The MCU’s Next Strongest Avenger Was Already Set Up Two Years Ago

Reports indicate that the MCU may get a new strongest Avenger in Thunderbolts, and the character’s unique and complicated backstory was already set up in the middle of Phase 4. After maintaining a reasonably contained group of heroes in the lead-up to Avengers: Infinity War, the franchise has expanded rapidly since. The post-Endgame MCU has seen new powerful heroes like Shang-Chi and Monica Rambeau emerge, as well as newly empowered ones like the Scarlet Witch. While this has changed the hierarchy of power in the MCU, it seems Marvel Studios isn’t done upping the ante.

Thunderbolts is set to feature the return of MCU characters Red Guardian, Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Ghost, US Agent, Taskmaster, and more, but details beyond the Thunderbolts main cast of characters have remained scarce. In February, Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead and Invincible fame was cast in an undisclosed role, and recent reports seem to confirm he’ll be playing the incredibly powerful hero Sentry. However, Sentry has one of the more complicated and important backstories in Marvel Comics. Fortunately, the perfect way to adapt it was already set up two years ago.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Offers The Perfect Set-Up For Sentry’s Backstory

Though the MCU is already full of interesting origin stories, Sentry’s would recontextualize the Marvel movie universe. In Marvel Comics, Robert Reynolds is a seemingly normal person living an average life. However, he slowly starts to regain memories of a life spent as a superhero. Eventually, Reynolds discovers his true past. Years ago, after ingesting a strange serum, Reynolds, aka Sentry, gained “the power of a million exploding suns.” However, his incredible power came with a devastating downside – his own psyche manifested a destructive beast called The Void. The only way to stop the atrocity was by wiping the world’s memory of him – including his own.

A hero operating for years but remembered by nobody is a fantastical set-up, but Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s ending sets a perfect precedence for how this may have happened in the MCU. In that movie, Doctor Strange casts a spell that erases the world’s memory of Peter Parker. As such, it seems to make sense that either Strange or another practitioner of the mystic arts could have used the same spell to wipe Sentry from the world’s collective memory to keep The Void at bay. Moreover, this even means that Sentry has likely already worked with several of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, though nobody remembers.

Why Doctor Strange Being Involved With Sentry Makes Sense

While Sentry’s backstory isn’t tied to Doctor Strange in the comics, making that swap would be a logical one for the MCU. Sentry’s backstory is already quite complex, so anything Marvel can do to streamline its concepts will be a positive. Since Doctor Strange has already established that a global memory wipe spell is accessible to sorcerers, it may seem odd if something similar happens completely differently.

Moreover, tying Sentry to Strange’s memory wipe spell would add a welcome bit of connective tissue to the modern MCU, even if someone else performed it before Doctor Strange learned the mystic arts. The MCU Phases 4 and 5 have seemed a bit more disjointed than the ones that came before, so using clear connections when they exist can go a long way in making the MCU feel more like a shared universe gain. If Strange does end up having a history with Sentry, whether it’s revealed in Thunderbolts or later, it would match the former Sorcerer Supreme’s willingness to dabble with dangerous magic.