Any other MCU fans want Dark Avengers at the end of Phase 4?

[godisawesome]

I *know* this has been speculated on elsewhere, but I’m having trouble finding any threads dedicated to the idea.

Within the next year, provided the world doesn’t end, we’re going to have at least one Black Widow, Captain America, and possible Hawkeye counterpart in Marvel’s productions, thanks to Yelena and Taskmaster in Black Widow and USAgent in Falcon and Bucky. Feige’s confirmed all Phase 4 films thus far without an Avengers climax to it, though I believe he has confirmed they’re at least considering more projects, and if Blade is cast but not yet announced for an appearance, and the X-Men and Fantastic Four are in line to be incorporated... well, it feels like some future projects will have to be announced.

Sooo....

...Wouldn’t a Dark Avengers team be the perfect way to kickstart and change up the Marvel formula going forward, introduce new big bands, and even set the stage for the X-Men and their more persecuted story style? And I’m not even saying that Yelena, Taskmaster, and USAgent would have to be members; more that their presence shows Marvel *can* pull out counterparts if they want to.

And I think it would be excellent:

1. You want a new villain the audience can hate, but don’t yet have a Thanos-level villain to slot into place without it seeming repetitive? A team of villains/anti-heroes-who-go-too-far walking around in the colors of the Avengers and claiming to carry on their legacy provides you with the right mix of threat level and immediate antagonism of the audience to get the ground war changed up. USAgent is pretty much guaranteed to be an aggravatingly inadequate-in-character substitute for Cap; apply that idea for multiple Avengers and heroic identities, and exacerbate it, and I think you’ve got fans ticked off the right way, where they have heels they want taken down.

2. You know the X-Men do better when the authority figures are opposing them, but want them to still be able to team up with our known heroes? Just have the Dark Avengers be the officially backed government team, and therefore a display of how dark things have gotten since the Snap, and give the X-Men powerful but flexibly heroic/villainous antagonists to compare against, depending on how you want to play it. The only OG Avengers left all have a past of conflict with the government thanks to Civil War or being interplanetary gods not under SHIELD jurisdiction, so having their government affiliated legacy absorbed by less-altruistic individuals would be a natural consequence of having Iron Man, Cap, and Widow gone. It would also allow both the X-Men and the Brotherhood to be cast as underdogs with a sufficiently powerful Dark Avengers line-up.

3. You want an opportunity to fine tune and exploit great villains in new forms, even to set up arch rivals for the heroes... or even set-up a new Big Bad? You could do the former and conceal the latter with Dark Avengers. Red Hulk, Taskmaster, and an evil Cap/USAgent are all perfectly set up as archenemies for their OG counterparts (Clint especially having a bone to pick with Nat’s enemy masquerading as him could open up a way for him to be succeeded by the new Hawkeye)... and if you want an Evil Iron Man, you could go with Norman Osborne if Sony cooperates... or use another possible counterpart who could turn out to be so much more with a name that sounds like Wictor Bon Boom...

4. You want awesome story ideas that are different from the usual formula? Dark Avengers come with that; you can have them opposed in a movie by the Thunderbolts, for the maximum irony of two teams of villains fighting under heroic identities, but one really wants to be heroic and the other doesn’t, or just have a “New Avengers” VS “Dark Avengers” film.

[Hypestyle]

well who knows. To me, I guess if you have Dark Avengers it is severely dependent on exactly who you're talking about as far as characters involved. In the comics, Norman Osborn headed up that outfit-- and of course, technically, Sony/Columbia owns the film rights to him based on the spider-man franchise, and we all know how tension-filled that business relationship has become. I wouldn't want to see Osborn introduced and then he has to disappear because Sony (or Disney?) execs decide they don't need the other studio to do this or that, and so...

Maybe Sentry could be the Thor analog, but the Void is of course the villain deep down.

"Venom" as the spider-man? eh.. i'll pass, but have at it, fans..

I don't know if they come up with someone besides osborn to be the new Iron patriot, but we'll see..

[godisawesome]

well who knows. To me, I guess if you have Dark Avengers it is severely dependent on exactly who you're talking about as far as characters involved. In the comics, Norman Osborn headed up that outfit-- and of course, technically, Sony/Columbia owns the film rights to him based on the spider-man franchise, and we all know how tension-filled that business relationship has become. I wouldn't want to see Osborn introduced and then he has to disappear because Sony (or Disney?) execs decide they don't need the other studio to do this or that, and so...

Maybe Sentry could be the Thor analog, but the Void is of course the villain deep down.

"Venom" as the spider-man? eh.. i'll pass, but have at it, fans..

I don't know if they come up with someone besides osborn to be the new Iron patriot, but we'll see..

I’d just not do Iron Patriot, and just have Doctor Doom introduced as a new Iron Man before revealing who he is.

The concept is more intriguing to me than a direct adaptation, sort of like with Civil War.

[Huntsman Spider]

Sounds like a great idea, and if the Dark Avengers needed similarly villainous opposition, I could see Zemo forming the Thunderbolts to that end, determined to destroy and discredit the Avengers' legacy the same way he feels they destroyed his family and home, recruiting others who also feel they were wronged by the Avengers.

[Hypestyle]

for purposes of this, maybe this could lead to a Thunderbolts limited series on Disney+.

some thoughts on potential D.A. members: Moonstone, Fixer, Trickshot, Ares, Songbird, Atlas.
with Atlas, maybe there's stolen Pym technology that allows him to grow (only growing). not perfect, he gets exhausted quickly while big.
Songbird- not sure if they allow mutants yet, but, she could still be a meta-- or some alien tech from the Chitauri invasion allows her to fly and create the shapes.
Ares: wandering Olympian finally goes back to Earth again, hungry for conflict. Has limited awareness of Thor's presence here in recent years.
Fixer: ex Stark employee, has various gadgets. some of his own, some pilfered from his ex boss' company.
Trickshot: Clint's brother, more into the mercenary lifestyle.
Moonstone: Carla Soften, volunteer for a Hydra project with a mysterious 'stone' (not an infinity stone, but...)

[Rosebunse]

What about Daken? You could introduce Daken first before Wolverine.

[DrNewGod]

I'd be more onboard with this if they'd done more world building instead of killing off most of their antagonists.

But then, I'm still bitter that Phase 2 didn't culminate in an Under Siege adaptation.

[Frontier]

I want the Masters of Evil before I want the Dark Avengers.

[Huntsman Spider]

I want the Masters of Evil before I want the Dark Avengers.

How about the Masters disguising themselves as the Thunderbolts, a would-be successor to the effectively decommissioned or disbanded Avengers, but it's really a scheme to covertly take over the world a la HYDRA-within-S.H.I.E.L.D. during Captain America: The Winter Soldier?