Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes holds Steve Rogers' shield in Captain America The Winter Soldier
By
Zoe Miskelly
Published 39 minutes ago
Zoë Miskelly is an editor for Screen Rant's Superheroes team, and has covered Marvel, DC, and other superhero franchises in comic, movie, and show form for 8 years. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.
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2025 just broke a major MCU movie rule for the first time since 2011, and it's a fascinating one. The MCU timeline has been running for long enough that some trends and traditions the franchise has developed over the course of its history have now been ongoing for over a decade, which is a feat few franchises can claim.
Of course, the franchise has also developed plenty of movie habits that are then broken in dramatic fashion - as was the case with the MCU not featuring figures like the Fantastic Four or X-Men until its more recent history. 2025's release roster breaks another notable MCU tradition with its movie roster, too, which should hopefully help make the next selection of upcoming MCU releases feel even more like a new era for the franchise.
2025 Is The First Time Since 2011 That Every MCU Movie Has Centered On New Heroes Getting Their First Film
The Thing laughing in The Fantastic Four First Steps
While 2025's film offerings saw some more divided reception in terms of both their review scores and their box office results, this does make sense when looked at from one specific perspective: namely, when you consider that this is one of the only years in a long while where every MCU movie focused on new heroes getting their own films for the first time.
Figures like Sam Wilson and Yelena Belova are not newcomers to the MCU entirely, of course, but they're characters who've never been the center of their own movie in the way they were in 2025, where Captain America: Brave New World welcomed Wilson into his first solo film feature as Captain America, and Thunderbolts* let Yelena and a range of other MCU antiheroes and super soldiers get their own moment in the sun.
Combine this with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and 2025 becomes the first year in over a decade where every movie installment falls into this category - a feat that's not been accomplished since 2011 (with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, respectively), since the MCU has historically focused on its film trilogies, and Wilson is one of the first heroes to get to take over with a specific mantle.
Why 2025's Movie Record Is So Important For The MCU
Red Guardian, Ghost, Bucky, Yelena, and John Walker standing together in Thunderbolts*
The MCU's current issues around audiences feeling less engaged with the Multiverse Saga than they did with the era that came prior is, in some ways, a symptom of the franchise's approach to releases. Installments featuring new heroes have still been released in the past years before now, of course - but they've often been balanced out with safer sequels.
This makes sense in terms of mitigating financial risk for any one year, but does run the risk of exacerbating any feelings that the MCU hasn't provided a "new age" of sorts for itself by ensuring one foot is always kept in the past, and that the increased risk and reward setup of the early age of the franchise is evaded.
As such, while 2025 hasn't perhaps paid off tenfold in the way it could have, it is exciting to note in terms of feeling like the year of releases the MCU needed for reasons that are ostensibly bigger than just financial gain - which could hopefully pay off by bringing a range of characters more into the spotlight just in time for them to feel more natural if and when they're placed in central roles within releases like Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars.
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