7 Major Marvel Comic Events That Need To Be Made Into Movies

In our superhero saturated world, there's a lot of pressure on each Marvel movie to be a huge event in and of itself. Captain America: Civil War lived up to this pressure terrifically, being a true blockbuster with more scale and drama than we’ve yet seen. But where does the studio go from here? After the two-part Avengers: Infinity War rounds out Phase Three, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will have to deliver something even bigger if it is to top its previous efforts. Thankfully, Kevin Feige and his team have decades of giant-sized events from the comics to base their movies on. The past decade or so, in particular, has seen a proliferation of crossover events that caused seismic shifts across the Marvel universe. Mark Millar’s Civil War was one of these and adapting that turned out just peachy. From superhero versus superhero action to cosmic battles to dramatic conspiracies, here are seven major Marvel comic events that really need to be made into movies in the near future. 7) Secret Invasion One of Marvel’s biggest successes so far is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Many elements made the film a success, and one of them was the conspiracy thriller aspect – with HYDRA controlling S.H.I.E.L.D., Cap and his loyal band had no idea who they could trust. If Marvel wanted to do a similar movie but on a bigger scale in the future, they should really tackle Secret Invasion. This crossover storyline from 2008/2009 revealed that shapeshifting aliens the Skrulls had been replacing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with imposters for years. Naturally, the event saw the Avengers struggle to trust each other, as they sought to find out who was who. The only issue with adapting this event is that the rights to the Skrulls rest with 20th Century Fox. However, though it would be a shame if a movie version didn’t feature them, they really aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of the story and their place could easily be filled with any alien race. 6) Dark Reign Perhaps the most consistent failing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the underusing of its villains – with many of the films featuring cookie-cutter bad guys who are hellbent on destruction because, well, you know, they’re bad. A brilliant way to increase the villains’ role in the MCU would be to adapt Dark Reign, an event comic whose central idea was basically: what if the bad guys won? Following the Secret Invasion debacle, the arc sees Norman Osborn oust Tony Stark to become the new head of S.H.I.E.L.D., turning it into the more militant organization HAMMER. The corrupt businessman also forms his own team of supervillains posing as heroes, known as the Dark Avengers. As we're very familiar with the Green Goblin by now, it would be great for Marvel to utilize Osborn in a fresh way, which this storyline certainly would. Giving the villains all the power would be an interesting move, too, as it would shake up the usual formula. 5) World War Hulk Of all the Avengers (at least the ones with superpowers), Hulk is the one who's been short-changed the most in the MCU, having only appeared in a so-so solo outing and as part of the ensemble in the Avengers movies. This could be fixed if Marvel adapted World War Hulk to the screen. The 2007 comic event saw the Green Goliath return to Earth after having been jettisoned into space by a group of his fellow heroes called the Illuminati (including Iron Man, Professor X and Doctor Strange), who feared that he was too volatile. Upon returning, he proceeds to go on a rampage, battling pretty much all of Marvel’s heroes. The story’s central question is an interesting one: do Hulk’s action prove the Illuminati were right, or did they bring it on themselves by sending him off into space in the first place? With Thor: Ragnarok featuring Hulk in space (where he'll team up with the Asgardian), it feels like the time is nigh for Marvel to adapt this storyline. 4) Avengers Disassembled Civil War contained a lot of hints that Scarlet Witch’s powers will end up overwhelming her, as there was a fair bit of talk of her not fully understanding her limits and her fellow heroes being afraid of her. This would be perfect foreshadowing, then, for Marvel to adapt the Avengers Dissembled storyline. The 2004/2005 event saw Wanda’s abilities corrupt her, as she began using them to tear the Avengers team apart. Interestingly, she uses elements of their previous adventures to do it, such as an army of Ultron’s drones. This would be something a film could do too, as a way to round off the movies that we've seen so far. Avengers Disassembled would be a perfect plot to take on when many of the lead actors have run out their contracts, as a number of big heroes die in the conflict – including Scott Lang’s Ant-Man, Hawkeye and Thor. Hey, if they’ve got to go, why not go out with a bang, right? 3) Spider-Verse Now that Marvel finally have Spider-Man back in their hands, it's time to introduce some other Spider-people aside from just Peter Parker to the wider public. The 2014 event Spider-Verse saw Parker join together with various Spider-Men, Women and even Animals from alternate realities to stop a powerful immortal brood from wiping out every Spider-person in the whole of existence. While all the universe-hopping might at first seem a bit much for the MCU, at its core a Spider-Verse movie would be about a ragtag team facing adversity, kind of like Guardians of the Galaxy. The main team members could include Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, Spider-Gwen and even Spider-Ham. This would also be an amazing opportunity to make use of the fact that there have been so many Spider-Man movies and bring back the previous Spidey actors, giving closure to Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parkers, now that both of their film series have ended. 2) Avengers vs. X-Men Behind the MCU, the X-Men franchise is the most successful superhero shared universe out there. As such, it doesn’t seem likely right now that 20th Century Fox will be looking to give the rights to the mutants back to Marvel. Still, if a special one-off deal could be made between the studios to give the fans a treat, AvX would make for an amazing movie event. The original storyline from 2012 sees mutant Rachel Summers prophesied to end the world, by becoming the new host for the Phoenix force. This, of course, makes her a target for the Avengers, while the X-Men try to protect their own. Naturally, things descend into out-and-out war. In the comic the X-Men are pretty much painted as the villains, but a movie could make things more balanced, in much the same way that Captain America; Civil War did. So what do you say, Fox and Marvel? Can you put aside your differences and let this awesome event happen? 1) Secret Wars Given the massive success of Captain America: Civil War, it's probably safe to say that Marvel might be looking to do a similar superhero v superhero movie in the future, perhaps even in their next round of movies: Phase Four. If they do, the obvious choice would be to adapt Secret Wars. Modern Marvel readers might be familiar with the very recent event that was also called Secret Wars, but we’re referring to the original storyline with that name. One of the earlier Marvel comics crossover events, it still remains one of the best and most beloved by fans. In it, an all-powerful cosmic entity known as the Beyonder transports all of Marvel’s heroes and villains to a world of his own creation, Battleworld, where he forces them to fight one another – in exchange for promising to make their greatest desires a reality. Marvel will have a hard time one-upping Infinity War in terms of all the heroes coming together in a space-y setting, but Secret Wars might just fit the bill. It’s basically The Avengers meets The Hunger Games – how could that not be a winner?