We’re all excited about Avengers Secret Wars. It feels like it has been forever since we saw Earth’s mightiest heroes emerge from portals and assemble in their full glory for the first time. We couldn’t be more ready to see what happens next, but unfortunately, we don’t think there’s much truth in the latest rumors.
MCU fans are abuzz in the wake of the revelation from some online scoopers that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man will be the most significant MCU characters in the team-up film. That’ll be almost 20 years of storytelling for those of us who follow the MCU timeline (with the help of our Marvel movies in order guide, of course), culminating with two guys we first saw on screen in 2000 and 2002, respectively. It feels unlikely.
Marvel scooper CanWeGetSomeToast wrote on Twitter that Jackman and Maguire will be “the two leads of the TVA‘s multiversal army” in the team-up adventure, which will mark the big finale of Marvel Phase 6 in 2027. We can’t see it happening at all.
We’re not saying there’s no chance that Maguire and Jackman will show up in upcoming Marvel movies, or even Secret Wars. Heck, we already know that Jackman is in Deadpool 3, so he’s already cleared his first hurdle. The nature of the multiverse and the increasing danger of “incursions” means that all bets are off.
Any hero from any universe could show up to help in the fight against Kang. Certainly in the wake of Loki season 2, we’d expect that title character to play a pivotal role in any conflict of this size.
But the suggestion that Jackman and Maguire will be the franchise’s leading men when the Avengers Secret Wars release date comes around doesn’t ring true.
They’re both among the best actors to have ever played superheroes, that’s for sure. However, I’m sure they would both concede that their time in the spotlight has passed. Jackman, of course, emphatically said goodbye to Wolverine with one of the best superhero movies ever, Logan.
It’s one thing to twist that slightly for a fun, knockabout adventure with Ryan Reynolds. But it’s something else entirely to trample over the beautiful finality of Logan by marching headlong onto the frontlines of Marvel’s biggest-ever battle. We’d be very disappointed.
In Maguire’s case, it’s even more stark. His role in No Way Home was an extended cameo in our fun first foray into the possibilities of multiversal storytelling. But being the lead of a movie is entirely different.
Given how much effort the MCU has put into building new, young heroes since Endgame, we don’t think they’d bring things back as far as two men in their fifties who had their superhero heyday two decades ago.
Both Maguire and Jackman have put their full-time superhero days behind them. We would never rule out future cameos for these guys, but we don’t think they’ll still be running around and punching Marvel villains in the face in 2027.
Marvel loves to tickle the nostalgia bone of its older fans, and we’d definitely get a kick out of seeing the heroes we grew up with leading the way again. But that doesn’t seem like a smart move at all for a studio aiming to build even more new movies beyond Phase 6.
Just as the recent Mean Girls trailer declared that the new version of the story is “not your mother’s Mean Girls,” the MCU shouldn’t be for moms and dads anymore. The core audience for these movies wasn’t even born when Jackman first got ripped for the inaugural appearance of the X-Men characters, and they don’t remember Maguire crying over Uncle Ben.
In short, we’re sorry, but we can’t see Maguire and Jackman leading us into Secret Wars. They have a perfect Spidey right there in Tom Holland to anchor things. We just need the universe to remember who he is.
But for now, we have Marvel’s Phase 5 to think about, complete with plenty of films and Marvel series to follow. So here’s what we know about the Captain America 4 release date and the What If…? season 2 release date.
Or, for more on how one of the best movies Marvel has made in years could shape the future, join us as we explain what The Marvels tells us about Secret Wars.