If you quit the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Avengers: Endgame (2019), you’re not alone. As a sort of grand finale for almost a decade’s worth of interconnected movies, it marked the perfect place to stop. The film wrapped up its Infinity Saga and phased out several of the original Avengers members. For viewers who were starting to feel franchise fatigue or who were uninterested in the new era of the MCU, quitting after Avengers: Endgame felt most natural.
However, now, The Avengers are coming back. Avengers: Doomsday (2026) will mark the first Avengers movie in seven years, and it will bring back a few familiar actors from the MCU’s earliest days. The film will mark a major crossover event, utilizing the multiverse to merge the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. If you quit the MCU after Avengers: Endgame but plan to dive back in for Avengers: Doomsday, you’ll be surprised how much has changed. From the weirdest developments to the most important to the funniest, here are 10 things you missed in the MCU after Avengers: Endgame.
Wiccan And Speed Are In The MCU
Last time you saw Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), she was grieving the death of Vision (Paul Bettany) after returning from the blip in Avengers: Endgame. So, you may be surprised to learn she has kids, kind of. In WandaVision (2021), Wanda casts a powerful hex in Westview, resurrecting Vision and creating two children out of chaos magic. Since her kids technically didn’t exist, they disappeared when the hex collapsed.
However, Agatha All Along (2024) reveals that, even though they were part of the hex, her child, Billy Maximoff, somehow still had a soul. After the hex, his soul departed and entered the body of a dying teenager, William Kaplan (Joe Locke). At the end of the series, William/Billy sets out to find Tommy Maximoff, believing he experienced the same phenomenon. Now, Billy (aka Wiccan) and Tommy (aka Speed) are officially part of the MCU.
Loki Became The Most Powerful Being In The MCU
The last time you checked in with the MCU, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was dead, with Thanos (Josh Brolin) promising, “No resurrections this time.” However, you’ll probably not be very surprised at all to learn that Loki, indeed, managed to live on for the umpteenth time through a variant as revealed in Loki (2021). What will surprise you is how he became arguably the most powerful being in the MCU since then.
In Loki Season 2, Loki makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the Sacred Timeline from collapse. He sacrifices his freedom to live out the rest of his life overseeing and protecting the timeline, which he rearranges into a Yggdrasil. His actions make him the God of Time, with the ability to see and essentially control time and reality, making him the most powerful being in the MCU so far.
No One Remembers Peter Parker
The last time you saw Spider-Man (Tom Holland), he was grieving the death of Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and seemed poised to become an Avenger-level hero, filling in the void left by Stark and Steve Rogers’ (Chris Evans) departure. Now, you’ll be surprised to learn that no one knows who Peter Parker/Spider-Man is. In Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Spider-Man realizes the only way to close the multiversal rift is if the world forgets he is Spider-Man or forgets who Parker is in general.
Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) casts the memory-erasing spell, and Parker finds his family and friends no longer remember him. Instead of reuniting with his friends, he decides not to reenter their lives and remains forgotten, able to continue his Spider-Man vigilantism in secret. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) might reverse this, but for now, no one in the MCU knows Parker’s identity.
Everyone Is A Daddy Now
Perhaps due to the positive response to Stark’s heartwarming relationship with his daughter in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has big-time baby fever. Viewers got a big surprise in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) when Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) randomly revealed he has a son, Skaar (Wil Deusner), who has yet to appear in another MCU project. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) also becomes a father in Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), when he adopts Gorr the God Butcher’s (Christian Bale) daughter, Love (India Rose Hemsworth).
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) also touchingly reveals that the late King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) had a son with Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), named Touissant (Divine Love Konadu-Sun), who is next in line to the throne. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) primarily focuses on Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) becoming parents. To top it off, Avengers: Doomsday’s trailer reveals Captain America is a dad, too.
James “Rhodey” Rhodes Was A Skrull
Secret Invasion (2023) is one of the MCU’s most forgotten original series, but it dropped one of the wildest reveals in the entire franchise. The series explores the secret Skrull invasion of Earth, as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) learns that an undetermined number of Skrulls have used their shapeshifting skills to replace humans. James “Rhodey” Rhoades (Don Cheadle) was among those the Skrulls impersonated, but what’s really shocking is how he was a Skrull.
Secret Invasion insinuates Rhodey was replaced shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), meaning he was a Skrull for close to a decade, including during the events of Avengers: Endgame and while attending Stark’s funeral. Given his closeness to superheroes and the government, it’s hard even to know how extensive the security breach was or what was compromised. Then, there’s also the tragic idea that Rhodey doesn’t even know his best friend died.
Several Big Actors Had Unresolved Cameos
The MCU tapped several big names for cameos for its post-credit scenes, though very few have come to fruition. First, Charlize Theron appeared as the sorceress Clea at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), where she takes Doctor Strange into the Dark Dimension to fix his incursion. Thor: Love and Thunder followed up with a surprise cameo by Brett Goldstein as Zeus’s (Russell Crowe) son, Hercules, in the post-credit scene.
Eternals (2022) also teased the MCU’s new Blade, portrayed by Mahershala Ali in a voice cameo. However, the most surprising cameo in Eternals went to Harry Styles as Eros, Thanos’ brother. Again, having Theron, Goldstein, Ali, and Styles in the MCU was quite exciting at the time, though no one quite knows when or if we’ll see any of these actors/characters again.
Captain Marvel Is Now A Disney Princess
Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) played a big role in Avengers: Endgame and seemed a shoo-in for The Avengers. Since then, though, she has achieved dual status as both an Avenger and a Disney princess. The Marvels (2023) reveals that Captain Marvel has a husband out there in the galaxy. She sets off to the planet Aladna to warn them of the threat of her enemy, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton). It turns out the planet is in danger due to Captain Marvel’s history there.
Captain Marvel is actually married to Aladna’s Prince, Yan (Park Seo-joon), making her the planet’s princess. It was a purely diplomatic marriage, but it still means, canonically, that Captain Marvel is married and a princess, and that she participates in musical numbers on that planet. If you’re wondering what happened to one of the strongest characters in the MCU since you left, there you have it.
Chris Evans Is Back In Multiple Roles
If you had a nickel for every time Chris Evans came back to the MCU after Avengers: Endgame, you’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s still strange it happened twice. The last time you saw Evans’ Captain America, he finally got his happy ending with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) in Avengers: Endgame, after remaining in the past to live out his life with her.
Now, the teaser for Avengers: Doomsday confirms his return and reveals that he is a father. However, the biggest surprise to you is that he actually already came back to the MCU several years ago. In Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Evans appears, not as Captain America, but as a variant of Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch). It’s a reprisal of his post-MCU role as Johnny in Fantastic Four (2005).
Mephisto Is Finally Here
After decades of fans speculating and hoping for Mephisto’s entrance, he is officially in the MCU. Ironheart (2025) follows Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, when she gets caught up with Parker Robbins’ (Anthony Ramos) gang. Robbins possesses a cloak that seems steeped in dark magic. In fact, it reeked of Marvel’s most famous demon, Mephisto.
Sure enough, Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen) makes his official MCU entry in the season finale of Ironheart. Not only did he gift Parker his cloak, but he soon struck a deal with Riri as well, promising to bring back her best friend for an undisclosed price. Cohen is the perfect casting choice, and Mephisto’s shadowy deals are certain to pique fans’ interest. It’s a refreshing MCU debut, though most of us didn’t expect to wait almost two decades for him.
There Are Two Avengers Teams
At the time of Avengers: Endgame, the only superhero teams in the MCU were the original Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In a recent development, though, the universe debuted the New Avengers. In Thunderbolts* (2025), CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tries to turn her ragtag team of operatives against each other to cover her tracks. Instead, they form the Thunderbolts team.
Still, based on the asterisk in the Thunderbolts* title, you may have guessed there’s something more to the team’s name. Indeed, de Fontaine makes an unexpected move to avoid accountability, escaping justice by claiming to have organized the New Avengers, which consists of Yelena (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), the Red Guardian (David Harbour), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Sentry (Lewis Pullman). However, The Avengers, led by Captain America (Anthony Mackie), are still active in the MCU, too, meaning we now have two Avengers teams.
