Later this year, Disney will be launching its own Netflix-style streaming service called Disney+ and it will premiere a number of TV series that tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They won’t be the first TV shows in the MCU, but these are the first that will actually have direct links to the movies.
Jessica Jones would occasionally mention Captain America to suggest that they were in the same universe, but these will interconnect with the movies in the same way that the movies themselves do. So, here are 10 Confirmed Ways The Disney+ MCU Shows Will Connect To The Movies.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will explore Sam and Bucky’s relationship
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has been described as a buddy cop show, with Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes acting as a mismatched pairing who can’t seem to get along. This will deepen the competitive relationship they had in the movies: starting off as enemies, developing into reluctant allies, and quickly competing over the affections of Steve Rogers.
The next stage of that arc, surely, is showing how Bucky will respond to Steve choosing Sam to take the “Captain America” mantle over him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, premiering in late 2020, will dig into this and more.
WandaVision will show how Scarlet Witch joins Doctor Strange 2
MCU fans’ wishes came true when the Doctor Strange sequel was announced at Comic-Con, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it was confirmed that Wanda Maximoff would be appearing in a supporting role.
For a while, fans had wanted to see a team-up between Strange and Scarlet Witch, Marvel’s resident magical superheroes, because Strange understands and has mastered his powers, while Wanda is still getting to grips with hers, so she’d make a great apprentice under Strange’s tutelage. Her Disney+ series WandaVision will explain how she ends up in the Doctor Strange sequel in time for the film’s release.
Loki will show where the trickster god took the Space Stone in Endgame
Kevin Feige has said that the characters whose fate he’s been pestered with the most questions about is Loki. In Avengers: Endgame, of course, the Norse trickster god took an opportunity to evade capture in a version of 2012 where future Tony Stark nabbed the Space Stone, dropped it on the floor, and unwittingly allowed Loki to grab it and disappear through a cosmic portal with it.
Exactly where Loki went with the Tesseract and what he ended up doing there will be revealed in his upcoming solo series on Disney+, aptly titled Loki, which is set to premiere in 2021.
Sam Wilson will become the new Captain America in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
It’s weird that Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is retaining that name. Some MCU fans expected a title change to be announced when Endgame was released and new events came to light.
At the end of that movie, Steve Rogers relinquished the mantle of “Captain America” to Sam Wilson, so he’s not the Falcon anymore, and for a while now, Bucky Barnes has been known as “White Wolf” as opposed to his Hydra assassin name, “the Winter Soldier.” But anyway, they’re sticking with the title and it’ll show how Sam adjusts to life as Captain America – and how the U.S. adjusts to having a new Cap.
What If...? will present alternative Infinity Saga scenarios
One of Disney+’s MCU series will be technically non-canonical (or kind of canonical, if you consider the multiverse). What If...? will explore how events in the Infinity Saga could’ve played out very different if one or two small things were changed. One possible premise that has been bandied around the rumor mill is: “What if Loki found Thor’s hammer?”
When we first meet Thor in his 2011 solo movie, he’s cocky and arrogant and that’s because he’s got 1,500 years of heroism with a spotless track record and no failures under his belt as the God of Thunder. If Loki had discovered the hammer and not Thor, it would’ve been not only a completely different story, but a completely different history. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a world of possibilities.
Hawkeye will show the aftermath of Clint Barton’s Ronin days from Endgame
After the five-year time jump in Avengers: Endgame, we caught up with Clint Barton in a very dark mental place. Scorned by Thanos’ dusting of his family, he’d taken on a ruthless vigilante persona called “Ronin” and started traveling the world, killing all the criminals he felt deserved to be turned to dust instead of his family.
Now that his family’s alive and well and everything’s back to normal, we’ll see him readjust to life as a mild-mannered dad in his Disney+ series as he also trains Kate Bishop to take the “Hawkeye” mantle from him (a different backstory than she has in the comics).
WandaVision will feature an adult version of Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel
Although she was introduced simply as Carol Danvers’ best friend’s daughter who idolized her in Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau is an important character in the comics. She’s been known by the superhero alter egos Pulsar, Photon (which was teased by her mother’s call-sign), and Spectrum.
Child actor Akira Akbar played a young Monica in the mid-‘90s in Captain Marvel, and Teyonah Parris has been cast to play an adult version of the character in the present-set WandaVision series on Disney+. Exactly what role she’ll play remains to be seen, but however the series depicts her, it’s an exciting prospect for comic book fans.
Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter from Civil War will return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Daniel Bruhl is back in the role of Baron Zemo, the villain from Captain America: Civil War, in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – this time with his iconic mask from the comics. Also reprising their role from the Captain America solo trilogy is Emily VanCamp as Peggy Carter’s granddaughter Sharon, a.k.a. Agent 13.
Fans were initially critical of Steve’s pseudo-incestuous relationship with her, but that doesn’t mean that Sharon Carter isn’t an interesting character or that VanCamp wasn’t doing a terrific job of playing her. So, Marvel is giving her another chance to shine with a supporting role in Disney+’s upcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series.
What If...? will feature a Watcher, as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
The Stan Lee cameo appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a fun one, because it confirmed a popular fan theory: that Lee was a Watcher, a higher alien being that looks down on primitive lifeforms, keeping an eye on the Avengers. If he was a Watcher, then all of those cameos would’ve been the same guy.
It was a heartfelt tribute to the creator of most of these characters. But it also confirmed the existence of Watchers in the MCU’s universe. Jeffrey Wright will portray a Watcher in Disney+’s What If...? series, as the Rod Serling-esque narrator.
WandaVision will explain how Vision comes back to life after Infinity War
Shortly after the release of Avengers: Infinity War, it was announced that Marvel was developing a series for Disney’s new streaming service that would focus on Wanda Maximoff and Vision’s relationship. This confused some fans, because Vision died in Infinity War so that Thanos could get a hold of the Mind Stone, which was in his head.
Those fans were even more confused following Endgame, because Vision wasn’t even mentioned, let alone brought back to life. So, the burden falls on WandaVision to explain how one of its lead characters – literally one of the characters with their name in the title – can be alive.