The evolution of the idea

With the inevitable success of Avengers: Endgame (Russo brothers US 2019), there are several questions about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) looming over the popular imagination. Endgame provides an ending to the original characters that at once satisfied expectations and opened the door to new narrative structures and ongoing franchise expansion. This tension should not be a surprise. Since its inception in 2008, scholarly appraisal of the MCU has noted that the success of the shared universe rests on the familiar narrative re-shaped to contemporary viewers. As Kevin Feige explained, his goal was to 'replicate' for a global audience the experience of reading Marvel Comics that fans had enjoyed for decades (Tapley n.p.).

With this mandate, the MCU has grown from a wildly fantastic possibility to a cinematic certainty. Integrated into Disney's intellectual property war chest, Marvel Studios stands out as a highly useful tool to colonise the American imagination with the MCU generating revenue through films, television and animation. During this massive growth, Marvel Studios has managed fan expectation and overcome director struggles, actor departure and 'civilian' scepticism about the value of the cinematic superhero (as long as Marvel owns it). The brand endures and grows a testament to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury promise – 'you've become part of a bigger universe' – in Iron Man (Favreau US 2008). Thus, while each film has been a success, it is the shared universe as a whole that allows for Marvel Studios to take chances, weaving films with characters with little traction outside of comics into a magnificent tapestry.

This transformation is in part why the decolonisation question about the MCU is so essential. The massive successes of Black Panther and Captain Marvel (Boden and Fleck US 2019) lead us to consider how the shared universe has the potential to present race and gender diversity in a manner that will engage the popular imagination. However, what comic book history suggests and Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame affirm is that 'visibility' is the benchmark that defines diversity in the MCU. Prior efforts to reimagine superhero films apart from the source material have been controversial. The internet's reaction to Twentieth Century Fox's Fantastic Four (Trank US/Germany/UK 2015) reimagining Johnny Storm as African American (in the form of Michael B. Jordan) triggered a minor media panic (C. Lee n.p.). While that film's failure cannot be blamed on casting, the fact that Jordan would later appear in Marvel's Black Panther highlights how successfully the MCU has 'managed' fan expectations. As Derek Johnson points out, part of the MCU's success relies on a 'self-produced convergence' that signals Marvel's creative control represents a stewardship that affirms 'fan' desire (Johnson 9–11). Starting with Black Panther, a billion-dollar global hit and a cultural phenomenon, MCU has signalled that more diversity will be the norm in the MCU.

On the surface, this change seems to align with the broader social transformations and with the centrality of the cinematic superhero in global culture. This shift could signal that a genre has grown so central to popular imagination needs to reflect the many faces and perspectives within the audience. Indeed, as Terence McSweeney writes in Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 'malleability' of the superhero provides a vehicle to simplify the complexity of real-world issues (loc. 251). Thus, we can read the evolution of the MCU toward greater inclusion by spotlighting Black Panther and the World of Wakanda as embracing the cultural reality of the audience. Careful consideration of these nods to inclusion, however, suggests they are patterned after Marvel's print history, and as such, the goal is not social or political transformation so much as further market exploitation.

In the 1970s, Marvel Comics titles such as Jungle Action Featuring Black Panther (1973), Ms. Marvel (1977) and Masters of Kung-Fu (1974) mirrored shifting cultural expectations linked to popular culture reactions to the Black Power...