Marvel's Kevin Feige Confirms the Status of the Avengers In the MCU
The Avengers have officially disassembled. While Avengers: Endgame made plain the fates of most of the individual Avengers following the battle with Thanos, the status of the Avengers organization has been more nebulous. Speaking at the D23 Expo on Saturday, during the Marvel portion of the Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, 20th Century showcase, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige let it be known that the Avengers are no more, thus leaving a vacuum that Marvel's newest team, the Thunderbolts, can fill. "Just because there isn't an organization like the Avengers anymore, but we now have the Thunderbolts," Feige said, confirming that the Avengers are no longer a going concern in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This raises some questions about the future of the Avengers and what the Avengers titles mean in some of Marvel's upcoming movies. The MCU's Multiverse Saga will conclude with two back-to-back Avengers films, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Do those titles mean a new Avengers team will form? Or is "Avengers" simply a way of denoting that certain films are finales to Marvel's sagas?
"I think we learn something on every project we do, but as we were laying out, even three years ago here laying out Phase Four, which we didn't lay out all of, but most of, we realized that it's very different than Phase One, Two and Three, that that there are more projects in less years, and therefore it didn't seem right, you're not going to culminate every 10 months in an Avengers movie," Feige told ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic-Con. "And each of the films themselves now have become quite big and are crossover events in many ways. And after, you know, the creative experience we had with Infinity War and Endgame, it felt like it was about capping a saga, saving back-to-back Avengers films for the completion of a saga and that's really what we wanted to lay out today."
As for the former Avengers, founding members Iron Man and Black Widow both died to defeat Thanos. Captain America aged and retired. Thor left Earth and is now a father. Hawkeye seems content to leave the superhero life behind to spend time with his family. The Hulk remains active and is currently off-world.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty opens in theaters on May 2, 2025. Avengers: Secret Wars follows on November 7, 2025.