The MCU already set up a perfect explanation for why we haven’t seen 2025’s most powerful heroes in the franchise until now according to one interesting Marvel movie theory. Marvel’s comics contain countless mindbogglingly powerful heroes and villains, and the MCU timeline has proved no different over the course of its own run. However, the franchise has also been careful to not introduce too many of its most powerful figures at once, largely letting early Phases introduce more powerful villains alongside some of its stronger protagonists, like the Hulk and Thor.

Recent years have seen the MCU bring more figures into the fold to change the landscape of the franchise with their own intense abilities and immense power levels, especially as the Multiverse Saga has opened things up more than ever before in terms of who can get their MCU debut. With 2025’s MCU movies bringing in two notably powerful heroes in the same year, there’s naturally some considerable focus on them and why they’re appearing now – which one Marvel movie theory explains in-universe via tying them to one of the franchise’s best recent releases.

2025’s MCU Movies Have Already Brought 1 Powerful Hero Into The Franchise, & Another Is On The Horizon

2025 is a big year for the MCU, both in terms of it bringing the franchise into Phase 6 with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and in terms of bringing many major new storylines and characters into the franchise’s spotlight. Indeed, 2025 has been geared up since early on to introduce two of the MCU’s most powerful new heroes into its world, with one of the two having already appeared not long ago in Thunderbolts*, which brought about the debut of the MCU’s Sentry and showcased a short look at the hero’s immense power level.

The MCU also borrowed from Marvel’s comic iteration of Sentry by showing the complications of Robert Reynolds having this incredibly powerful other form – both in that Sentry’s appearance summons his shadowy other half, The Void, who then rains havoc upon New York, and in that Sentry himself isn’t depicted as the most stable character ever, with his immense powers giving him something of a god complex. With this in mind, it’s interesting to note that it seems an even more powerful hero is set up for their own debut in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps initially teased the impending arrival of Franklin Richards – Sue Storm and Reed Richards’ firstborn child, and an inordinately powerful character who is capable of shaping the universe to his will – by showing Sue as pregnant in early teases of the story. Interestingly, the latest preview for The Fantastic Four: First Steps shows Reed and Sue sitting with their now-born baby, revealing that the character who appears to be Franklin will be appearing in the film properly.

Franklin and Sentry appearing in the MCU within the same year makes sense on some levels – given both have more complicated lore and make sense for the MCU to introduce after the Infinity Saga, lest viewers wonder why they don’t just deal with Thanos single-handedly – but them both arriving almost two decades after the MCU first began does make them much later additions to the franchise than may have been expected. However, one MCU theory provides an in-universe justification for why both characters’ debuts are only just coming now.

The MCU Introducing Sentry Or Franklin Richards In 2025 Could Be Explained By Their Variants Being Destroyed By The TVA Until Recently

Before the Time Variance Authority’s goals and tasks are altered by the events of Loki, the MCU group is working as a sort of multiversal police who tried to ensure any alternate timelines were “pruned” following a multiverse war won by the Kang variant He Who Remains. This is what leads to Loki himself being taken out of the main MCU timeline following the events of Avengers: Endgame, as the version of Loki who escapes capture when the team time travels back to the events of The Avengers is thus not in line with what “should be” for what is dubbed the Sacred Timeline.

As such, the fact that both Sentry and Franklin Richards appear to have been brought into the main MCU timeline after the events of Loki season 2 – wherein the TVA has been drastically altered, and Loki has made the ultimate sacrifice to act as a living conduit for the multiverse that allows different worlds and timelines to properly co-exist – feels all the more notable. It’s likely the TVA would have been particularly inclined to prevent someone like Franklin Richards from existing, let alone entering into the main MCU world as his family appear to in the Thunderbolts* post-credits scenes.

Similarly, it appears entirely possible that the Sacred Timeline had previously pruned off any heroes who presented a risk to the world or who were otherwise outliers from its grand plans. With this idea in mind, it seems like Sentry would have also been pruned were he to have arrived earlier and put the MCU’s power balance and equilibrium into flux, especially if this was early enough that he could have changed things such as how the Avengers planned to deal with Thanos if they knew they could tap into an unpredictable but immensely powerful character like Sentry.

Tying Sentry & The Fantastic Four’s Debut To Loki’s Story Would Be A Perfect Way To Bring The Multiverse Saga Together

While the Multiverse Saga has had some supremely interesting chapters and strong storylines, it has arguably suffered from its releases feeling less cohesive and intertwined than the Infinity Saga – something that is partly down to so many newer plotlines being the focus of its overarching narrative, and partly down to the grander stakes of the Multiverse Saga inherently resulting in this kind of feeling. As such, the idea that the events of Loki could be used to justify why certain characters like Sentry and the Fantastic Four are arriving later in the franchise is an effective way to add more connective tissue.

With the Avengers: Doomsday cast already set to include Sentry, the Fantastic Four, and Loki, it seems very much possible for the franchise’s next major crossover to explore how the stories of all these figures come together. This could also underscore just how powerful Bob’s superpowered other self and Franklin Richards are by suggesting they’re the first variants of themselves to have been not pruned since the end of the prior multiverse war, making their 2025 MCU arrivals all the more impressive.

Upcoming MCU Movies

• 
  

  

  Thunderbolts*

  Release Date

  
  May 2, 2025
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Powered by

  
  

  
  Expand
  Collapse
  

• 
  

  

  The Fantastic Four: First Steps

  Release Date

  
  July 25, 2025
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Powered by

  
  

  
  Expand
  Collapse
  

• 
  

  

  Avengers: Doomsday

  Release Date

  
  December 18, 2026
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Powered by

  
  

  
  Expand
  Collapse
  

• 
  

  

  Spider-Man: Brand New Day

  Release Date

  
  July 31, 2026
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Powered by

  
  

  
  Expand
  Collapse
  

• 
  

  

  Avengers: Secret Wars

  Release Date

  
  December 17, 2027
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Powered by

  
  

  
  Expand
  Collapse