And to think people suggest the MCU requires homework! December 18 sees the release of Avengers: Doomsday, the latest tentpole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—a once-ailing franchise given new life by Spider-Man: Brand New Day making $2 billion in its first two weeks. But given that Doomsday is based on the events of almost 20 years of media, Disney+ is suggesting a list of 15 movies and TV shows you should watch (or rewatch) over the coming four months in order to catch up before its release.
Added to Disney+ (in the U.S. at least) under the Marvel section, you’ll find a new collection called “Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday” that includes a chronological selection of 15 entries in the MCU that Disney reckons you’ll want to brush up on before heading to the movies this holiday season. (Honestly, it’s all pretty disastrously delivered. Use the web app and it’ll only show you nine entries, and only if you’re logged out, but the mobile app will show 15 if you’re in the right country…)
Things start a long, long time ago in an Earth far, far away, with the original 26-year-old X-Men, which will introduce entire generations to characters reappearing (often with the original actors) in Doomsday. Next up is 2003’s follow-up, X2, also directed by Bryan Singer between bouts of sexual assault allegations. We then leap forward in time to 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger followed by a run of three tentpole Avengers movies, before getting to three slightly less obvious inclusions. Those are the Loki TV series, the movie Shang-Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings, and the penultimate Spider-Man movie, No Way Home.
We’re then onto 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, followed by the deeply boring Captain America: Brave New World, and then Deadpool & Wolverine, presumably because of its X-Men inclusions. Then you finish up with the truly excellent Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the truly meh Thunderbolts*, and finally the rather lovely The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Your assignment
Doomsday and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars are about wrapping up the painfully drawn-out “Multiverse Saga,” the series of events that has allowed characters from outside of the MCU’s core timeline to show up and get involved. That includes the Fantastic Four, and indeed all the olde-worlde X-Men now rocking up, but rather crucially has had a lot of its framework and rules laid out in season two of Disney+ series Loki. Which is a shame as, unlike the first season, it was painstakingly dull to watch. But given Loki’s new role at the timeline-maintaining TVA, and how season two ends, having a handle on those events is going to be pretty crucial to fathoming what’s coming. Shang-Chi is perhaps the real surprise entry here, given the movie didn’t seem all that pivotal to the MCU’s arc.
A whole bunch of movies technically included in the Multiverse Saga are missing, like the dreadful Eternals (are they just hoping to forget all that and not bring things back around?) and the wildly underrated and delightful The Marvels, although that one’s likely missing because it really only interwove into the wider MCU via Nick Fury.
So there you go. You’ve got your homework assignment, so get to work please. I’m absolutely going to go back and watch the early X-Men movies, mostly because my kid’s never seen them (what with being born 14 years after they released), but there’s no way I’m sitting through Brave New World or Thunderbolts* again. The real chore on the list that does feel obligatory is Loki season 2, which is just so astonishingly boring, but seems too important not to have lined up. Here’s the full list so you can print it out and cross them off as you watch. I expect your assignments in by December 1.
• X-Men
• X2
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• The Avengers
• Avengers: Infinity War
• Avengers: Endgame
• Loki
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Deadpool & Wolverine
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• Thunderbolts
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps