Marvel Cinematic Universe arrives on Disney+ with Super Bowl sneak peeks at 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,' 'WandaVision' and 'Loki'

Ethan Alter
·Senior Writer, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated ·5 min read

You don’t only have to go to the movie theater to visit the Marvel Cinematic Universe any longer: In 2020, Disney+ will be your portal to the MCU. During the Super Bowl, Walt Disney’s blockbuster streaming service unveiled a tantalizing first look at the first three Marvel series coming your way: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Loki, all of which star some of your favorite heroes... and anti-heroes. (Watch the trailer above.)

While no specific release dates were announced, it’s widely expected that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will be Disney+’s inaugural Marvel series and the series will pick up directly from where Avengers: Endgame left off. Specifically, it will follow Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) after he inherits Captain America’s shield from his old jogging buddy, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and comes to terms with the fact that he’s now America’s star-spangled Avenger. But he hasn’t shed his Falcon wings just yet: One high-flying action sequence shows him pursuing a crew of gun-toting bad guys over a desert landscape. We also see Steve’s other BFF, Bucky Barnes, a.k.a the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), taking aim, presumably at the show’s main nemesis, Civil War architect Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl).

Where The Falcon and the Winter Soldier looks to be a square-jawed action series in classic Marvel tradition, WandaVision is gonna get weird. “It’s an out-there show,” co-star Randall Park revealed when he dropped by Yahoo’s Build Series last year. The teaser is pretty out there, showing us multiple incarnations of Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and her former lover, the Vision (Paul Bettany) — one of the few heroes that didn’t return after Tony Stark sacrificed himself while undoing the Snapture. In one incarnation, she’s a 1950s housewife. In another, she’s clad in the Scarlet Witch’s vintage 1960s costume from the pages of Marvel Comics. And in yet another, Wanda and Vision look like the stars of a Roseanne-esque family sitcom from the 1980s. “It’s absolutely a mash-up of sitcoms,” Olsen told Yahoo Entertainment at D23 in August.

So what’s up with the quick changes? Blame it on a reality-hopping trip through the Multiverse: At San Diego Comic-Con last year, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige revealed that WandaVision would be laying the groundwork for the big-screen Doctor Strange sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in which Wanda joins forces with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme. We’re not mad at that pairing.

Both The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision will be on Disney+ in the fall, but you’ll have to wait until 2021 to see Tom Hiddleston bouncing through the timestream as Thor’s trickster brother. But he may not be able to move around freely in time and space: During his brief appearance, Loki is seen wearing a jumpsuit stamped with the letters TVA — a potential reference to the Time Variance Authority that serves and protects Marvel’s Multiverse. As usual, though, Asgard’s chief mischief-maker smirks in the face of authority. “I’m gonna burn this place to the ground,” Loki says in a warning that just makes his fanbase love him all the more.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision debut on Disney+ in fall 2020 and Loki premieres in 2021.

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