For the first dozen years of its existence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe only had one marquee team, and they starred in all four of the franchise’s highest-grossing movies. The Avengers films were used to draw a line under each distinct Phase of the overarching mythology, so fans knew that when Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were assembled, things were going to be resolved.
However, after Kevin Feige admitted that the Avengers won’t factor into the plans for Phase Four, Marvel Studios look to be mixing it up significantly by dropping several brand new teams into the fold. Of course, the Guardians of the Galaxy will finally return for their third solo outing, but a lot of the multi-person squads set to arrive will be making their MCU debuts.
In November, Chloe Zhao’s Eternals will premiere and deliver another cosmic adventure, this one spanning thousands of years, while Jon Watts’ Fantastic Four is set to pick up a real head of steam once the director finishes up on Spider-Man: No Way Home. All of the pieces appear to be falling into place for the Young Avengers as well, not to mention that the Thunderbolts and A-Force are also being heavily rumored.
On that note, we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us Rachel McAdams would be returning for the movie before it was confirmed – that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will feature both the Illuminati and the Avengers, but with the twist that neither of them will originate from the main MCU timeline and will instead hail from alternate realities.
Of course, the Illuminati have been strongly linked with an appearance in the Sorcerer Supreme’s sequel for a long time now, but the multiversal Avengers is a recently new development. That being said, given what we know about the plot so far, they might not play major roles in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but each could still prove significant nonetheless.
