Stan Lee Talks Phase Three

Despite only one entry in Marvel's Phase Two having seen release so far, Stan Lee has been talking about what we can expect from Phase Three of the wildly successful cinematic franchise.

Speaking to Too Fab, Lee claims that "Right now, the people at Marvel are looking through our whole list of candidates and wondering which ones are we going to use now."

Stan Lee, whatever are you doing?

"They are going to do the Black Panther. They are going to use Doctor Strange. They are going to do Ant-Man."


The Edgar Wright-helmed Ant-Man is the only Phase Three movie to be officially confirmed as yet, with a release date set for Summer 2015. That said, though, the Doctor Strange movie has been unofficial public knowledge for months, with Marvel and Disney hoping that the character will take over Robert Downey Jr.'s role as figurehead for the franchise (although Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is confirmed for Avengers 3, which will wrap up Phase Three, there are no plans for a further solo Iron Man effort). Black Panther makes sense, too, as people who take offense too easily have noted that the only black superheroes featured so far have been in supporting roles, such as Don Cheadle's War Machine/Iron Patriot, Idris Elba's Heimdhall, and Anthony Mackie's upcoming Falcon, none of which have been invited to join the Avengers team-ups yet.


Most interestingly, though, is Lee's further assertion that "they'll probably do the Inhumans."

Marvel, totally getting their target audience

This is a very welcome move, as featuring the team of super-evolved beings - including Black Bolt and Medusa - would further cement the fact that Marvel aren't afraid to take risks by giving the big screen to their more obscure and - dare we say it? - silly characters, an impression first given by their bold move of bringing The Guardians Of The Galaxy (including Groot the walking tree and Rocket Raccoon the badass... well... raccoon) to cinemas as part of Phase Two.

What is interesting about Lee's comments (and it should be noted that, save for the inevitable scene-stealing cameos that he so loves, Lee is on the fringe of involvement in the movies at best), is that so far there is no mention of solo movies for any of the existing Avengers. Iron Man may not be back, but it'd be a surprise if Cap or Thor didn't feature somewhere.

Phase Two continues with next month's Thor: The Dark World.