the next phase of the MCU’s story, you simply won’t emerge victorious.
Werewolf By Night
The horror and supernatural side of Marvel Comics are only just beginning in the MCU. Marvel’s one-off Halloween special Werewolf By Night was the first real project to set up characters from the darker side of the universe (with Moon Knight opting for a more twisted Indiana Jones vibe in his own series), and it gave us not one but three key characters to keep an eye on as we roll into Phase Five and Six! The first is Jack Russell aka Werewolf By Night, played by a cheery Gael Garcia Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle). Although werewolf Jack generally maintains control over his furry lycanthropic side, he can be manipulated by the dark magic of the mystical Bloodstone. That mysterious red gem will certainly bring the monster out of the shadows! Jack also pals around with Man-Thing, who he recently managed to rescue from a cabal of monster hunters thanks to Elsa Bloodstone (more on her in a moment) one dark and stormy night. He also may have been responsible for the death of their leader – Elsa’s father, Ulysses Bloodstone. Man-Thing’s background (subject to scrutiny and MCU ret-con) is that he was once imprisoned and observed by S.H.I.E.L.D but was eventually freed and ended up on Sakaar, where he fought in many of the Contests of Champions that we saw finally unravel in Thor: Ragnarok. Apparently he was such a regularly victorious fighter that the Grandmaster dedicated a huge sculpture of him to the exterior palace walls, along with Hulk. It’s not clear when he returned to Earth from space, though. All we know is that he’s here now.
Elsa Bloodstone
Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly) is the sole heir of the wealthy, monster-hunting Bloodstone family business and the current wielder of the Bloodstone gem, a powerful relic that can transform and destroy monsters in the MCU. Having cut ties with her abusive father Ulysses decades ago, the uniquely-trained Elsa (a sort of English version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has recently emerged to claim her place in the Bloodstone legacy, although she doesn’t appear to be quite sure of where her path is leading just yet. Elsa is very much able to hold her own in a fight with other humans, but possession of the Bloodstone is likely to take her supernatural fighting skills to the next level. In the comics, Elsa has links to Black Knight, Blade, Deadpool, and many other of the more hardcore Marvel Universe crew, and also played a key part in the Secret Wars/Battleworld/Marvel Zombies arc, so you can probably start to see where she fits into Phase Five and Six already!
Namor
One of the first character creations when Marvel was just a twinkle in the eye of publishers, undersea ruler Namor is played wonderfully in the MCU by Tenoch Heurta. Namor already made his mark on Wakanda in Black Panther 2 by killing Queen Ramonda, and he has global plans beyond the events of that movie that could destabilize the political climate of the planet. Keep your eyes peeled for this guy, he’ll be back!
