As the Thanos saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to an end with appropriately titled Avengers: Endgame releasing later this month, there is already much speculation regarding what’s to come. With Disney now possessing all the Fox properties including X-Men and Fantastic Four, it is only a matter of time before we see X-Men rubbing shoulders with the Avengers, probably facing Galactus together. Joe Russo, one half of the Russo Brothers, the directors of Avengers: Endgame, told indianexpress.com, “I couldn’t be more excited about it. You know, I was a guy who grew up collecting comic-books. For Marvel to have their hands on X-Men and the Fantastic Four really excites me. I wanna see what they do with those characters.” On coming back to the MCU after finishing Endgame, Russo sighed before speaking, and said, “We’ve done four of these movies in six years so we’re ready for a little vacation.” Joe and Anthony Russo began their association with Marvel Studios with 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They also directed what was called Avengers 2.5 — Captain America: Civil War. After that, they also helmed last year’s Avengers: Infinity War. Russo adds, “I love working with Marvel. Secret Wars can bring me back to MCU.” For the unacquainted, Secret Wars is the name of two different storylines in lore. The first one came out in the 1980s and the second one in 2015. We can safely assume he is talking about the 1980s one, which saw a character, a powerful cosmic entity called Beyonder transporting all the superheroes and supervillains from Earth-616 — which would be the primary Marvel Comics continuity — to a location named Battleworld. The heroes and villains are then compelled to fight in what is a massive game of chess. The storyline was insanely popular and was also a huge crossover, even bigger than what has happened in the MCU yet. It would indeed be something of a challenge to present it to the big screen in a way that is faithful to the lore. Avengers: Endgame releases in India on April 26.
