What Does 'Avengers: Endgame' Mean For Marvel's Disney+ Shows?

Avengers: Endgame is here, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe will never be the same again. Very soon, the MCU will expand its domain to Disney+, the studio's new streaming service that debuts in November, with key cast members returning in original shows set in the same world as the movies. So how will the events of Endgame impact all of those shows? Let's break them down one by one. 

Warning: massive spoilers for Avengers: Endgame ahead. If you have not seen the film yet, turn back now. Last chance!

Paul Bettany's Vision isn't resurrected in Endgame, so a prequel is always an option – especially since the love story between Vision and Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch largely happened off screen. But with Olsen's recent comments about how the show will have a 1950s aesthetic have us wondering if the show takes place after Endgame, with Scarlet Witch using her reality-altering powers to create a new version of Vision and trying to live a normal suburban life. That would be an inverted riff on Tom King's The Vision comic series, and Marvel Studios has shown that they love using the comics as jumping-off points for unique twists on pre-existing stories.

We'd previously heard that this show would be about Tom Hiddleston's god of mischief somehow appearing at key historical events throughout human history and influencing them, and now we know how he's able to do that. Thanks to a bungled attempt to steal the Space Stone during Endgame's "time heist" sequence revisiting the Battle of New York, Loki ends up with the Tesseract and quickly disappears, never to be seen for the rest of the film. It's the perfect set-up to a show about this scheming ne'er-do-well traveling through history.

This show is supposed to feature Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton passing the Hawkeye mantle to Kate Bishop, a fan-favorite character from the comics. The loss of Barton's friend Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, could be what convinces him to put down the bow and arrows himself. But is Barton literally going to meet Kate Bishop in this show, or will he continue to train his daughter Lila, as we saw him do in the opening scene of Endgame? He did refer to Lila as "Hawkeye" after she hit a bullseye, so maybe this will be another case of Marvel taking liberties with the details and putting its own new spin on an old story.

Details about this show have been scarce, aside from the fact that it will star Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson, aka Falcon) and Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier). But Endgame provides an interesting wrinkle for this series, because an aged Captain America passes his shield to Falcon at the end of the film. So will this show be a prequel, when Falcon was still Falcon? (Feige has hinted that some of Marvel's Disney+ shows could be prequels.) Or will it be the earliest adventures of Sam Wilson as the new Captain America, learning what it means to serve in that new capacity? And what happens to Bucky, now that his oldest friend has truly become his oldest friend?

There have been rumors that Marvel wants Chris Evans to direct some episodes of their Disney+ shows. In the comics, an elderly Steve Rogers has served as a sort of off-the-field advisor; it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that Evans could reprise his role as Old Cap and do the same thing, maybe even while directing an episode or two.

We were the first to report that Marvel was developing a show based on the popular What If? comic series, and this animated series will feature the movie actors returning to lend their voices to animated versions of their characters in new, non-canonical adventures. The first episode asks what if Peggy Carter became a super soldier, and what if a scrawny Steve Rogers used an armored suit built by Howard Stark.

Endgame provides several potential opportunities for alternate stories. What if Hawkeye was sacrificed himself for the Soul Stone instead of Black Widow? What if Captain Marvel snapped her fingers wearing the Gauntlet at the end instead of Tony Stark? What if Thor hadn't have beheaded Thanos at the beginning, and the team learned something else that could have changed the course of history? Those are all just random examples, but there are plenty of diverging roads in Endgame and it would be fascinating to see down the path not taken.

There are a couple more Marvel shows in the works, but they're more documentary-based. You can learn about them, and every other upcoming show Disney+ has planned, right here.

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now.