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We know, thanks to a notable Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, that Joe and Anthony Russo are returning to the MCU to helm the next two Avengers movies, which will serve as the culmination of The Multiverse Saga, just as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were the final two chapters of The Infinity Saga. We also know that Joe Russo talked on the Hall H stage about being very excited to bring Secret Wars to the screen because he can remember reading it when he was younger, which raises the question… which Secret Wars is going to end up being part of the MCU mythology?

Some background: there have been two separate Marvel Comics events titled Secret Wars. The first, which is officially titled Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars, was published in 1984-1985 and came about as a tie-in to a toy line of the same name. In that 12-issue series, the cream of Marvel’s superhero crop — and a number of supervillains, too — were kidnapped to a planet called Battleworld by an omnipotent being called The Beyonder, who promised them their heart’s desire if they fought and killed their enemies. Of course, the heroes refused to kill (they’re superheroes, after all, and this was still the 1980s, years before the anti-hero rose to popularity in comic books), but they prospered nonetheless, and everyone came back to Earth for all intents and purposes no worse for wear. Well, except for Spider-Man, whose new costume would eventually turn into Venom, but that’s a different story.

Three decades later, Marvel came up with another Secret Wars — one that, before SDCC 2024, seemed like the obvious inspiration for the MCU take on the idea. In the 2015 series, simply titled Secret Wars, a group of Marvel heroes again end up on a planet called Battleworld… except, in this version of events, Battleworld is the sole remaining planet in reality after the multiverse has collapsed in on itself, with Doctor Doom manipulating events to become a near-omnipotent being (and, not-coincidentally, the ruler of Battleworld). This version of Secret Wars didn’t come with an attendant toy line, which might explain why it ended with even less of a lasting impact to Marvel’s comic book universe in the long run. There wasn’t even a new Venom to come out of things by the time it was all over!

(There were, admittedly, other comic book Secret Wars between those two stories — including an official sequel series to the original, titled simply Secret Wars II; for the most part, they were retellings or flashbacks to the original 1984 series, and so don’t need too much discussion here.)

As I said above, the expectation before San Diego Comic-Con this year was that the 2015 Secret Wars would form the basis of the movie Avengers: Secret Wars, because so much of it is in line with the Multiverse Saga as already exists: the collapse of the multiverse, the ideas of “incursions” between realities that can destroy one or both (which originally came from the storyline which fed into the 2015 comic series), and the idea of one villain trying to take advantage of all of this to gain ultimate power… whether that villain be the original big bad of the Multiverse Saga as announced, Kang the Conqueror, or Doctor Doom, as in the original comic and now revised MCU plans.

Except… Joe Russo wouldn’t have been reading that when he was a kid; it literally didn’t exist. Instead, he would have been reading 1984’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. So.. is that the Secret Wars fans should be expecting to see on the big screen a few years from now?

We won’t have a definitive answer until, let’s be honest, the movie is released in 2026. But if we had to guess, it seems not entirely impossible that we could see something that — like the Russos’ Captain America: Civil War in 2016 — is less a direct adaptation of either of the comics, but something that reimagines and repurposes the core ideas behind them. And… well, both Secret Wars share a lot of DNA: Battleworld, a small group of heroes fighting for a larger cause, and both stories let Doctor Doom get the power of a god for a brief period. There’s a lot for the MCU creative teams to work with that doesn’t have to be a direct translation of either comic… but we also wouldn’t complain too much if we get an MCU Beyonder out of the deal, either.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Which Secret Wars comic the Russos are basing Avengers 6 off of
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Marvel's accidental closure on the Kang storyline
• Robert Downey Jr. is entering his villain era
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• For Marvel actors, the MCU also stands for the Marvel Commercials Universe
• The Fantastic 4: First Steps offers Marvel a visual makeover, courtesy of a classic movie designer
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga