My favorite thing to do each year is going to see the new Marvel Studios releases with my best friend, and with every new year, there are more characters, shows, and movies for us to talk about. After much discussion about each character and in-depth analysis of every single minute of each show and movie that has been released, here is what I am most excited to see (and analyze) this year.
Marvel Studios is starting out the year with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Which is set for release on February 17th. The movie will follow Scott Lang, played by Paul Rudd, and Hope Van Dyne, played by Evangeline Lilly, as they navigate the Quantum Realm. This film has the potential to impact Phase 5 of the MCU in a huge way, as it is confirmed to be formally introducing Kang The Conqueror, played by Johnathan Majors. Kang is known to be a time-traveling supervillain and is noted to be one of Marvel Comics’ most powerful and Notorious villains. This will be the third Ant-Man movie and the 31st film in the MCU.
Releasing just three months later is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, set to be released on May 5th. Not much is known about this film yet other than it featuring our normal set of Guardians: Chris Pratt as Starlord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Groot voiced by Vin Diesel, and Rocket voiced by Bradley Cooper. This is set to be the third official Guardians of the Galaxy movie and will be the 32nd film in the MCU.
Loki Season 2 will begin airing Summer of 2023 on Disney+. Season 1 was released summer of 2021 and followed Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, as he navigated his new job at the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Not much is known about the second season except that it will obviously follow our lead character and will continue the thread of having six episodes per season. This was the third Marvel show to be released exclusively on Disney+ and the first to be confirmed with a second season.
Lastly, I am excited to watch The Marvels. Releasing on July 28th, this show will follow Carol Danvers, played by Brie Larson, Captain Monica Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris, and Kamala Kahn, played by Iman Vellani. The series is supposed to be a sequel to the first Captain Marvel movie, which was released in 2019, and a continuation of the Ms. Marvel series that was released in 2022. It is unknown how many episodes this series will contain. However, if we are to estimate based on previous Disney+ shows, it will most likely contain no more than ten episodes.
This year is set to be action-packed with even more releases than I mentioned, and will no doubt leave me with one nagging question: Where will the MCU go next?