The arrival of Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday is only months away, but fans are already asking questions about Avengers: Secret Wars. The next Avengers film after Doomsday is set to pave the way for massive changes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but don’t call it a reboot. Following comments about the comic inspirations for Secret Wars, Marvel boss Kevin Feige is giving a little more insight into just exactly what the MCU will look like after the sixth Avengers film is released in 2027.
Feige recently denied that the MCU will undergo a reboot during an interview with Happy Sad Confused’s Joshua Horowitz. He notes that, as always, Marvel is taking inspiration from the comics, “particularly the [Jonathan] Hickman Secret Wars from 10 years ago. There’s a nice roadmap to where we can go.”
That aligns with further details Feige gave about the post-Secret Wars MCU to Chinese media. “It will establish a streamlined, simplified, single universe that we can keep up with,” said Feige in machine-translated comments. “Some things will be familiar, but many, many things will be entirely new.”
Feige has steered clear of saying “reboot” for months now, even admitting to Variety last year that “reboot is a scary word.” Looking at Hickman’s Secret Wars gives us a pretty good idea of how the MCU will enact Feige’s new plan.
Hickman’s 2015 comic series was primarily created as a narrative way to end Marvel’s Ultimate Universe and unify elements of the alternate world into the Prime Universe. The writer did this by weaving an epic cosmic tale of worlds fighting against each other for survival, with Doctor Doom eventually establishing himself as a sort of savior and god of a pocket dimension called Battleworld. At the event’s conclusion, Earth 616 (the Prime Universe) was resurrected in a streamlined new version that incorporated some of the Ultimate Universe’s most popular creations (such as Miles Morales).
This indicates Avengers: Secret Wars will similarly offer a chance for the MCU to reset itself. Using a grand cosmic plot, Marvel is giving itself a chance to right the ship, so to speak. Ever since Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has struggled across film and television to create a coherent narrative on the level of the Infinity Saga. The Multiverse Saga has fallen apart for a number of reasons before it even had a chance to succeed.
With reality being malleable, a post-Secret Wars world could include the resurrection of dead characters with new actors. Feige has previously teased that Tony Stark could return to the MCU down the line with someone other than Robert Downey Jr. in the role. Talking to Variety, Feige noted that the upcoming X-Men movie will be a big part of resetting the MCU after Secret Wars. The absence of the X-Men has been fairly conspicuous in the MCU’s history. With Disney now able to use the characters in the MCU, a universe reset is one of the cleanest ways the X-Men can be introduced with little explanation. It will also allow for the inclusion of the Fantastic Four in the main universe, as opposed to the parallel universe they inhabit in 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Based on everything Feige has said, Secret Wars actually does seem like a reboot despite what he wants to call it. Sure, many of the characters and storylines that have formed the basis of the MCU till now will stay intact, but more things will change. Only time will tell if that is a good thing.
