KANG

So there's been a lot (a lot) of talk lately on the end of the MCU. Will it end? When will it end? How should they end it? Is it better for characters to be retired, killed, or recasted? Should it end the story, or go on forever?

I think I've thought of a valid way to solve this problem -- at least once. (Go ahead, applaud).

Phase 1 is over. Introduce the heroes, bring them together.

Phase 2 is underway. Follow up on the main heroes, introduce a few new guys, and bring them together again.

Phase 3 looks to be, so far, all-new characters. Ant-Man and Dr. Strange are the only confirmations, but rumors abound for Luke Cage, Black Panther, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and more.

By this point (2016-2017), Thor will have been around for 6 years and 4 films, Cap for 6 years and 4 films, Iron Man for 9 years and 4-5 films, and hulk for 9 years and 3 or so films. These heroes might be played out, and the actors might be done wanting to play them. With the recent reports of pay disputes between Marvel Studios and the actors, its hard to imagine this going much farther without a lot of trouble. So new heroes will be the focus.

But what then? Bring new heroes in, bring them together, and just leave the old heroes behind? Constantly bringing in new heroes every few years and leaving the better known ones in the past? Can RDJ play Iron Man once he's over 50?

As you can tell by the title of this post, I think the villain Kang could be a way to solve this issue.

If you don't know, Kang is a major recurring villain in the comics, and his big thing is time travel.

Any other major franchise you know that uses time travel as a way to continue the series, tell new stories, recast the actors, but still maintain a sense of continuity, even if only as a technicality? Star Trek. Ok, so maybe the Black Hole was the greater plot point, but as an alternate reality/timeline, it was basically time travel (hence the two Spock's) that allowed this movie to exist, separate from the other films, yet still connected to them. It's the first film I've heard of that's a sequel, prequel, re-boot, and possibly spin-off all in one.

Another franchise is about to do that next year. After the original X-Men trilogy ended and Wolverine had disappointing box office returns, Matthew Vaughn directed X-Men: First Class, in what he created as a separate universe, not connected to the previous four films. New cast. New characters. New story. Well, now Bryan Singer, the director of the original and the first sequel, is back, and guess what, he's connecting the different universes using time-travel. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Singer will use both casts, both sets of characters, and unite them into one continuity. Which is epic.

So why can't the MCU do the same? With Thanos being the big baddie for the next few years, either have him use the infinity gauntlet (time stone, reality stone) to seriously mess up reality, or, if you wanna end Thanos' time in the spotlight and jump-start Phase 4, bring in Kang, and have him mess up our timeline. And then we can start over with a new reality, a new timeline, and therefore, we have an excuse to use new actors.

That way, we don't have to worry about who will quit when, and have one Cap working with 3 different hulks and 2 different Thor's over the course of 4 films. Get everybody on the same story arc, end it by seriously screwing with the time-space continuum, and then recast all at once, setting the stage for the post-RDJ Marvel Cinematic Universe. Assuming this happens around 2018-2020, they could bring in fresh faces on a (mostly) standalone new "miniverse," welcoming new audiences and the next generation of fans, not required to watch 20 movies before them to catch up on the story, but without having to reintroduce the origin stories to America. Use the same backstory, use the same powers, but with a new face and a new timeline, the creative slate is wiped clean and ready to be re-used.

With this system, the MCU could exist in "realities" each made up of 3 Phases. And if at any time in the next 50 years Sony or Fox would be willing to work with Disney on a crossover movie, they could use time-travel/reality warping to achieve that fairly seamlessly as well.

So you've got Thanos. You've got Kang. You're potentially bringing in Scarlet Witch, who can mess up reality pretty badly. That's 3 resets right there. Throw in some Norse god of time (if there is such a thing) and some naive sap trying to control the Tesseract, and you've got a few more!

So far Marvel Studios has been doing a good job at thinking "long-term," but compared only to regular movies. But this is not a regular movie franchise. This is way bigger. So 8 years doesn't cut it as "long term" for these guys anymore. "Long term" for these guys means 20+ years, and they need to start figuring out how to endure, or else it will crumble like Iron Man 3 (and I really hope that will end up being the forgotten stepchild of this universe).

So that's my rant.

Kang.