What Heroes Should Be on the Next Avengers Team?

Spider-Man

We've heard it over and over again throughout the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. It seems that they are setting him up to be the "next Iron Man." To some extent, this makes sense: out of all the "next-generation" heroes introduced over the last few years, Spidey made the biggest splash in Civil War and was rolled out earlier than the rest for marketing reasons.

The downside of course is the shared custody with Sony, who had at one point intimated that they might move him back out of the MCU for the most part and focus on his old movies -- especially as characters like Morbius and Venom are making movies of their own in a makeshift Spider-Verse.

Falcon/Captain America

Every superhero team needs a seemingly "regular" guy with extraordinary abilities, and Falcon fits the bill better than most in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While we hope to see more of the Winter Soldier beyond just their Disney+ series, making him a regular part of the team would preclude the idea that he is in offscreenland somewhere, hanging out with geriatric Steve and finding some emotional closure to their decades-long friendship.

Part of the reason that it works so well to have Sam instead of Bucky step up as the new Captain America is that in the movies, Sam respects and admires Captain America, but his entire backstory is not intertwined with the super-soldier. For Bucky to be around without Steve would be a constant reminder that Steve is missing; for Sam, it's a passing of the torch. It would be a different feeling, more exciting than bittersweet.

Shuri

A good candidate for a "break glass in case of emergency" candidate would be T'Challa. To use a DC metaphor, this would be Batman in the Giffen/DeMatties Justice League of the '80s. Using T'Challa is complicated because he is a king, and showing him taking orders in the field -- especially from a high school kid -- undermines that somewhat.

That said, there are certainly advantages to having T'Challa, Wakanda, and the Black Panther franchise represented, which is where Shuri comes in. One of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she could provide technical and logistical expertise on par with Tony Stark, and as a young woman of color she could be a very different mentor figure to Peter Parker. The constant "is she smarter than..." from fans could also provide some fun banter pitting her against Peter and other big brains in the MCU.

Phil Coulson

Eventually, Nick Fury is going to get to the point where he doesn't want to be leading the Avengers Initiative day-to-day -- either for genuine character reasons or just because Samuel L. Jackson doesn't want to do it anymore. They ought to consider bringing in Phil Coulson again when and if that happens. If there is to be a new "start" for the Avengers film franchise, it would be nice to have Coulson around as an homage to Marvel's The Avengers, but more than that, his character has been through the wringer over the course of his years on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and fans love him for it. Making him the guy representing the government in the room at Avengers meetings seems like an appropriate way to kickstart the "next generation" of Avengers.

Sif

It would be nice to have an "ambassador" from Asgard on the team in the same way there are heirs apparent to Captain America and Thor. Valkyrie would likely be very difficult to do given her responsibilities as monarch and the fact that Tessa Thompson is as busy as any of the top tier talent in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Sif, though? Yes, she has a TV schedule that the movies would have to work around, but Jaimie Alexander deserves a shot at the big leagues after not only coming in on the ground floor of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but also playing ball with corporate and going from the movies to Agents of SHIELD, something very few actors did.

Kate Bishop

It will be a while before the next team-up movie can even happen, which gives plenty of time for the Hawkeye Disney+ series to come and go, introducing his successor and setting up a younger archer to step into the role vacated by Clint Barton.

Ant-Man

Nobody was more excited to be an Avenger (okay, well, maybe Spider-Man) than Ant-Man, and now that most of the heavy hitters are gone, this could be his time to shine. Lending a sense of continuity and a sheen of veteran superheroics to a younger and less experienced team, Ant-Man could also be the source for some good conversations around the notion of redemption, and about the Sokovia Accords.

Doctor Strange

He seems most likely to be a character on the sidelines, called in specifically when something happens that speaks to his skillset but not fighting on the front lines in everyday battles. That's fine, since a group that skews a bit younger might be more deferential to him than you want for the team dynamic.

Captain Marvel

It isn't that we don't like Captain Marvel -- but she is so powerful that anything that challenges her immediately becomes a whole other thing. Like Superman in a lot of Justice League stories, it would be better to have her on as a reserve or advisory member, who could make brief appearances so they didn't have to find an excuse to take her out of the fight.

This is more or less what they did in Avengers: Endgame, and while a lot of fans felt like she was kept out of the action too much, that balance could be struck in a way that serves both the narrative and the character.