Marvel Phase 4 Leaks: SDCC Title Intros Reveal 4 Exciting New Details
Some clever intro sequences have hit the internet, but what do they mean?
We already know the 10 movies and Disney+ series that’ll comprise Marvel Studios’ Phase Four over the next few years, but a recent video posted to Reddit shows the title sequences for every project, offering several clues about what we can expect from these upcoming stories.
Originally posted by the Instagram account @mcu.scenes, someone else posted the video to Reddit over the weekend where more than 20,000 fans upvoted it. The video cuts together title sequences for every announced Phase Four project out of chronological order. There’s What If…?, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Black Widow, and Thor: Love and Thunder. The level of detail and amount of animation varies wildly, all the way from the painfully generic Eternals to the sleek and fun design of Hawkeye.
But let’s take a closer look at what some of these title sequences might mean for the future of Marvel’s Phase Four. Here are four revelations from the official title intros.
4. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Logo Adds Captain America
This Sam-Bucky team-up series was originally announced before Avengers: Endgame retired Steve Rogers as Captain America and had him pass the patriotic shield on. A tentative logo for the series was originally revealed in May, but at San Diego Comic-Con, a newer logo featuring the Captain America shield was revealed. This isn’t new per se, but it’s further confirmation that the series will focus on Sam Wilson’s role as the new Captain America.
'WandaVision' won't be what it seems.
3. WandaVision Feels More and More Like an Illusive Fakeout
The WandaVision title sequence opens on what looks like an old television set with static snow on the screen before transitioning into the stylized retro lettering with wisps of Scarlet Witch’s magic drifting in the background. This reinforces a popular assumption that the entire show is some kind of illusion or dream that Wanda self-induces, which would explain how Paul Bettany’s Vision might appear despite his death in Avengers: Infinity War.
Why does the series have so many random characters from the across the MCU? Why is described as a “mash-up between American sitcoms throughout the decades and Marvel film with these characters”? Clearly, there won’t be a straightforward explanation.
Why are the letters so weird?
2. The Loki Logo Is Much Less Dumb in Animated Form
If you thought the logo for Loki looked like a toddler and/or serial killer cut up random letters from magazines to assemble the letters, then you’re not alone. Each letter is in a drastically different font, with the overall color scheme matching Loki’s typical green-gold-silver outfits.
But in the animated title sequence, each of the letters shuffles at least twice into all sorts of things. This plays on Loki’s propensity to change his appearance, but it also could be a hint at how he’ll travel through history in the series. Original plot summaries said Loki pops up at different moments in history to influence human events, but then Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed at SDCC that the series follows Loki immediately after he escapes in Avengers: Endgame during the era of the first Avengers movie.
Not only are there illusions at play here, but there’ll also be time-traveling shenanigans throughout human history. Could that be why the letters shuffle, to indicate different cultures and time periods?
1. StylishHawkeye Title Sequence References Specific Comics
A huge portion of the video is taken up by the Hawkeye title sequence with an art style that directly riffs on the Hawkeye comics run written by Matt Fraction and drawn by David Aja but also a 2016 Hawkeye #1 cover from a different run drawn by Julian Totino Tedesco.
The style of the title sequence is full of yellow backgrounds with bullseye’s and a retro feel. We also see the silhouette of Clint Barton’s protégé Kate Bishop. Nobody has been cast in the role yet (rumors indicate it might be Hailee Steinfeld, but the purple outline with a yellow background feels definitely riffs on that Hawkeye #1 cover from 2016.
This tells us that the series will probably reflect some of the stories from these comics in which Clint protects his apartment block from the Russian Mafia while training Kate Bishop, and in the second, she heads west to Los Angeles on her own solo adventure. Hawkeye Season 1 could explore similar stories or at least draw direct inspiration from these Marvel Comics runs.
Marvel’s Phase Four officially begins with Black Widow, which hits theaters May 1, 2020.
