Marvel Studios Unveils Official A-Force Promo Art for Upcoming Merchandise

Now that Avengers: Endgame has come and gone, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is essentially wide open. The beloved franchise has quite a lot of territory to explore in future films and Disney+ series, between the projects that have already been announced and the ones that fans have been campaigning for. One of the most campaigned-for ideas has been some variation of A-Force, which would unite the MCU’s female characters in one ensemble setting. In the meantime, Marvel is allowing fans to celebrate the franchise’s heroines with the help of a new piece of merchandise. A new 2021 wall calendar has surfaced online, which showcases the MCU’s female heroes across twelve months.

The cover of the calendar also shows Captain Marvel, Okoye, The Wasp, Valkyrie, Mantis, Shuri, Gamora, Nebula, Pepper Potts/Rescue, and Scarlet Witch in one group, emulating the scene where all of the characters united during Endgame‘s final battle.

“[Endgame‘s female crew members] were pumped. There was a lot of pumped circumstances around it,” co-writer Stephen McFeely previously explained. “We certainly thought long and hard about whether it had been earned. We really wanted most of these moments to be earned and not just a delightful piece of fan candy. Honestly, it made me nervous, and sometimes, we would bring it up: ‘Do we keep it? Do we not keep it?’ And pretty much we all said, even me, ‘God. I’d rather see it. I’d rather it be in there and make a big conversation and some people won’t think we earned it.’ Everyone wanted to leave it in the movie.”

“People say ‘fan service’ like you are pandering to some niche,” Christopher Markus added. “I mean, we’ve all seen the numbers that these movies make. The fans are the majority at this point. Fan service is simply honoring the stories that have come before. It’s not like we’re pulling out a tiny Easter egg that only three people are going to get. It’s just tying up the threads; it’s picking up the nuances that have been dropped earlier. I don’t see it as any kind of niche writing.”

And while a female-focused Marvel movie is not officially on the franchise’s upcoming slate, it’s clear that it is a priority to many of the franchise’s stars.

“I will say that a lot of the female cast members from Marvel walked up to Kevin and we were like, ‘We are in this together, we want to do this,’” Brie Larson, who plays Captain Marvel, explained last year. “What that means, I have no idea. You know, I’m not in charge of the future of Marvel, but it is something that we’re really passionate about and we love and I feel like if enough people out in the world talk about how much they want it, maybe it’ll happen.”