Avengers 5 leak reveals how Marvel plans to top Endgame

Magnificent as they are, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame may have painted the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a corner. How can Marvel produce an Avengers movie that comes close to those epic heights?

According to one leak, Marvel has landed upon a solution: a divide-and-conquer strategy that turns our expectations about Avengers 5 upside down.

What’s Happening — According to Twitter leaker Main Middle Man, the original Avengers are being put on the back burner in favor of new specialized facets of the group, echoing the same growth process seen in the Marvel comics.

We should take a moment quickly to weigh in on this particular leaker’s track record. While they have made some lofty claims over the past few weeks, they also correctly predicted the importance of Ralph Bohner’s mind control necklace in WandaVision. Was that just a lucky guess, or evidence of insider info? It’s up to you to choose what to believe. As always, best to proceed with caution anyway.

Multiple Avengers, Assemble! — According to the leak, Marvel is currently developing Young Avengers, which has long been rumored and was all-but-confirmed by the introduction of characters like Wiccan, Speed, and Ms. Marvel across various Disney+ series.

While that isn’t much of a surprise, the leak also mentions Marvel developing the Dark Avengers as well, news that has also long been rumored. The Dark Avengers, introduced in the comics in 2009, are a sort-of anti-Avengers, a group of supervillains in disguise as heroes. Considering the success of The Boys, another comic book adaptation that explores the villainous side of those everyone considers to be heroes.

And that’s not all! On top of the other two initiatives, Marvel is allegedly developing a West Coast Avengers project as well. The West Coast Avengers comics provided a lot of inspiration for the White Vision subplot of WandaVision, so while this isn’t shocking, it’s certainly the first we’ve heard of the possibility. Could we finally see Wonder Man make the jump to the MCU?

The Inverse Analysis — With leaks like these, it’s easy to see the seeds Marvel is supposedly planting, so believing in a huge master plan involving not one, not two, but three Avenger team-up movies isn’t the most unbelievable thing imaginable.

But if these are all just in development, it may be years — perhaps even a decade — until the various Avengers projects are brought to fruition. The Marvel dance card is very full at this point, with detailed plans through 2022, and announced projects beyond that year. Can Marvel really sneak in not one, not two, but three new Avengers projects without years and years of build-up?

There’s always room for plans to change, of course — and even if it’s a long way away, it’s hard to resist the temptation of three different Avengers teams in fun new flavors.