Marvel’s Phase Four and Grief
What is grief, if not love persevering?
**SPOILERS for MCU Phase 4 movies, including Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Marvel’s fourth phase — and the first part of the Multiverse Saga — has come to a close this week with the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. According to Kevin Feige, this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been all about introductions. And of course, that is true; we’ve witnessed the introduction of heroes like Shang-Chi, She-Hulk, and Ms. Marvel, antagonists such as Namor and He Who Remains (a.k.a. Kang the Conquerer), and we’ve even seen a few familiar faces reintroduced as they begin discovering who they are meant to be, such as Peter Parker, Sam Wilson, and, for better or worse, Wanda Maximoff. And of course, we got introduced to the multiverse throughout this phase, from Spider-Man’s mishaps in No Way Home, the TVA’s time-traveling shenanigans in Loki, and the madness in Doctor Strange’s second solo outing.
But as much as the fourth phase of the MCU has been about introductions, I also think it has been about grief. Beginning just after the Blip and the sacrifice of Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff in Endgame, Marvel has given us multiple stories that have dealt with loss and grief in profound ways. It is this handling of grief that makes many of the Phase 4 projects my favorite…
