Avengers Disassembled: Marvel Confirms Inevitable End of Superhero Team as We Know It

By the time Disney rolls out the fifth Avengers movie, likely in 2021 or 2022, we could see a roster that includes superheroes who have yet to debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Imagine a team of Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Nova, and Captain Marvel all under the leadership of Sam Wilson’s new-look Captain America. Thor could be a woman. And Squirrel Girl has a real shot to make the squad.

Not exactly your idea of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? Believe me, it’s not that far-fetched. This week, while promoting the arrival of Avengers: Age of Ultron on Blu-ray/DVD, the Marvel brain trust confirmed what we’ve long suspected: The epic Avengers: Infinity War, airing in two parts in 2018 and 2019 and combining characters from the entire MCU, will be the last hurrah for the lineup of Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, et al., and close out “Phase Three” of the Marvel films.

“I think it definitely is an end to some version of the team that we’ve come to know as the Avengers,” explained executive producer Jeremy Latcham. “Who knows exactly what’s going to happen yet in that film, but I think this version of that team — and I think we start to hint at that at the end of Age of Ultron — the team will be evolving. One of the things that we love from the comics is the roster’s always changing, that new people are coming onto the team and that you can pick up an Avengers book 10 years later and you don’t recognize the people on the cover, but the ideas and the ideals that make the Avengers the Avengers still exist.”

To recap, Age of Ultron finds the Avengers disassembled. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are off on solo projects, leaving Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) overseeing a B-team of Falcon (Anthony Mackie), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Vision (Paul Bettany), and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).

As Latcham notes, the shakeup is a nod to the Avengers comic roots. The team’s membership has been fluid since the 1960s, with myriad heroes coming and going. Hulk only lasted two issues before he quit. And while Iron Man, Thor, and Cap have been mainstays, Marvel Comics has reconceived the latter two in recent years, perhaps with an eye to the MCU and increasingly costly contracts. Steve Rogers has hung up his shield; the mantle of Captain America is now borne by Sam Wilson, who was formerly the Falcon. Mackie could easily segue into that role in a few years.

Meanwhile, in the current comics, Thor’s hammer is now wielded by a woman, Jane Foster (played in the MCU by Natalie Portman).

The current Avengers comic team also features Iron Man, Vision, the Muslim-American hero Ms. Marvel, the Miles Morales Spider-Man, and Nova, a cohort of the Guardians of the Galaxy who many fans hope will appear in the 2017 sequel.

There have also been spinoffs, like the West Coast Avengers and the New Avengers, from which Marvel could draw on. Those supergroups feature Peter Parker’s Spider-Man, Human Torch, Rogue, and newer heroes like Hulkling and the insanely popular Squirrel Girl.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who appeared alongside Latcham at this week’s Ultron event, also admitted that the studio has contingency plans for what to do if it manages to get the rights back to the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises — several characters from those series have had membership in the Avengers.

Beyond the wealth of comic heroes to draw on, Marvel has several new heroes set to make their screen debut in the coming years: Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), a longtime Avenger in the comics, will surface in next May’s Captain America: Civil War and then get a stand-alone film in 2017. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives in November 2016, while Captain Marvel is slated for 2018. Along with the recently introduced Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and new Spider-Man (Tom Holland), any or all of those heroes could constitute (or augment) a new Avengers team for Phase Four of the MCU.

Feige continues to insist that the company “has always had a plan” to execute its big-screen vision. And, as difficult as it may be for fans to accept, that plan will likely not include many of our favorite heroes.