Introducing my updated "Road to Doomsday" viewing guide
With Doomsday fast approaching, and the post Endgame phases an unfocused mess, I've decided to redesign our understanding of the phases.
In the past, we had a mostly chronological system where the various projects in each phase would ultimately lead up to an Avengers movie, changing up the status quo and providing us with closure before the new phase wpuld begin.
With the new stuff, the lack of a capstone film for each phase really is noticeable. Additionally, with the sheer amount of content, there's a lack of coherence in simply going the chronological route.
The purpose of this experiment was to change our understanding of phases from a chronological one to a thematic one. Essentially, I've reshuffled the various projects between the 3 phases, and tried to match them up as best as I could. It's not perfect, but each phase maintains a consistent theme; contains recurring characters, sequels or spinoffs; and helps each phase from feeling somewhat disjointed.
I've included almost every post Endgame project here, with several exceptions. Black Widow is the biggest missing piece as I prefer watching it after Civil War. I am Groot, similarly, would be placed somewhere before Guardians 2. The animated Spider-Man show is also missing as it doesn't fit into the timeline. Aside from those, I tried to include every other project into this list. Naturally, some of them are very much skipable, but that's for you to decide.
Phase 4 is titled Multiverse & Magic. The idea of the storyline for this phase is that we essentially have 2 branches. On the one hand, we follow the story of Loki, Kang and the TVA as we explore the meaning behind the Multiverse itself. On the other hand, we follow Wanda, the aftermath of WandaVision, and the exploration of the Multiverse with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. Our capstone here is Deadpool & Wolverine.
Phase 5, titled Creatures and Cosmos is all about the Cosmic side of things, with a sprinkle of Supernatural. Our 2 major branches here is Thor and the Guardians, as well as Nick Fury and The Marvels. This phase is not as clean, especially regarding Moon Knight and Werewolf by Night, but they don't really fit well into any of these, so I decided to include them here. Finally, we jump to an alternate universe with Fantastic Four being our capstone.
Phase 6 is the longest, titled Heroes and Humanity, and zooms all the way in to focus on Earth. We kind of have 3 branches here, the first being Bucky, Sam and The New Avengers. The second branch is all about Daredevil, Kingpin and The Punisher. And our third branch is focused on Wakanda and Riri. Finally, our capstone here is Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I've also included a season of What If..? at the end of each phase to remind the viewer that the Multiverse is still Multiversing in the background. The other reason they're at the end is that they kind of require the other projects in each phase to be viewed first. And to cap that all off, Marvel Zombies sits at the very end.
I'd love to hear your input about what I could change or what's missing. The order of each phase is also somewhat malleable if there are any suggestions to switching around some of these projects. Overall, I think that this system enhances the current phase system, and offers a more structured rewatch leading into Doomsday.