Throughout Phase Four, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has experimented with more subversive gimmicks and ambitious storylines than ever before. Wanda Maximoff fabricated a real-life sitcom universe to process her grief, Loki broke the “Sacred Timeline” into several multiversal branches, and Peter Parker unwittingly used those branches to draw in characters from previous franchises.
But one thing that Phase Four has kept the same about the Marvel formula is the big third-act battle sequences. From No Way Home’s team-up of three Spider-Men atop the Statue of Liberty, Phase Four has treated fans to some truly spectacular battle scenes.
Black Widow
In its first couple of acts, the Bourne-style spy thriller. But the third act devolves into a classic Marvel final battle with things falling out of the sky.
When the site of the Red Room program is revealed to be floating in the sky, Black Widow foreshadows a disappointing, formulaic finale cribbed from a handful of previous MCU entries.
The Falcon And The Winter Soldier
Marvel’s second Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, received mixed reviews for its inconsistent plotting and the lack of conflict between the supposedly mismatched titular “buddy cop” duo. The finale brings everything to a head, but not in a particularly satisfying way.
John Walker’s half-hearted redemption feels forced and unearned, while the scale of the action leaves a lot to be desired. Still, Sam Wilson truly becomes the new Captain America in this sequence, and Bucky gets to feel like a hero for the first time in decades.
Eternals
With its largely action-free narrative and overstuffed ensemble of dull alien superheroes, Eternals became one of the most negatively reviewed entries in the MCU. The final battle sequence exemplifies a few of the problems with the movie itself. Since all the Eternals are as powerful as Superman, none of them ever seem like they’re in any real danger.
Ikaris’ betrayal is an interesting twist, but the generic finale doesn’t do much with it, as a world-ending threat is stopped relatively easily. Still, as with the rest of the film, director Chloé Zhao brings some breathtaking visuals (utilizing as much natural light and real shooting locations as possible) to the proceedings.
What If...?
Although it was pitched as an anthology series, the first season of What If...? ended up having an overarching serialized narrative that came to a head in the finale. “What If... the Watcher Broke His Oath?” saw the Watcher assembling the Guardians of the Multiverse to protect the spacetime continuum from the threat of Infinity Ultron.
As with the rest of the series, this sequence is gorgeously animated – and it was great to see multiversal fan-favorites like Captain Carter, Star-Lord T’Challa, and a Thanos-killing Gamora in an on-screen team-up.
WandaVision
Phase Four wasn’t supposed to begin with Endgame.
Of course, WandaVision became a traditional Marvel actioner in time for the finale, in which Wanda, the resurrected Vision, and their imagined superpowered children all team up like the Incredibles to take on the ancient witchcraft of Agatha Harkness.
Loki
The final battle in Loki didn’t actually take place in the finale. The sixth and final episode of Loki was dedicated to introducing a variant of Kang the Conqueror – the MCU’s next big bad – so the climactic battle took place in the fifth episode, “Journey Into Mystery.”
After being banished to a wasteland at the edge of time, Loki teams up with Sylvie and a bunch of other Loki variants to take on Alioth, the cloud dragon guarding the citadel where “He Who Remains” lives. From Loki and Sylvie’s chemistry to Classic Loki’s heartbreaking sacrifice, this is a riveting battle sequence that the finale wasn’t able to top.
Hawkeye
The Hawkeye finale saw Clint Barton and Kate Bishop taking on the full force of the Tracksuit Mafia from the middle of New York’s iconic Rockefeller Center ice rink. After they’ve incapacitated the goons, they both engage in their own captivating hand-to-hand combat sequences.
Clint takes on Yelena Belova, who wants answers about Natasha Romanoff’s death, and Kate takes on none other than Wilson Fisk. Kate proves her worthiness as an Avenger recruit when she singlehandedly defeats the Kingpin in a thrilling toy store brawl.
Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
Initially, the final battle of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings seems like the same battle sequence seen in countless previous Marvel movies. In the mystical realm of Ta-Lo, a band of superpowered martial artists faces the might of the Ten Rings in combat.
But after Wenwu breaks down a wall holding back soul-eating monsters, the two sides of the conflict team up to face a common enemy. Director Destin Daniel Cretton pulls out all the visual stops when he unleashes a lake dragon to fight an interdimensional monster.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The final battle in Spider-Man: No Way Home more than lives up to the promise of a live-action Spider-Verse with Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers all fighting iconic villains on-screen together. The setup is a little far-fetched and goofy – the Spider-Men are determined to inject the villains with homemade cures that will undo their origin stories and turn them back into good people – but it ties in nicely with the theme of second chances.
The sequence’s setting, the Statue of Liberty, also evokes this theme as a universally recognizable symbol of second chances (along with her new Captain America shield, another symbol of hope, which crashes to the ground to provide a cool Thunderdome-esque arena for the final fight between Holland’s Spidey and the Green Goblin).
