Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: how Marvel’s new TV shows will add to MCU’s phase four, building on the success of Loki, Wandavision and Hawkeye

The Marvel Comic Universe is set to grow further in scope and scale, in part because of the increased array of Disney+ television shows
Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and Secret Invasion are just some of the series in the pipeline

American cinema

James Mottram

Published: 11:15am, 10 Feb 2022

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For those who thought the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) would shrivel after Avengers: Endgame, you might just have miscalculated.

The superhero gang known as the Avengers may well have seen their joint adventures conclude with 2019’s Endgame, which is still the biggest movie of all time, with a US$2.79 billion box office. But of late the MCU has been about a lot more than just Iron Man and his pals.

The past six months alone have seen the induction of the highly trained assassin Shang-Chi and alien super-beings the Eternals into the MCU. Yet it’s really been on the small screen where Marvel has flourished, thanks to the advent of Disney+.

The Disney streaming service has been the perfect platform for the evolution of MCU’s so-called Phase Four, allowing Marvel’s president, Kevin Feige, and his writing teams to further deepen various character arcs.

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That was certainly the case with 2021’s WandaVision, which carried on the post-Endgame story of Wanda Maximoff and Vision, played by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. Wittily using American sitcom tropes to reflect Wanda’s psychological turmoil, it was a clever way of further exploring life after Endgame – proof that even after the cataclysmic events the world faced, the MCU rumbles on.

As such, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier continued the story of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, while Hawkeye checked in with Jeremy Renner’s crack-shot archer (with a plotline hinted at in the post-credits sting of Black Widow, when Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova is assigned to kill him).

On their own, they might feel like postscripts, tidying up a few loose ends from Avengers: Endgame. But these shows are just as integral to the MCU master plan as the films.

Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye in a still from Hawkeye. Photo: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios.

Take Loki, the time-bending six-episode show that reacquainted us with Tom Hiddleston’s titular God of Mischief.

The show crucially introduced the idea of the multiverse – a head-spinning series of parallel universes that has since been revisited in Spider-Man: No Way Home and will be fundamental to this year’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, as Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer must repair the hole in the space-time continuum he bust open in No Way Home.

In other words, Marvel’s television shows are becoming fundamental to the overall storytelling, effortlessly weaving events and characters into the franchise’s ever-widening tapestry. This year in particular will be crucial, with the release of a handful of series that will both introduce brand new characters and circle back on familiar ones.

First up is Moon Knight, due at the end of March on Disney+. Based on the character by Doug Moench and Don Perlin that first appeared in 1975, this definitely ranks as one of the lesser-known creations to enter the MCU. Oscar Isaac (Dune) plays Marc Spector, a former US marine and CIA agent turned mercenary who becomes entangled with Egyptian moon god Khonshu.

Oscar Isaac in a still from Moon Knight.

Quite how he will fit into the wider MCU is anyone’s guess – some have speculated Hawkeye will recruit him to form a new iteration of the Avengers – but Spector is unquestionably a fascinating figure. He suffers from DID, or dissociative identity disorder, meaning that Isaac will take on multiple characters in Spector’s psyche.

It’s also a fine example of how the Marvel brand has repeatedly taken risks on independent filmmakers, most recently with Chloé Zhao on Eternals. Moon Knight’s lead director is Mohamed Diab, the Egyptian filmmaker behind 2016’s Clash, which was entirely set in the confines of a police van.

Joining him on Moon Knight is Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, co-directors of cult indies Spring and The Endless. It’s a unique partnership that should serve up some unexpected results.

Another character new to the MCU is Kamala Khan in upcoming show Ms. Marvel. This 16-year-old Pakistani-American and Avengers/Captain Marvel fangirl from Jersey City struggles to fit in – until she gains powers. On screen, she’s being played by Canadian newcomer Iman Vellani, in a story that is set to feed into 2023’s big-screen effort The Marvels.

One of the major movies of the MCU’s forthcoming Phase Five, The Marvels will see Vellani appear alongside Brie Larson, reprising her role as Captain Marvel.

Significantly, Ms. Marvel, who first appeared in print back in 2013, can lay claim to being the first Muslim in the Marvel pantheon to headline her own comic book. As the show’s British creator Bisha Ali puts it:“I never saw [before this] a young teenager of colour – specifically a Pakistani – in a comic book.”

Iman Vellani (left) and Matt Lintz in a still from Ms. Marvel.

In keeping with this, Ali’s directing team on the show is also hugely diverse. Among them are Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Belgian-Moroccan co-directors of Bad Boys for Life.

While Ms. Marvel has the feel of a high-school teenage action-comedy, She-Hulk will also be on the more irreverent side. Feige has described this in-the-works show as a “half-hour legal comedy”, which sounds intriguing.

It marks the first appearance of Jennifer Walters in the MCU. Walters first appeared in the Marvel comics back in 1980, when a blood transfusion she receives from her cousin Bruce Banner turns her into a milder version of his alter ego, the rage-fuelled Hulk. Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany stars as Walters, and unsurprisingly, Mark Ruffalo – who has been Banner/Hulk ever since 2012’s The Avengers – will feature.

(From left) Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange/Stephen Strange, Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man/Tony Stark, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk and Benedict Wong as Wong in a scene from Avengers: Infinity War. Photo: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios.

Despite being a comedy, the show will continue the MCU’s redemption of Abomination, the villain played by Tim Roth in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.

While that effort, which starred Edward Norton in the title role, was one of the MCU’s weakest entries, bringing back Abomination is a typically bravura move. Already glimpsed in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the character will now surely get a rematch, this time with Ruffalo’s Hulk.

Other well-known characters will reappear for The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, James Gunn’s Disney+ television special that’s due for release this Christmas. Reuniting audiences with Starlord and the others, it’s an ideal primer before the third Guardians movie outing, due in 2023.

Meanwhile, Samuel L. Jackson will don the eye patch again to play the Avengers’ own assembler, Nick Fury, alongside Ben Mendelsohn as the Skrull Talos – last seen together in 2019’s Captain Marvel – for another show in the works, Secret Invasion.

Tom Holland (left) and Samuel L. Jackson in a still from Spider-Man: Far From Home. Photo: Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP.

It’s further proof that the MCU has far from run its course. In fact, the franchise’s scope and scale is set to swell, especially with the increased array of Disney+ television shows, meaning there will be even more potential for characters criss-crossing into other narratives and unexpected matchups.

True, the question still hovers over whether audience interest will be sustained, and whether this growing universe can remain cohesive. But the early signs are encouraging.

Moon Knight will start streaming on Disney+ on March 30.

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