Loki
Tom Hiddleston returns in one of the most anticipated series’ on Marvel’s immediate agenda.
Though Loki was among the earliest casualties of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, the character lives on through a convenient Endgame multiverse twist.
As the Avengers sought to steal the Tesseract (the Space Stone) from the Battle of New York, the 2012 version of Loki was able to escape; ultimately opening the door for the character to reappear at a later date.
It’s a convenient loophole, but one with much greater implications on the wider MCU. Now that the multiverse exists, anything – and I mean literally anything – is possible.
The new timeline created by Loki will debut the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organisation that claims responsibility for monitoring the multiverse.
Their role in the series suggests that they deem Loki’s new timeline to be too dangerous to exist, or deem Loki himself a major threat to past, present and future timelines.
That’s more than understandable given Loki’s treacherous past, though it makes for an exciting, yet bonkers addition to the Marvel slate. Check out season one this May.
What If…?
For me, this is the most interesting of all Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ projects.
Why? Simply because it explores various scenarios within the MCU and how things might have occurred differently.
For example, what if it was Loki that wielded Mjolnir and not Thor? The 10 episode anthology series will feature an extensive list of MCU characters including Iron Man, Captain America, Thanos, Erik Killmonger and Black Panther.
The animated ‘What If…?’ will be released sometime this summer.
Ms. Marvel
This one refers to the character Kamala Khan and her moniker Ms Marvel, and not Captain Marvel played by Brie Larson that we are already familiar with.
Captain Marvel does have a lasting presence here though because Kamala Khan – a 16-year-old girl from Jersey City – admires her. She writes fan fiction, particularly of Captain Marvel, and later gains shape-shifting powers.
Newcomer Iman Vellani has been cast in the lead role of Khan, with the series set to arrive on Disney+ at the back end of 2021.
Vellani’s origins will be explored here, though her presence in the wider MCU will also be teased ahead of an appearance in 2022’s Captain Marvel 2.