Marvel's announcement of its fifth major crossover movie event, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, finally explains the problem of why viewers have struggled to understand MCU Phase 4's overarching narrative. Marvel Studios certainly over-delivered at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, unveiling their entire Phase 5 slate and revealing some of MCU Phase 6 as well. The franchise is heading for not one Avengers movie in 2025, but two: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.

The scale of the announcements took viewers by surprise, in part because Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had previously hinted that he considered the 2014 Phase 3 announcement to be a mistake; the relentless focus on Avengers: Infinity War meant audiences had viewed each movie as another step toward an exciting destination, rather than appreciating each release as an individual entity. Still, it's possible Marvel had been stung by constant criticism of Phase 4's disjointed narrative and realized the MCU is more appreciated when people have a sense of where it's going.

Related: Looks Like Shang-Chi & Captain Marvel May Have Big Roles In Avengers 5

Ironically, the title of Avengers 5 actually hints at the reason MCU Phase 4 has felt so disjointed and why it's not a problem. It's named The Kang Dynasty after a classic story by Kurt Busiek published in 2001-2002. This story saw Kang the Conqueror, Marvel's premier time-traveling supervillain, take advantage of the Avengers' distraction to launch an invasion on Earth. Marvel Studios could very well be taking the same approach, telling a story in which Earth's mightiest heroes are distracted by diverse threats and struggling to deal with an enemy who knows this is the exact moment to strike.

Phase 4's Disjointed Narrative Could Perfectly Set Up The Kang Dynasty

He Who Remains smiling in Loki finale

Phases 4-6 of the MCU are collectively being called the Multiverse Saga, but the multiverse doesn't really feel like a dominant theme, at least not when compared to the prominence of the Infinity Stones in Phases 1-3, a.k.a. the Infinity Saga. Black Widow was more about the consequences of the Sokovia Accords in MCU Phase 4 as well as the potential setup for Thunderbolts than anything else, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings only took on a multiversal hue in the post-credits scene, and the multiverse is expected to be entirely absent from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Even many of the Disney+ TV shows have felt divorced from the multiverse, particularly The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye. The MCU Phase 5 slate looks set to continue this supposed problem, with Marvel announcing a number of upcoming movies that have no obvious multiversal ties.

This approach makes perfect sense, however, if Marvel Studios intends to take inspiration from Busiek's "The Kang Dynasty." In that story, Kang the Conqueror deliberately timed his invasion of Earth for when the Avengers were scattered and divided, preoccupied with countless other threats. The messiness of MCU Phase 4 is precisely the point: Earth is a mess, and Kang takes advantage of the opportunity provided by it. This actually became a literal plot point in the story, with Kang foretelling the various potential world-ending crises the Avengers were about to deal with as part of his pitch to encourage Earth to surrender. The MCU's version of Kang could therefore do exactly the same in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, finally drawing the disparate threads together.

More: MCU Phases 4-6 Now Have 6 Different Superhero Teams

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