After the success of the Infinity Saga, which began in Iron Man and ended in Avengers: Ultimatum, the MCU is already in the middle of its second great saga, called the Multiverse Saga. With the main productions of the current phase using the elements of the multiverse to prepare the ground, everything will have an epic ending with the release of Avengers: Secret Wars.
Adapting one of the main events of the Marvel comics, Secret Wars will be the last film of phase 6 and will end the Saga of the Multiverse with the promise of presenting an even bigger crossover than we saw in Endgame.
Avengers: Secret Wars releases in theaters
Officially announced for 2025, Avengers: Secret War suffered a delay and will only hit theaters the following year. The film will be released on May 1, 2026. Before that, on May 2, 2025, fans will be able to check out the release of Avengers: Kang Dynasty, which is expected to impact the Multiverse.
Avengers: Secret Wars on Disney+
Currently, the company puts its films in the Disney+ catalog 45 days after the release in theaters, so if the strategy does not change until 2026, fans will be able to watch Avengers: Secret Wars directly from home a little over 1 month after the film arrive on the big screen.
What are Secret Wars
Original Secret Wars in the comics
Although some characters had already met in previous stories, the original Secret Wars marked the first major crossover in the Marvel universe, when Beyonder, an omnipotent being, decided to pit heroes and villains in combat solely to discover who would be the winners.
In Battleworld, where the heroes and villains were placed by Beyonder, readers saw the emergence of important elements of the publisher. One of the highlights was the appearance of the symbiote that would become Spider-Man’s famous black suit, with Secret Wars being the event where the hero donned this sinister mantle for the first time.
Some time later, the publisher released Secret Wars 2 trying to repeat the success of the first crossover, however the reception was negative and the event became known as one of the worst ever created by the red girl.
New Secret Wars and the soft reboot in the universe
In 2015, Secret Wars returned to Marvel comics in a new version, also serving as a soft reboot for a universe – or multiverse – that needed to get rid of many elements and introduce others, either by publisher choices or even by conflicts that arose with Hollywood rights at a time when the company wanted to accustom the public to what it was seen in comics and on the big screen.
Considered by many fans to be a Marvel “Game of Thrones”, the event showed different worlds like Marvel Zombies, the land of Days of Future Past and the world of Old Man Logan in a different reality, with each land being like a fiefdom governed by some sovereign. Meanwhile, Doctor Doom loomed as the great ruler of the Multiverse.
As a more fleshed-out storyline than the original Secret Wars, the reimagined Secret Wars also brought about significant changes at Marvel, including the coming together of Miles Morales and Peter Parker on the same earth.
Secret Wars in the movies
Multiversal Wars in the MCU
Marvel has been preparing its movie universe for Secret Wars for some time now, with the path to the event starting with Loki. Still in the first episode of the series, the audience saw TVA explain about the events of multiversal wars that occurred in the past and affected reality.
Such wars resulted in all timelines being virtually unified so that no universe could be considered the main one. Still in the Loki series, Immortus, a variant of Kang, also mentioned that many of his variants participated in multiversal wars.
That is, what we have here is just a different way of calling something similar to what happened in Secret Wars, since the event in the comics involved conflicts between characters from the multiverse.
How Secret Wars will play out in the MCU
Following what we’ve seen in other adaptations for the big screen, the MCU’s Secret Wars should not recreate exactly what was seen in the comics, but rather use the existing content as inspiration for its own version of the event. With the original Secret Wars being practically a crossover to sell toys, it is very likely that the big screen version will adapt the events of the reimagined Secret Wars, which have a much more robust and striking plot.
One of the main changes of the event in theaters may be the presence of Kang as the great villain, with Marvel leaving aside the plot where Doctor Doom was the main threat.
With Kang being presented as the greatest villain in the new MCU saga, which has already been seen in “Loki” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania”, it is extremely likely that the character will be the great antagonist of the entire current saga, just like Thanos was from the previous one. With that, the villain should appear in both Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars as the main threat of the Multiverse Saga.
List
Although the cast of Avengers: Secret Wars has not yet been officially revealed, it is already possible to speculate which names will be part of the production taking into account the rumors and what we already know about the plot in the comics. Check out a list of possible characters in the feature below.
- Jonathan Majors – Kang
- Anthony Mackie – Captain America
- Chris Hemsworth – Thor
- Benedict Cumberbatch – Doctor Strange
- Tom Holland – Peter Parker / Spider-Man
- Benedict Wong – Wong
- Mark Ruffalo – Bruce Banner / Hulk
- Dominique Thorne – Riri Williams
- Iman Vellani – Ms Marvel
- Simu Liu – Shang-Chi
- Kathryn Newton – Cassie Lang
- Paul Rudd – Scott Lang / Ant-Man
- Xochitl Gomez – America Chavez
- Brie Larson – Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
- Jeremy Renner / Clint Barton / Hawkeye
Special appearances, return and new heroes in the MCU
With groups like the X-Men, Fantastic Four and others being very important in the Secret Wars of the comics, it is extremely possible that characters from the teams will appear in the MCU in the coming years, with this being the ideal opportunity for Disney to give new gas to its universe. .
In addition, precisely because it explores the multiverse so completely, the event could open up several possibilities such as the return of characters, special appearances and more. Although everything is still treated as a rumor, there are those who say that Robert Downey Jr. will reappear as Iron Man, as well as the possibility that Andrew Garfield will play Spider-Man once more in the crossover.
There is also the possibility of actors like Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) interpreting their versions of the heroes again.